Soulfish

If you're running the Enterprise ML OSE licenses then you may want to look at the Enterprise/Datacentre Management suites which are around £35/server or £23/processor and license you for all of the system centre enterprise ML licenses

If you're just running 6 VM's and only using DPM it'll probably cheaper to purchase 6 x Operating System Environment Management License's (OSE ML's). However if you're looking at using the other system centre products then the Enterprise suite may be of use to you since it licenses you to use all the other products as well.

DPM is very very cheap. The actual server costs virtually nothing on a schools agreement, but you have to remember you also need the server management licenses for your MS servers, and if you want to use the client backup tool you need client management licenses. With a schools agreement the simplest way to license the server management licenses is with System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise or System Center Server Management Suite Datacenter which are both very cheap. The licenses work the same way as Enterprise/Datacentre OS licenses with regards to virtualisation.

Is there a group booking/group rate being organised with the hotel or is it a case of just book in now yourself?

Enjoying the new style. Will take some getting used to but it's very nice. Thanks for all your hard work guys

I'd be up for it - unless someone had a recommendation for another fairly laid back clan

Liking the new style

I play when I get a chance to in the evenings. Haven't had much chance yet and I can't seem to join the TeamSpeak server? Comes up with "Failed to Connect to Server".

I saw this last Friday and like you really enjoyed it

We're looking at getting Blackberries here for all tech staff. Through OGC/Catalyst/Buying Solutions mobile frameworks there's a very low monthly cost. You'd also need to run at least a BES Express server (which is now free cut down version of full BES that should be fine for 99.9% of schools).

I had great fun playing BC2 online last night . Started playing as a medic but having no points means that I had no medkits or defibrillator to use . Does anyone have any suggestions for some good servers?

Ohh hadn't seen that - cheers . Haven't appeared in my premier login though

I did have a pair of 5.1 Medusa Speedlink headphones years ago, but replaced them with a pair of Sennheiser HD595 headphones. I much prefer the sennheisers (cost me around £100 a couple of years ago) even though they're only stereo headphones. Only problem is they're "open" so you can hear sound from them in the rest of the room. I also have a pair of Sennheiser PXC350 noise cancelling headphones which are great for airplanes/trains or for watching movies/tv programmes in bed without the other half being able to hear

We use the Dell E6400's for techie laptops. The backlit keyboard is a great option . There's supposed to be a refresh coming soon for the i3/i5/i7 laptop CPUs and a change in model number to E6410.

You'd need an external connector license. Although if you purchase CALs for all students then according to Microsoft UK Schools : Licensing parents for SharePoint ? what?s free and what isn?t you could be "granted" an external connector by MS.

I've done that at 3am in the morning before with their support line and had a response back within 5 minutes and the problem (that I'd created) fixed

Woo pretty even split between Lib Dems, Labour and Conservative with a little bit of Green party in there for good measure

I use TSOHost for my hosting needs. They have a "clustered" solution that I'm on that works quite well. If you don't want to use Amazon's Cloud Compute platform have you considered the Rackspace Cloud hosting platform? Cloud Hosting - Cloud Servers & Files - Rackspace UK - Should be pretty good being rackspace

Finally got some time to play this multiplayer this weekend. Haven't had that much fun in years

To run a Windows VM for VDI purposes you need either a device without a valid windows license and VECD. If you already have a windows license with SA then you can get VECD for SA (it's cheaper) instead to allow you to run in a VM. However as from July if you have a windows license with SA you'll no longer need VECD for SA - it's being included as a SA benefit. VECD is also being renamed to VDA VECD/VDA allows you to run windows VMs using Thin Client devices that don't have their own windows licenses

Well I asked and she said no . I have been told that I can come however - provided that I actually book the long weekend that I promised a while ago

Hahaha that's great . Always wanted to build my own ticker tape turing machine while I was at uni but never got around to it

For us we went for a schools agreement because it's not just about the price. As Ray points out on his blog a set yearly cost is much more preferable to an accountant/business manager than a large random spike in expenditure every x years. For us it also massively simplifies license management. Being able to say that MS licenses cost us £xk per year is much preferred to saying MS licenses may cost us £xxk in 3-5 years dependant upon a number of factors. Being able to spread the license costs over multiple years is always nice - after all schools aren't really allowed to roll budgets on from year to year!

Recently purchased a Logitech Performance Mouse MX and it's been great . Gotta say that logitech mice are some of the best I've used.

Just taken delivery of 1 XJ-A140 Just playing with it at the moment but it does power on/off very very quickly!