Rydra

amazing how much more work you can do without teachers and students. And how much better the network works, how there's fewer problems. If only there was a solution where you could continue to run the network without them indefinately....

It's in the episode 'Endgame' at the end of Series 5, indeed against Pres. Clarke, who has decided to top himself and kill the planet. There are 2 more episodes after this to wrap up the storyline.

The funny thing is, most of these private companies rely on someone informing them of the use of a hosepipe. If you get on with your neighbours, just agree not to tell on eachother, and continue filling your swimming pool while you hold that wet t shirt competition. I'm lucky enough to not be on a water meter due to their inability to fit one when I moved in. So I could in fact pull a del-boy move and start selling bottled 'spring water' from my tap, and they'd probably not be any the wiser about it

I'm a bit of a convert, never watched any of it before. Wife started watching it a few weeks back one afternoon, and I couldn't be bothered to move. The first series can only be described as dire; bad graphics, bad acting, storyline is shaky to say the least. But things got better as it went on. Just the movies and a couple of Series 2/3 episodes I missed when the wife watched them without me to go!

wont be doing staff laptop images, just too messy. I have more than a dozen different models of laptops ranging from XP SP2 to Windows 7. It's easier just to rebuild them if/when they fail from scratch that fighting with making all those different images, copying work off etc. I will be stealing a workstation from the ICT room next week for the rest of the term to start the process of testing.

Having owned a corsa for 3 years, and 2 Ford Escorts before that, I can confirm that these vehicles are incapable of reaching ramming speed. Mostly they just make lots of whirring noises and fail to take corners.

I watched the final episodes of Babylon 5 last night, and a thought occurred to me. In so many movies, shows and stories, you hear the captain of various vessels, when they run out of projectiles to throw at the enemy give one simple order.... "GIVE ME RAMMING SPEED Mr !" Occasionally the words vary, but the general request is always there. Anyway, I want to see a vehicle that has this setting. Last I checked planes and ships don't have a throttle that's scaled "0 <> 1/4 <> 1/2 <> 3/4 <> Full <> RAMMING". Typical management. Don't even know what their own vessels can do, and expect technical people just to "Make it work!"

That's largely my plan. I have just 2 different types of desktop PC in the school for curriculum use + 1 teachers PC, so I only need 2 full images including all drivers to do that. I reckon on 3 days to get all 50 odd PC's rebuilt themselves (2 ICT rooms of 16, and the rest are individual classroom PC's). It's the package building that I suspect will take the time; building one package at a time, each one taking about 4-5 hours means I can only do at best one image a day to completion, maybe 1 1/2 per day. Currently haven't got ANY packages, or GPO's to deploy them, and no OU's that manage the PC's outside of winsuite. The current GPO's for staff and students are not worth mentioning; they don't actually control anything, have no scripts setup, and are basically just default policies it looks like. I reckoned on a 10 days of prep (building new GPO's/OU's) for the next 2 weeks during school hours, get a few of the packages built, and get a base image done for the 2 PC types i've got in the school. That leaves me with about 4 days for migrating data around the servers as I rebuild all the shares and finishing off the packages, 3 days for PC rebuilding itself, and another 1-2 days for creating the user accounts. This is something of a learning experience for me. I've organised scout camps and other events for 20-200 people, I've managed projects in EvE-online that span every timezone in the world involving hundreds of people. But none of it compares to trying to account for all the ways a network can mess itself up in a very short space of time!

Bet they don't like 'POP' music much. And Goths should probably be banned too

I now have 2 weeks to prep, and just 10 days of summer holidays to prepare the images for 2 ICT suites, and rebuild the entire domain structure from scratch, including GPO's, shares, User accounts, and build some packages for all the machines, and get the whole school ready for september. Current system is running winsuite, and they used to use ghost images to image all the laptops and the ICT suite's. The problem was, every time one changed the software, or updated it, the image became obselete, meaning i've now got dozen's of images for a single computer, and none of them are suitable. So I plan to move to pre-imaged machines for the basics (windows fully patched + Office + SMART notebook software), and then push out other software custom-like via GPO, so when a software update comes out, it's one package that needs updating, not me going round 40 laptops to reinstall manually. Anyone got any hints/tips for this, pitfalls I might come across that you've already fallen into before? I've done individual bits of this at various times, but i've never done the whole thing as one big project, and am aware I'm running it damned tight on time here. Not sure which of the tech forums this falls under, so it's under general. Current system: 2x Win Server 2k3 servers DC's, 1 running DNS, other to be used as AV + print server. 60 laptops 50 desktops ish, another 50 netbooks to come, running mostly WinXP. Rolling out Office 2010 to staff laptops this year, Open office to all student workstations, with Office 2010 to student workstations next year. New Student GPO's New Teacher GPO's Rebuild shares/drives in a sensible manner Packages for software (have WinstallLE ready to roll) to prepare Migrate printers/AV/website to a new server and/or drive Actually push out new installs to workstations. Have I bitten off more than I can chew on this one? I've got till the 22nd for prep work, but a few other jobs to do between now and then that will mean I cannot concentrate on it, then 10 days from then to do the rest of the works that may be disruptive. Anything helpful to say would be appreciated here, and I promise to write about any good or bad things I come across in the process of doing this.

Have spread the word as best I can to those I know. Wonderful song, and some really talented singers in your school. Best of luck, and hope to see you at #1!

You forgot the pointless room filled with invisible laser beams conveniently positioned so a flexible person can edge their way through, armed with nothing but a can of air freshener. They will wobble and almost touch the beam at least once just before the end.

Ebay account takes minutes to setup. Only reason for the resellers is for the rep, and if you register the name as the school, you shouldn't have a problem building up the rep. I just don't trust a lot of these 'resellers' with huge rep figures, as I'm fairly sure a lot of them are faked/bought from the old times.

Misleading name... I could only call it a capture house if the window slammed closed as he got in, with a big steel shutter coming down. Of course, a little hatch would need to open up, to reveal a hidden camera/monitor that recorded it all, and a message notifying the burglar that they police were on their way to talk to them

My staff barely touch their email systems. So when I get an email, something is usually very wrong!

I volunteer the towns of Dunstable and Luton to be used as the new reservoir. It'd be the most useful thing either town has done in decades, and it would be fair to say, would finally solve all the traffic problems in the area.

The difference in cost between a UK holiday and some holidays abroad can only be a couple hundred at times. If you want a full holiday to Florida or LA including Disney staying in a Hilton hotel, well expect to spend ££££. And as an ex scout leader, as much as some might enjoy a nice little camping holiday, it really doesn't appeal to me as my main holiday for the year. I can handle a weekend of it, even a week with enough things to keep me busy. But I go on holiday to relax. Not live in a canvas box with an uncomfortable bed, with my clothes shoved in a bag at my feet, and the nearest toilet a 5-10 minute walk through the dark away. Btw, I don't count caravans or campervans as 'camping'. Camping is in a tent, cooking on open flames (either fires or gas stoves), and spending every night sat round a campfire with a couple of beers in hand, watching the stars. If bad weather, you move the discussion inside a tent with a lantern, and continue as normal till you run out of beer or things to talk about.

I want/need a holiday this year. A wedding last year, changing jobs, and I study a degree in my spare time/evenings. But at this time I don't know if I'll be abroad or in england. I can get a all inclusive holiday in august for £5-600 each abroad, or I can go somewhere in this country, where I have to drive, and will cost me the same amount of money, in fact possibly more once you include food and other things. If I didn't go on holiday, me and/or the wife would eventually become run down. Everyone needs to get away from time to time, even if it's a weekend, a week, or a 3 week trip abroad. It depends on what you enjoy. If you don't do the 2 week summer holiday abroad then good for you, but many of us want one. Also is the difference between those who work full time and term time only. I earn less than my industry counterparts, work less than them, but have no choice on my holidays, which cost me 2-5 times as much as I have to go when some other businessman has decided he wants more money. Though I know some won't agree with me on this, If my work was only enough to allow me to pay the bills and keep me fed, then I frankly wouldn't work at all. Why bother? I work so that I can enjoy life, not just plod along in it. I could earn more money, but I'd be working more and more stressed in the work I do, so unless it's a LOT more money, I don't see it as worth it. It's bad enough when I'm studying, that in the 7 months I was studying, I went out just 3 times. Why do it? Because I enjoy what I study, and know that for a few years hard work now will pay off in the end, meaning I can go for that better job for more money, or I can apply for that pay rise; i've earned it. There are people who only just earn enough to get by, and there are many like those who work in schools who are happy with what they earn. But rarely are those two the same thing, and anyone that claims to be, I would bet would take an offer on a higher paid job if it came up. I don't earn a lot, and I regularly turn down work offered; I don't fancy driving 3+ hours a day extra for a few thousand extra a year. I'd not be around enough to enjoy it.

Lucky you, I actually envy a little! I bought all furniture and goods from previous owner for a good price. In 2 years, I've had to replace 2 microwaves, 2 TV's, a kettle, 3 iron's, also now got trouble with my fridge and washing machine, and a sofa and a sofabed in need of replacement, new wardrobes required, i've had the house rewired already, need to have the guttering and facia boards replaced (asbestos sucks), and all my main water piping requires replacing (all the stop tap valves are locked open, and a couple of them leak) So the 2k of savings i've currently got will pay for maybe 1-2 of what I need to fix/replace!

Don't use VNC, and teachers tend to write things larger when they are up on projectors than on normal whiteboards anyway. They could, but the student still needs to work somewher,e and so does the teacher. We've just invested in a set of the wireless presenters. Anyway, you've all seen teacher's desks; there's barely enough room for the teacher to sit, and frequently barely any room for the laptop itself. How then is a student supposed to work at it! Also, we're a primary school; the teachers desk and chair are a little on the large side for some of the students! in fact, they are often bigger than the students!

The point is not just to survive on this minimum, but to live a life. It assumes that you are sociable in some way such as pubbing, a sport/club, or some other social activity, at least 1 weeks holiday, and still having money for such things as birthdays, xmas etc. Does your partner work at all (guessing not with a 7 month old), and do you own, rent or live with others (family/friends)? That's the other part of this; it assumes you live independantly. Someone living at home with parents who own their house outright, and pay them a couple hundred a week towards food/bills can happily plod along at these minimum salaries. But someone with a 35 year mortgage, 2 kids and a wife who's out of work may come to struggle as time goes on. You may be ok for money now, but in 2 years time, with no pay rises on public sector likely to happen, with prices going up by about 3-6% per year (next year will be a harsh one with VAT hike too), can you be sure that you will still be above that standard? I can put away up to £500 a month if I don't go out much or buy anything too gadgety, but when I have to have work done on the house, or the car, or pay for a holiday, or replace a dead item of equipment in the house (PC, TV, microwave), those savings go very rapidly. I also have to save up for car insurance, quarterly electricity bills... So you may be in the green each month, but at the end of the year, how much have you still got? How much of what you saved has gone back out again on some other 'bill'? Because in 2+ years time with a 6% rise per year in costs, chances are those savings will begin to diminish.

The normal classrooms use a large-ish (about 20") tft for displaying the whiteboard to the VI student. The main ICT rooms have a lower screen resolution, with the XL themes applied for large text, mouse pointer etc.

Penfold, some of the VI children in my school literally have a focus point a few inches from their face. beyond that is just a blur of colours. It is simply impossible for them to see a whiteboard, as even standing a foot away from it, the far edges of the board are too far for them to focus on.

The wife was making a dent in the ironing pile over the weekend, and managed to burn a hole in my best pair of work trousers (they were the newest, and most comfortable ones!). Apparently the iron caught on it somehow. But when she leaves something on like that, I generally respond sarcastically along the lines of "So you didn't want these curtains then?" "What?" "Well you left the hardryer in the windowsill and then closed the curtains over them. For future reference, if you want to replace the curtains, just do so. No need to set fire to the house to prove you don't want them anymore."

We run all the classrooms from laptops, so the projector + VI screen is powered from the vga output of the laptop. The teacher has the laptop screen still. If running off of desktops, it may be worth looking into getting a new graphics card with a dual output, which you can peak up a cheap/cheerful one for about £40 maybe less if you hunt around. YOu don't need anything super powerful for most classroom usage.