soveryapt

I vaguely remember there being some software that wanted RP to run it's clips, older software I admit, but it was there. When I redid all our images about 18 months ago (as in rethought how I was going to go about them) I left out installs of all older software that needed RP, and no one has come to me begging for it to be put back, so it's stayed gone. I do push out QuickTime though as we have a few French pieces of software that insist on it to play their videos, despite my best efforts to get everything like that to play through VLC or Media Player instead.

Hmmm .. Could be a possibility I suppose as it is around the length of time it takes to the do the hold down the power button to force power off .. I'll see if I can find a spare Tosh that I can take a part to check it (though I guess depending on the power button, I could technically test it with a short wire) I do remember noticing that the power button was wired independently of everything else in there ..

Cool, I'll give that a go when I'm (hopefully) sat around doing nothing tomorrow at this Inset (i.e. assuming all these other laptops work as they are currently doing when I'm putting them away and such! lol) .. hopefully I'll find some way of sorting this out ..

Yeah, still nothing .. I didn't really expect it would do anything as the power was just going off before it even had chance to do anything ..

As @tech_guy I make sure those "standard" bits are included, though I've moved away a bit more and now push out most of them just because I can push updates as well using GPO. I tend to include office in my image as that's needed on all machines, and any fiddly software (such as CrazyTalk) which needs to be activated per machine, but shove it in an image and it's quite happy then. With regards to the keys, I have Pro here and use KMS, but I only switched to KMS about 12 months ago. Prior to that I used VLK and included them in the image with a little script to run the activation on first run. Windows 7 Activation (put your own VLK in place) @echo off c: cd\ cd "c:\windows\system32" cscript slmgr.vbs /ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx cscript slmgr.vbs /ato :end Office 2010 (again add you own key) @echo off if not exist "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\." goto end c: cd\ cd "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14" cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx cscript ospp.vbs /act :end Run those in a BAT file on first run, and it should (so long as the machine has internet connectivity) activate Windows 7 / Office 2010 using your VLK. If you're on a different version of office, I have no idea whether that will work or not though.

Quick catch up on this .. I've not heard anything yet as to what to do with this laptop, I'm kind of hoping it's not goosed as then we get into the red tape of who has to pay for it as it's a laptop that was provided with the students disability funds and such .. if anyone has any further suggestions, that would be great .. Anyway, I best get back to making sure 2 of the laptop trollies are fully functional for the staff inset tomorrow on B Squared .. lol ..

I hear you on that one! GAH!

It's to be hoped so! lol .. Thanks all

I know this is something that comes up a lot, but hey, I thought I'd ask the question again with my specifics. We're looking at Broadband provision now at the school and what not. Probably looking towards FTTC and getting away from our Radio Link now that we're able to get decent speeds through UG feeds. Ideally we need to be getting at least 10mb both ways on the line (this is what we currently get provided - well, meant to get). With this we'll need filtering, that we have control over - including ports and such for ideas going forward (i.e. non of this you can get things unblocked if you beg at the right time of the month with a blue moon shining by the noon day sun malarky *coughs* CLEO *coughs*). We could also do with inclusive AntiVirus protection as well. E-mails will be looked after by going to Office 365 and web hosting will be sorted out as well independently. The other main thing is to have a company that is fairly local to the school for any support and such, which is in Oswaldtwistle - Lancashire. If you know of any providers that meet all this then I'd love to hear from you, if you are a provider and want more information, please PM me and I'll do my best. Thanks all Andy

Further update on this.. BT Contacted me back with regards to payment on this so called "outstanding bill" to which my client had said they hadn't seen a bill for that so they needed one to be able to pay it .. BT's response .. "Oh yes, we can see you won't have received the bill yet as we allow you 7 working days to receive a bill and we only generated it on Monday" - Monday being when the problems started .. so they basically generated a bill and then "cut off" (read blocked HTTP Traffic) the broadband provision .. needless to say, my client is putting in a rather hefty complaint about this to them and lots of other issues they've had with this install on BT's part .. Grrr!

They don't need proxy settings. Direct connection. Anyway, problem solved after a quick phone call to BT. It would seem that BT haven't added the Broadband account into the Direct Debit agreement as my client had requested, so there was an outstanding balance on the account, at which point BT block "web access" or http traffic, but https is still permitted! I don't know if that's a fail from BT or not .. but it's resolved now ..

Afternoon all Interesting situation here. A client of mine (on BT Infinity for Business, running a 2008R2 Server with Windows 7 clients) is having internet access issues. It would seem that whilst HTTP browsing just isn't working, HTTPS browsing is (i.e. Google doesn't get you anywhere and times out where as https://www.google.co.uk get's you straight to Google). Apparently, the issues reared it's head yesterday initially, but as it was later in the day, they left it to see if it was just a hiccup, but it still persisted this morning. It was me who discovered the HTTPS was working. I wonder if it's a BT issue as I've suddenly not been able to reach their main router through the BT hub, let me explain that.. They had infinity installed about a month back now (after 3 failed attempts from BT doing a No Show for the install, but that's a different story). When it was installed, it wouldn't talk to anything other than the BT Hub through the OpenReach Infinity Modem. So the internet comes in on the OpenReach Fibre Modem, into the Hub3 and then through the use of assigned static IP addresses to devices connected to the DHCP over the Hub3, their DrayTek router picks up a public IP address. Long winded, and on my next site visit, I'll be looking to rectify this and getting the DrayTek working a bit more directly, but at the time, they were without internet access as BT didn't complete the job properly in the first instance, so it was a quick fix that worked. Anywho, I just wonder if anyone knows of any reason why this should be happening or has experienced this sort of thing before and knows of anything I could try? I've checked the DNS settings on the server, and even tried overriding them at client side with direct connections to the Google Public DNS, but still the same issue. Any suggestions are greatly welcomed! Thanks Andy

Quick 2p, what about a Now TV box. I've not looked into it for education, but I've been thinking about one at home as an alternative to a second sky box and such. It's powered by Sky and you can added various packages to it, including day or month passes for Sky Sports and such. Might be worth looking into it. Has a HDMI or Composite output on it. https://shop.nowtv.com/

He doesn't mine himself, but there's a mutual friend who I think is doing.. Edit: @Sdrawkcab - mutual friend is reckoning they make $120 / week mining litecoins .. dunno what the overheads on that are though ..

Are these good for proper hand pumps or just CO2 driven, as it looks like just CO2 having a quick ganders ..

Loving this conversation .. simply through the fact wifey has been asking what I want for Christmas .. I've been saying since we moved into our house 3 years ago "I'm going to brew beer and wine in the cellar" .. bish bash bosh .. I now know what wifey can get me for Christmas .. lol .. ok, hardly a surprise present I know, but hey, it should be a fun one .. and the number of parties we tend to host it will be great, could just do with getting a keg or two as I have a proper pump / cooler / etc on my bar .. lol ..

So let me get this all straight.. There's this one secretive guy, who's come up with this crypto-currency idea that everyone is buying into, and recently it has been announced that not only could this be the go to solution for the pending 'debt-backed currency' doom, but it could also handle the exchange of legal documents (Stateless company puts legal documents into Bitcoin blockchain - Imperica - digital arts and culture magazine) and other such things to keep them present, correct and provable. Nah, that doesn't sound like the plot to a bad world domination movie at all!! Seriously though, I mean, it's interesting as a proof of concept, and I wish all those (including a good friend of mine who won't shut up about it .. you can't actually have a conversation without it being mentioned that I should start a mining rig in one of my barns) good luck and hope that people are wise enough to (as with shares and such) sell at the right time to make their money, but a decentralised monetary system is surely only decentralised in the fact that it's a peer to peer network, so can't be closed down, but you still need a centralised system at present to be able to exchange these into sensible (read spendable) currency .. There's just something that doesn't quite sit right with it all for me .. but I would love to be proven wrong ..

Will do, though with Christmas shows Mon - Wed next week, it might be a few days! lol ..

It's out of warranty as far as I know, but I will give Toshiba a call and find out, I guess a phone call wouldn't hurt [EDIT - Checked on the website, Warranty ran out a year back, the old authority only purchased it with a standard 12 month warranty on it! Grrr]. With regards to the dim display, it's not even keeping power to it - i.e. the fan comes on, then a few seconds later goes off, same timing as the power light on the front. I will try this with the VGA though to see if it is indeed a dodgy connection somewhere along the line.

Yeah, tried most of those. The only thing I've not tried (as I don't have any silver compound on me) is actually removing and reseating the heatsink assembly, but it all looks in tact from a visual of it. The fan powers up for the few seconds the power light comes on for, but then (obviously) shuts off again. As for beeps, I don't get anything, I don't even get the BIOS screen coming up.

Ah, hadn't checked the USB Ports, but alas, that's not the case either. I've had it with zero power (including no BIOS battery) for about 45 mins to see whether that had any effect. It's almost like it's gone into hibernation when the battery was dying and just won't come back from it. Very strange ..

Yeah, went through that as that's the first thing I found on Google .. I think it's goosed so I'll have to chat to SLT to see about getting him a new one .. fun ..

Aye, thanks again, but been through that. Borrowed the heads power supply as she has a Tosh too. I think the motherboard is probably goosed. The fan fires up, but nothing much else.

It's not even powering on to be able to over heat, and ran fine for 20 mins or so when I was originally given it, but yeah, I checked the heat sink whilst I was in there.

Afternoon All Right, I've been given a laptop that came with a child to the school with a note saying "this is *** laptop, please can you introduce it to Broadfield" Anyway, I powered it on, added the wireless network to it and, as it's on Home Premium, I was going to simply map the child in questions Home folder as a drive so they could access their work etc. I got the battery low warning, so went to get the power supply for it and when I came back, the machine had turned itself off, so I plugged it in, pressed the power button to try and resume it and the charge light came on, and the power light came on for a few seconds before turning back off and not doing anything. I figured the battery was just really low, so left it to charge. When the charge light went green later in the day, I gave it another try, still the same thing, the charge light is on (all be it green now) and the power light comes on for a few seconds, the machine doesn't do anything and it turns off. I've had it in pieces, reseated the RAM, replaced the BIOS Battery just in case, given it a clean out with an air duster as it was a bit dusty in there, and checked for any wire breaks, obvious "help I'm melting" style damage and tell tale black marks on the mother board, but nothing. Put it back together and still nada, doing the same thing. There are a few places about on line that suggest removing the battery and power and holding the power button for 20 seconds to do some kind of reset, then plug back in just the AC and try powering it on, but that doesn't have any success. I'm thinking about just leaving it with no power and the BIOS battery off for the time being and coming back in an hour to see if putting the battery back in etc resolves it, but I thought I'd also ask on here if anyone has any ideas what it might be or anything I could try to get this thing back up and running. The child in question has just been in IT and seen his laptop in pieces and said that it used to not switch on and off properly at his old school either, so I suspect it might have been dropped or something along the way and that there is actual damage somewhere, just nothing obvious (though there are no signs of it being dropped either). Thanks all Andy