crc-ict

I've had three Sandisk SSDs fail on me, and in all those instances, the drive was completely dead. Similar experience, PC was working fine one day, turn it on next day and nothing. No detection in BIOS or anything. So no recovery possible.

Sounds ridiculous to be honest. Also bear in mind that this is not something that can be safely achieved by one person according to working at height, unless you are appropriately trained and using a tower or platform. I'd love to see one person get a projector down while maintaining three points of contact with a ladder!! (No, knees and/or shins don't count as points of contact!) I would think a great way to nix this idea would be to give him a quote to get someone in to take them down, and then reinstall again. Or even a time/cost analysis for your team doing it.

Isn't it time that the music and movie industries moved away from a 'physical product' sales model to more of a licence based model? That way, your original CDs etc could be treated as backups once you have 'installed' your licenced music onto your PC, iPod, MP3 player etc. Surely fairer than expecting multiple payments for the same product just because you want it in different formats? Also then, where do you stand with Amazon's AutoRip - buy the CD and also get the same album on MP3 download? Although presumably that is some sort of separate deal with the record labels.

I've seen a teacher do that within 2 weeks to a brand new laptop, and then try to demand a new one because their USB ports didn't work!! All they got was some duct tape to cover the now useless USB holes! I bought a PC a few weeks back that came with only 3 USB ports on the back, had the PS/2 ports and then they supplied wired USB keyboard and mouse I'm looking at you Lenovo!

Thanks all, even for the epic necrobump! Almost 10 years on, I'm now IT Manager at a large primary, basically by following the advice given here.

Apparently, on some of Southern's trains, if they have to restart the computers you see the Windows 95 startup screen!!

We've got a Toshiba TV with touch-sensitive buttons on the control panel. I put one of those little USB plasma balls next to the TV and shortly afterwards, the TV beeped and the touch buttons stopped working completely. Had to unplug the TV from the mains and re-plug to get them working again.. It seems plasma balls and lamps are bad for touch-sensitive electronics!

And yet some staff find it unacceptable when you ask them to do the same thing in their classroom?! Sitting down, stationary.

Nothing like sitting out in a small cold tent, surrounded by bugs with only thin canvas to disguise the sounds of your morning constitutional! I don't miss our tent camping days!! Caravan all the way with onboard bathroom.

This. I set up a 'bad word list' on our G-mail accounts (bad language only) - not realising that the list I used contained the word 'balls'. This caused some problems for staff with PE-related e-mails. There were also some issues with e-mails about Charles Dickens in a similar way.

I love the caption to the photo: "Police said the damage done to the car will cost thousands to repair" Seriously, they would repair that?! Don't think so somehow.

+1 for Staveley Head. My dad has a Swift motorhome and they are very reasonable on the premium, and have paid out a £1k claim with no quibbles when mice nested under the dash of the van and feasted on the immobiliser and ignition cabling... I insure our touring caravan with the Camping and Caravanning Club which is reasonably priced and seems comprehensive. Might be worth a look if you are a member/are planning to join.

Can't see a problem as long as your BT box has an HDMI output and the monitor you choose has HDMI inputs and speakers. Although unless you can control HDMI volume via the BT box, you won't have remote control of the audio volume - unless you use an AV amp or something else for sound. That assumes that all TV viewing comes from the BT box and that you don't use the internal tuner in the TV at all.

I find deploying updates with Solus 3 works quite well if you schedule the updates for early in the morning, say 7am. This way, the server completes the update first, and then clients are updated as they come online when everyone gets in and switches them all on.

Unfortunately, because Yodel are incredibly cheap. All the while we all demand ever cheaper or free delivery, the cheapest players will win. Personally, of late, I am sick of waiting 3-5 days for things being sent by Hermes or Yodel 'standard' services and would happily paid a couple of quid more for a more timely service.

Just to follow up on this, had a resolution from Google Support. Our 'Organisation Type' under the domain 'Profile' in the management console was not set. Once this was set to 'Primary/Secondary Education' the verification prompts went away. Hopefully that might help someone in the future.

No, I wouldn't have thought so either! But my BM is very cautious...

Hello, Don't know if anyone has come across this before, but hoping someone might have an idea. We have just bought Chromebooks for our Year 2 and Year 3 classes. The children have had Google accounts that were set up when they joined the school, but have never used them. We now have the problem that when they try to log on to a Chromebook, they get a Google 'Verify that it's you' prompt which won't let them through unless they provide a mobile phone number and get send an SMS code. Our Google Apps support provider has suggested that they think there should be a Skip option, but there is not. They have suggested that we use the option in Google Admin to bypass verification for each user, but that only lasts 10 minutes and has to be done one by one (for 180 kids!) Has anyone else seen this problem, or found a solution?

Thanks for looking. Yeah, I think the details should fit on OK. My business manager wants some feedback from people who have used it though, I think she had visions of me melting things horribly with it!!

Hello, I was just wondering whether any of the EduGeeks out there had used the 'Asset Brand' tool from Security Label.co.uk Asset Property Marking It's a tool that uses heat and a thermal ribbon to 'brand' plastic parts of assets with a permanent security mark. Looks like it might be a cleaner, less hassle alternative to Selectamark etc. Would be grateful to hear any feedback.

Going waay back, but Ghostbusters 2 on the Atari ST. There was a bit where you were going up a shaft of some kind on a rope, and a ghost hand came along and starting 'sawing' at the rope. Had to use some sort of weapon that fired something up in the air and then exploded when you let go of the fire button at the right moment. I just couldn't do that at all. Was the start of level 2 or something pathetic like that. I was only about 9 or 10 at the time though! Never really got any better at games.

That's gotta be one annoying TV! Would add to the ambiance when watching Spanish-based programmes I suppose

How would you cope with things like keys and coins in pockets if you use a metal detector? Isn't this is a classic case of looking for a technical solution to a supervision problem? Surely the invigilators should be able to spot someone pulling out a phone and looking up answers, wearing earphones etc.

+1 for Inkwell here. It's great. So much easier than trying to keep toner stock control going! Had no problems with the quality of the toners, delivery is quick, stock count submission is easy. Need I say more?!

Same here. I got an SMS message last year saying 'We're rolling out 4G in your area. Have a free 4G upgrade to your contract" or words to that effect. Down here (West Sussex) 4G is popping up all over the place. I've now got 4G at home and at work (neither in urban areas), and it really is lightning quick.