mjs_mjs

Before removing them - set them to deny, see if anything breaks. If it does you know those accounts are required and what for. If you happy leaving them there in deny mode, should you ever need you can re allow them. IIRC usually this happens when an account is removed from AD or the local SAM, but the Access Control List (ACL) still retains the security ID (token) for that account.

and you can also stack standard licenses - so if you need 4 VM's you can stack 2 standard licenses. Source: Licensing Windows Server 2012 R2 This has all of the info above (from all of us) in and it's from MS!

Will you sell to an individual rather than another business? * ahh bugger, not to worry - after 2.5" drives.... soz *

have a look at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn569286.aspx

If they're in need of new homes - I could use a few for my new test server (has 8 SAS/SATA bays currently empty).

A RAID5 array of SATA disks would easily cope with that demand really. Don't remove the SAS tho - keep thoes for system and profiles if you can. Users home area's will get less read/write requests. If it is purely storage you're after and you want to go the NAS route, then just add it as a 'member' server to the domain and provision network shares from it. That way all operations are offloaded and you can use OS level tools to improve group file management on shares. Another thing potentially to think about is spreading your users out so that staff don't all sit on one storage array. That way if a server fails - at least half the staff can work as usual, and do the same for students so that when class starts and there is a peek usually, it's spread and not all on one server again. (tho with this many workstations thoes peeks will be minimal really.) Hypothetically, if you were to go the SATA route - would you be adding SATA drives or replacing the existing SAS drives? IF the latter, then a NAS might be the better option in terms of managing RISK. OR just get a third server that's completely SATA based with enough storage for the next 3-5 years and use it as part of the improvement plan - with a view of removing an older server once it's in place. This gives you the opportunity to view exactly the difference with your actual network load, and you can resort to it being a file server only if it's not suited to being a DC ect.

Have you thought about open source alternatives such as PFsense with squidguard?

how many client workstations? and how many are desk/classrom lab enviroment?

How many users are we talking about and what's the concurrent access (data transfer rates) levels like? (Have a look in the resource monitor to log this over time). Note that increasing storage capacity also means changing back up cap also... Dell have moved to SATA for the SME type servers and a Google white paper showed a while back that access speeds and MTBF are actually not so bad on consumer drives when used in a datacenter environment. Really, high end SATA should be OK, but there will be a limit and that limit is lower than SAS generally. (saying this I'm about to move from SAS to SATA myself in my test servers).

Something to think about for routing data back through your school network is maintenance downtime (if you take anything offline overnight).

How long is the contract likely to be for?

Likewise

Enough said on this matter!!! - but my 10 cents If you have a person using cubase with 10 audio channels, each needs 24bit audio at at least 48K sample rate really, that person will eat over 10Mb of bandwidth in terms of raw data - so with network overheads it's more like 20Mb (not even going into the latency issues)... 5 users and your disks in the server will grind to a FAIL. This is why local storage is needed for storing the audio files, and hence why networking is NOT a good idea - yeah it can be done, but don't be silly! My experience of this goes way back to SX3 on a network, and it being POOR to use at best. I managed to get Studio 4 to work on a windows network but it was glitchy IMO, and some nasty reg hacks for ASIO drivers for on board sound cards (not a great idea by all standards). Top tips.... mac or win - cubase on a networked machine will be fine, but you'll need local storage for audio files (and users that understand how this would work), and probably best to install the cubase software manually rather than via a package deployment (due to drivers), i think i also had to force it to run with elevated privileges too for 'normal' users (don't shoot me for it).

I think maybe the Nortel basic stuff like BCM 50 : Nortel BCM 50 : Nortel BCM 50 Telephone System : The Nortel Specialists : 1st Communications Installation and Maintenance, even that seems way over spec for what you're looking for.

From PRS... Radio licensing FAQs I think you do need it as,

Features | Asterisk.org - Free open source and will run with little hardware. You will need a SIP trunk or the like and IPphones. Which all CS's have really. Will record to MP3 tho i have never used this personally.

Thanks - It's not the only bit of work I've done on my tablet but as i'm still a student i'll hold back the rest. Hiya, yeah look up LaTex or TeX, basically it's a markup language like html. Once you get used to it it's really powerful. If you're on a PC or MAC look at TeXworks, which can work on the files. One major difference to that of the likes of word is that the document is essentially compiled, rather than WYSWYG. I used to use the word editor when i used office 2000 (back in the day), but this is so much more powerful that once you've got the handle you'll never go back (tho equation editor has come a long way since back then). For taking notes you first need to understand how it works, and be able to type relatively fast on the screen or on a keyboard. I spent around a month learning to write TeX by using it for ALL of my assessments without fail. Then i tried it in lectures and found that i was quicker on my tablet than by hand writing, and alot lot neater. For Android I've been using VerTeX recently. I also use it for making all my presentations also. WOOO - hold up. Learning is a personal thing, what works for you isn't always what will work for everyone else. For yourself it may be true that paper is quicker and more flexible than a tablet, for me, i can type quicker (even on a touch screen) than i can write. (In fact i can actually write at 19(copy)-21(dictated) wpm, and type at 35wpm(copying) on a comfort curve keyboard and slightly under that at 34wpm(copying) on my tablet using fingers on touch screen.) I'm not saying you're completely wrong, i use paper for when i need to manipulate large equations and don't want to use maths software - but one size certainly does not fit all. Just don't rule out a tablet for me because it may not work for you.

Here's a bit of my first year work minus some personal details. Made completely from my asus tablet.assessment1edited.pdf

I'ld like to add that i use my tablet for taking notes in lectures at uni. I'm a maths student and i use an android tablet, with a specific app for manipulation words and numbers using a language called LaTeX. I really disagree with Mainly because out of say 400 students on my course at least 5 or 6 of us use tablets for note taking. The hard core maths use Android, and thoes doing the odd module of maths on their finance course use ipads. One guy uses his android phone - which caused a lecturer to ask questions. Admittedly that's only around 1.5% of us, but that's for maths where we regularly use characters from 6 or more typefaces. I bet in more wordy based subjects they are more common - as are laptops in comp sci and business. The main thing I've found is that people simply don't know that the tablet/other devices they have are capable of doing. This includes lecturers and other staff at the uni - none of them know the name of the app myself and some others use, and you probably wouldn't find it unless you looked really hard. My tablet is no substitute to my desktop, and only a fool would think it is, but it is a substitute to reams of unorganized scrappy paper notes. I can produce sophisticated journal class articles with embedded images on my tablet, as can others. I would add a pdf to show what kind of material can be produced if knew how?

It also depends on what you're trying to achieve. For continuous rotation like RC cars, then small DC motors are the way to go, but for control applications there are two other types of motors, Stepper motors and servo's (ok so not strictly a type of motor). Servo's are usually small geared DC motors with additional feedback circuits so that they have the property of always trying to match their input position data. From a programming POV they are very useful as i can set their value and forget about it - on the assumption that the motor will achieve the position i set. Hence they are used alot in amateur robotics, RC cars, RC planes. They also don't usually need any additional circuitry, just power and a PWM control at 5vTTL, making them uber simple to implement on Arduino and the like. Stepper motors are very good when you need high torque and good precision, ie inkjet printers, 3d printers, laser cutters. They have no feedback usually, so additional sense circuits are needed for control applications. They also often need current sensing drive circuits so become complex to implement quickly. For a RC car i'm probably go for a servo for the steering and a DC motor for drive. What kind of projects are you looking into?

how ironic

Are you looking at freelancers also, or strictly from another support team?

Have you looked at reducing any other noise in the classroom - projectors ect, as removing sound from the environment will also help, and it will benefit everyone. If they are only going to need it for grabbing a noisy classes attention then maybe a whistle might be another different solution.

I think we should keep our old LU map - it's almost a defining feature, also the zoning on a LU map atm is very easy - it's not so easy on this.

Archery is awesome (i'm an archer) everyone who wants to should run and have a go