synaesthesia

Interesting - I think they "worked" with the notable and important exception of the trackpad. I might have another play, the BIOS had about as much option as a vegan butcher shop!

Now this is news! None of this marvel stuff! Bring on the tracks!

Libre should be absolutely fine, that's something I'll be using here for publisher files too (just personally though for ID badge printing, saves using the diabolical software that most printers use for it! )

This is why modern IT is sh....ockingly bad. (see my recent blog post!). Long gone are the days of "Ah yes, I can use this bit of software I've tucked away since 1988 that Just Ruddy Works" - it has to be updateable, compliant with silly laws and part of a system designed purely to keep a load of overpaid consultants in well pressed trousers and posh coffee.

If they don't consent, they shouldn't be on your school site (premises), period.

Ah the poor rubber keys, perished beyond saving

Probably best stick it on Facebook these days as you might find some localish collectors, or advertise on specific forums like Amibay. eBay is such a hole (at least here, I can't imagine it's much better in the States) that it's just no longer worth using. It's hilarious how quickly it can grow out of control - I've spent the last week clearing out my workshop as the floor was rotten and needs replacing, and my god it's unreal! I've a huge box full of random PCB's, not relating to vintage hardware but just in case there's bits I might need - caps, resistors, sometimes some ICs. I've got a couple of original Bromcom wireless stations just in case the Z80 processors come in handy!

Yes, massively - I prefer home computers but there's certainly a fair few consoles however I might be going a little older - PS1 is the most modern, but NES, SNES, Master System & Megadrive. I've done a few fixes on PS4s and XB1's for friends but wouldn't do it professionally, I'm getting too old and parts are getting too small My workshop is full of various consoles but Commodores, Amigas, Ataris, BBC/Acorn, Spectrums etc is where it's at for me

Not had any issues with the lack of Play store, but it just isn't used that heavily. One caveat is to never assume Flex will work on all machines. Flex does not work on the DFE supplied Dynabooks for example.

We have recently decommissioned a batch of Hikvision 16 and 24 port CCTV switches. They're dumb switches, managed by the IVMS software if needed but management is pretty much limited to turning ports on or off or enabling "long range" mode. They're barely even smart hubs, so entirely VLAN unaware. However they're less than 3 years old and it's a shame to see them go to waste. If anyone is interested, we're looking to offload 7 of them for £600 in total but offers welcomed. They're DS-3E1318P-EI x 5 and DS-3E1326P-EI x 2 and would consider splitting as long as it's for a few rather than just singles. Also includes a Hikvision fiber transceiver for each switch. Collection from mid Northants, not far from the A14 or A45.

They're ESS'ing it. Overcharging for old,nackered and bodged together systems and people are quite rightly taking flight as soon as they can. It still irked me that as recently as a couple of years ago it was standard practice for them to have plain text passwords stored unencrypted on those machines which all shared the same master passwords across any installation.

Inventry's support will have a paddy supporting hardware that isn't their own but they will still do it. If you can procure cheap enough touchscreens it shouldn't be an issue. It's a shame it has to run on Windows, otherwise there's a great Raspberry Pi project right there!

At that cost I'd be looking at moving to something modern and get rid of Inventry completely, it's barely fit for purpose any more and their costs & support are amusingly bad. If you're not linking into Paxton or other door systems, SIgnInApp is a clear winner. If you are, Entrysign. I don't know about Entrysign's costings but you could get a full new Signinapp setup for well under 1600 including the ipads, special mounts, MIS integration etc and a fraction of the annual running costs.

Everything feels like it's just going backwards. The internet is a horrible place, IT in general is a cesspit and ignorance can only get us so far. I've been working in IT now for 29 years. Obviously things have a changed a lot, some for the better, much not, and this is probably the modern equivalent of "In my day, this was all fields...". And the one thing that inspired me to write this down, other than a change of medication for "anxiety" for the first time in 20 years is trying to just get on a website. "We need to make sure you're not a bot." "Please fill in this captcha that not even a human can read" "Tick the squares containing a crosswalk, even though only one 3rd world country on the planet uses the term "crosswalk" "Please check the notification on your phone/let us send you a text/check your Authenticator app". Argh. I know security is a huge thing these days, because the internet wasn't a scoundrel's hive back in the good old days but there must be a better way, surely? Sure, there was nasty things back in the 90s, but it was easy to find and therefore easy to avoid. You wanted adult things, knock yourself out. You wanted nasty things, Rotten dot com got you. You wanted good advice and chat - welcome, thousands of places and there was no expectation of anything in return, just become part of the community. Sites like EduGeek were ten a penny and it was wholesome. You could read news without having to pay a subscription on top of wading through the worst web design ever conceived and adverts on top of that all. Ironically back then, it was only geeks who frequented the 'Net, it was too complicated for the average person. Now everybody is on it, and you're strange if you don't use the 'Net, yet it's far more complicated now than it ever was. Yes you can get around some of these issues with decent browsers, ad blockers and related plugins, but that adds to the complication. It's easy for us, we know which are good, which are bad and which are outright existing only to steal your information. It isn't for the average Joe or Josephine. Back then, the worst you got was a nasty when you tried to download the latest Backstreet Boys album via Napster or Limewire. Businesses need to make money to survive, but something has gotten horribly wrong in the meantime where businesses have to outright scam people to turn a profit or make more money than needed. You can't even get a straight headline any more, even from the more sensible purveyors of highly absorbent broadsheet toilet paper; you have to get scammed into visiting their site to read the article to find out you were in fact, tricked. "LEWIS HAMILTON UNDER INVESTIGATION, RISK OF BEING PUT TO DEATH!" turns out to be "Lewis Hamilton cut a corner in practice and got a warning from his team boss. In other news, a sick puppy may have to be put down due to a horrible illness". Even working in IT has gotten horrid. Everything is being outsourced under the guise of protection and "insurance" - things like RPA have schools up in arms and basically throwing themselves at the mercy of these scams just in case something goes wrong. Sod the poor fools they hired to be the experts on the ground! We're all glad for help when it's needed, but when cast aside because "someone else can do it and if it goes wrong, it's on them and not us" - that's diabolical and all too common. All we can do is sit and watch, as we get relegated to changing the odd password, swapping out the toner in a printer or telling a member of staff why they can't use pirated software on their laptop. I mean, I fully understand why some of these things are in place but there's so much scaremongering going on that leadership teams feel compelled to do what they're told without seeking further advice or even involving the staff they pay to do half of these things for them. And any time you question anything, it feels like you've walked into the scene around the round table near the end of Hot Fuzz. "THE GREATER GOOD!" Argh. Venting a bit on this really after having left a damned fine job of 13 years in a damned good school fully of damned good people because I was nothing more than a (relatively) highly paid password changer and the things I liked to do, I could no longer do, in order to manage the IT for another school - also wonderful people in a lovely school, being told it's all hands on, could do the things I like to do, the things that keep my hyperactive mind ticking over and within a couple of years, I'm sat down changing passwords waiting for the next thing to happen. Don't get me wrong, there's always things to do and it's not as bad as it used to be, but the air of inevitability is hanging over it all like a bad smell. "You're free to innovate, but the innovation belongs to us, and we'll hand it to a 3rd party to make sure it gets properly destroyed". Never mind. I can type "Password123" quicker than most people now.

I did not know those existed. I may now need to get one and cable ALL THE THINGS! Would have been useful last week after losing my favourite phillips screwdriver to a ceiling void making a bad attempt at throwing cable through the ceiling Cleaner than ferrets, although I still wouldn't mind one of those tracked tank things for running cables in voids and trays

Can confirm the Super rods are decent value for money, especially if you do a lot of cabling. My current rod setup is literally a fishing rod with the eyes cut off! Don't do enough to warrant much more currently!

Ah I see - Things like trips, parent payments should be handled by a provider such as Iris, Wisepay etc (modern MIS's do this as well, SIMS needs to be linked into yet another expensive IRIS product). All of those will sing to your MIS via Groupcall/Wonde so syncing there isn't an issue. Large edit - misunderstood

What for? Very few systems need to directly link into a school's MIS - ours doesn't with Bromcom and didn't with SIMS. FMS doesn't even do much with SIMS data and hasn't for years. I guarantee there will be very little to no value-add in any level of integration even at payroll level as more and more schools seem to use external providers for that anyway.

Don't think it's likely to become a slick experience any time soon; we are still stuck between being able to provide that level of connectivity whilst retaining the level of reporting we need. Unfortunately the best thing that could happen would be a change from the phone OS manufacturers; there's nothing "server end" that is going to help no matter how loudly it sings, you still need to get a certificate on the device. The flavour of wifi system you have has little real impact, besides maybe offering a quicker way to offer the certificate download, and that's not much of a help. I do wonder if there's anything client-side which may be able to help streamline this; an app on whatever flavour device that can help install that certificate, connect to the network and automatically chose the correct settings for PEAP WTF IP DHCP DOMAIN ANONYMOUS USER CERTIFICATE etc.

This ^^^ - adding to what I was saying about people doing things a certain way to satisfy these 3rd parties, too many schools/trusts just find it easier on paper to stick with the "big brands" "But our account manager can get us a great deal on HP, Dell or Lenovo!!" Yup, how about parts? HP who give with one hand providing some of the best self-repair guides I've seen outside of iFixit thanks to Right to Repair, take by making sure you can only ever update the firmware of that SAN if you pay for a support package the second it's out of what they deem serviceable period. Dell seem to be half way inbetween and Lenovo no longer have a clue what "quality" means until you hit the "If you want a price, call us" price point. Thankfully refurbs see us well through the worst of those but it certainly makes the Stones and Very's extremely attractive options. If you have one of those particularly sorts of SLT/finance however and they see "Random Brand I've Never Heard of before" and "Dell", they're going to Optiplex all the way to a purchase order. Hopefully there's a bit more trust!

I think this is a similar theme across schools - so many are told because of various schemes of varying quality and sense including RPA insurance, cybersecurity etc that they MUST have rolling replacement programs in place, MUST use the latest and greatest, MUST be warrantied, whilst all at the same time being blissful ignorant of one cold, hard fact. We can't always afford to. Our expertise in keeping things running, keeping them fit for purpose, keeping them safe & secure does not always tally with these schemes and the powers that be will all too often only take what the scheme providers tell them as gospel but they're often in a tough position too, they're not always IT experts and have to judge what's best to do. And when a carrot is being held in front of them like "You won't be compliant..." they are easily swayed. That's a harsh outlook from my perspective only of course, but based on multiple real experiences We're in a lucky position as I've been able to finagle things based on Windows 10 going EOL this year, so our warranties for client equipment doesn't hit us for a couple of years, anything bought in the last 2 years has at least 5 year warranties on, including refurbs but forecasts I've put together for our finance department show not too dissimilar figures. You're lucky in that you have a nicely spread timeline - people that replace all in one go end up with a large bill every 3-5 years, however with foresight that shouldn't come as a surprise and would hope has been budgeted for. (To the best of ability anyway - school budgets let alone department budgets are as fluid as a nose-blow in a swimming pool!)

Holy hell - that's a gross misconduct disciplinary at best and instant dismissal at worst. Anyone caught trying that should be done for fraud. Working with budgets as tight as in education is tough, and any decent supplier will understand and empathise with that, but those suppliers also have bills to pay. Disgusting that it even needs saying

No need to sell me on NiN - introduced to them mid 90's thanks to Quake Still, there's only 2 ways to know if this film will be good. 1. Go and see it and think "Yes, that was good" 2. Wait for the Guardian to review it. If they give it 1 star and call it utter tripe, it will be the best thing since sliced bread.

Oooooooooooh that's harsh. NIN have a LOT to live up to, as Legacy's soundtrack is easily one of the greatest movie soundtracks of all time IMHO! But if the trailer is anything to go by, we might be good Looking forward to this, and will absolutely be watching this at the cinema. Some trepidation though - Jared Leto is one of the biggest ifs. Will hold judgement until I've seen it!

I thought it was the one from Free Guy. To quote Paddy Considine in The World's End - "stop Starbuckin' us, man!"