Sephiroth

Where did you get this information from? Not saying that you're wrong, as I had never actually speedchecked our fiber, but I had 8 x 10G links at running on my 5406 on 2 x 4 port modules. Either way, it doesn't matter to me, since I decided to utilise the fiber runs that my predecessor put in place, doubling up the fiber and giving us a 20G backbone for the price of 16 SFP+ trancievers!

Do you use any of the advanced features, such as motion detection or zone monitoring? Just wondering as I know that if using modect or similar settings, it runs 3 threads to analyse the footage. What kind of resolution are you recording in and how much space do you use? (Forgive the interrogation, I'm just curious as a CCTV server is something that I intend to look into when I have some budget again!)

I love watching stupid people. Does make me wonder about how Humanity has managed to make it this far though...

I intend to do exactly this at some point in the near future, with a beefy server controling ~30 IP cameras with ZoneMinder. I have used it in a production environment before and love it. So much so that I use it at home with my 2 cheap cameras! Pros and cons off of the top of my head... Pros: - Cheap (free!) - Easy to set up and configure - Extremely powerful - Extensive knowledgebase and forum support Cons: - Your responsibility if something goes wrong - Can be picky about camera types - Requires a little CLI work and possibly some scripting Obviously this is only for zoneminder, as that is what I use and know. Other free solutions may well be better but I would strongly advise that you look into it. If possible, building a machine to play with it. As a side note, what kind of control are you looking for for the cameras (PTZ, Zoning, Motion Detection...)?

I recently upgraded our entire infrastructure to Netgear from HP. the core switch is an M7300, 24 port SFP+ (capable of 10Gb fibre) with 4 10GbE capable ethernet combi-ports. I would highly recommend that. Other than that, the HP ZL series chassis switch series is worth looking at, as that's what I took out, having had it for some time. It worked flawlessly, but the whole solution from HP was too expensive to consider getting additional modules for it. Hope that helps.

I would like to say that I did the same thing, except that I didn't have the opportunity to do so. I did start planning though, and making significant, but minor changes to facilitate the migration. About 9 months ago, I inherited a network that seemed to have had a small thermo-nulear bomb explode in it's midst. I am now in the final stages of building a brand new network from scratch (everything will be killed, with the exception of the SIMS database, e-Mail databases and user data. the servers that they reside on though, are being rebuilt). I will be switching over during the easter holidays. That in mind, I would say not to leave things until you know everything, when there is an obvious improvement that can be made to make life that little bit easier, whilst not being a dangerous move. One of the things that I did was to implement quotas on the file server (yes, there were no quotas at all for staff or students...). Other than that, as has already been said, Documentation! The idea of running around with a notepad, cataloging everything may not seem very appealing or worthwhile, but will save you a lot of hastle later on. I say that as someone that has yet to do so!

I don't believe that there is anything like that here (don't quote me on that!), Windows server OSes are easy enough to set up for basic services. Assuming that you mean 2008R2 (even if not, it should be at least similar), I would build a test machine and run through all the options. Windows servers tend to be a case of select the role that you want to install and follow the wizard to configure it. Once you install the OS it should bring up a window asking you what you want to do with the server. select what you want from there and it'll take you through the necessary steps. Failing that, Google is your friend!

I'm 23 and quite happily work in whatever seems better (usually judged by who I'm talking to). My mother gets me though... with alarming frequency, she'll measure something as, for example; 2' and 3 cm!

Joomla has a fairly simple interface (also, you can edit from the front end if you allow logins to the site) making it quite good for non-techies. At least, our Business Manager has very few problems. Our website (here) is built on Joomla with a custom template That said, I would recommend Drupal as it has a lot more features, though I have only dabbled with it.

I second that motion.

That's what were planning on doing. I'm currently working on locking down Debian (to see how easy it is, more than anything else) with a view to deploying to every machine that doesn't need Windows specific programs (SIMS, Sibelius et cetera).

If it's going to be permanently plugged in, then there's no reason that you can't. I kept the battery in mine so that if we had a power-cut, it would shut down gracefully with a scripted power setting, rather than just dying.

I used to have a old G4 MacBook, salvaged from the old staff laptops, running as a Debian web server constantly. Only reason that I took it out of service (after more than 2 years) was that the hard drive failed.

I'll let you try that one I think... Though could be more fun for me with bow and arrows ^^

Claymores as in the explosives, or the sword? I sleep soundly knowing that in any given room there is a sword (including a claymore - the Scottish broadsword variety that measures about 5' tall).

I bought my focus from my mother and she hates it when I'm smug about not having to scrape the windscreen ^^

It shouldn't really matter what version you go for, though SATA III are quite expensive still. The difference between them is that SATA I is 1.5GB/s, II is 3GB/s and III is 6GB/s (supposedly). If you currently have a SATA II disk then you're probably best off going for the same. If you get a SATA III the controler will knock it down to whatever speed it can handle but should still work. p.s. Hope that made sense, I haven't had enough caffine yet !

I'm not sure that I should admit to recognising that or not...

I plan on turning up in my New Rocks (the one's that I've well and truly worn in for several years)

I personally think that Ubuntu has gone downhill since 11.04 and the introduction of unity killed it for me (I have a quad head machine and unity doesn't like using multiple cards). since then I've switched to Debian 6 and not looked back. It may be worth seeing what happens if you stick that on and run it for a few days. It might also be worth installing Stress which will stress test the machine. that way you can find out what is causing the heat (CPU, RAM, HDD or a combination thereof). If you plan on modifying the grub settings, it might be worth making a backup of the files that you're modifying. That way, if it does go wrong, you can boot into a live cd as OB1 suggests. P.S. Sorry if I sound condescending... it isn't intentional

I used to go regularly but haven't done for a while. Would love to get back into it though, I kept all my kit as it's just too much fun to give up

We still have office 2003 installed on everything but are trying to encourage people to use Open Office (also installed on all computers here).

My desktop: Quad-screen running on debian 6

This shows what happens. Thanks

Hi I'm having a problem getting our website to display properly in IE 7. In firefox, Opera, and Chrome it works perfectly well, but in IE 6, IE 8 and IE 9 it occasionally messes up the div ordering and list elements. I can live with that, though it is annoying, as it is quite rare (obviously a fix for all versions of IE would be nice though). What bothers me is that IE 7 does this more often than not, even with the css selector - 'position: relative;' - which is supposed to get rid of this annoyance (as far as I'm aware) but clearly doesn't. Here is the site: Stowmarket Middle School If anyone knows the answer to this, or can point me in the right direction, I would be very appreciative!