pcstru

Aahh! I'm about to do almost exactly this. Did you use any external support? If so who?

You could use the SUBSTITUTE function to remove any characters you don't want. Just pass it an empty string for the character to replace the hyphen with. Is there a reason for mangling the hypen? It is not exactly uncommon and most applications will cope.

Yes. I generally use CSipSimple on an Nexus connecting to a FreePBX install with VOIP and FXO truncs. You can also use the 3CX softphone client - it's a while since I configured it all so I can't remember why I chose CSipSimple over that (but I do seem to remember there was a reason!).

We will give local admin rights on request for short duration to allow people to install stuff, generally printer support software for their home printers. We do a quick sanity check for nasties when we remove the rights.

A couple of years ago when the school was 'downsizing', the PA technicians post was made redundant and we took on technical support for the equipment as well as the PA technician who now does much more IT than PA. So, we (IT) now do all that stuff. A lot of the things that he used to do now have to be done by Teachers - so any classroom support or actual production of stuff. I basically try and draw the line at technical support - helping people to do things themselves, not doing those things for them.

That is a tough spec. The BenQ SU917 should be close and come under budget but that would depend on lens to make up for the fact that it is not short throw.

Nice renders. I can't see a canopy giving much additional protection so it is probably unlikely to happen... I'd like to see F1 incorporate a few short ovals in the season. .

That sounds about right. I guess you could just configure that as an IP trunc within 3CX, similar to the supported Beronet BeroFIX.

I agree, it would be an easy sell - hence I suspect my view will be minority . (I think) my view is that it is the mother of parliaments and we should not be afraid to allow the architecture to incorporate both the functions and forms that that reflect 21st century reality. So probably knock it down and replace it with something that looks more like the MI6 building.

The problem is, if you kick them out, you will end up kicking them out to a building that is more fit for purpose (than the POW) and given the dilemma of preserving such a historical site vs mucking about with it to make it fit for purpose, it is unlikely ever to be as effective as a new facility. Personally, I'd favour mucking about with it but I suspect I'm in a small minority.

IMO that should work but it will come down to your local policy. If they do not (or cannot) demonstrate that they are properly exercising their duty of care to you, then those in the firing line can end up going to prison.

Yes but competency needs to be assessed and an employer will need to be able to show proof of that. That proof may vary (you may not need a certificate but the employer will need some record that you have received appropriate training). Some useful info : http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg401.pdf

They should combine the TG reboot with another popular reboot. £400K supercar review narrated via swanee whistle, Stig replaced by a towering knitted soup dragon (still with white helmet of course), star in a reasonably priced musical boat. Well hell, ... I'd watch it.

Do you have a library (or any other established system which tracks borrowing)? We loan laptops, netbooks and chromebooks with the Library issuing a card which students can then swap at our walk in help desk for the item. We track the loans both on the library system and our own little swipe card app. Having two systems is an annoying overhead but it has stopped us losing track of devices a few times. ISTR seeing some lockers at BETT which could be used for this. The devices live in the locker and can be accessed via RFID or swipe cards and release to those cards set remotely so you could potentially get an email from a student asking to borrow a device, you then tell the locker to release to that student when they present their card. Perhaps these folks could help?

With the speed of my home broadband, I'm hoping to finish downloading this months bit before the end of the month.

We used RapidSSL for a wildcard cert.

I'm going to put my pointy hat on and go stand in the corner. :-(.

Assuming the text for the attribute is consistent, I'd use the find function to check for the presence of the text and if find returned from the original column, put the attribute I want in the separated column. So : =IF(ISERROR(FIND("",)),"","") sort of thing.

I have only two palms for one face and that ... well, it just needs more.

A better approach than the latter might be to find out what their requirements are (why are they storing so much) and then discuss how the technology can be made to meet those requirement given whatever budget you have (or are asking for having determined the requirements). Just telling the users that they are using too much space can be seen as the tail wagging the dog (you are there to make technology work for them, they are not there to make their work fit into the technology you choose to give them).

I've not heard of them specifically but one general scheme is they sell the electricity back to you over many years fixing the price you will pay upfront (it might vary upwards with inflation). If you have the cash, it is better to buy the system outright although the payback will be years (probably of the order of a decade), after which you are effectively getting your energy for free. It is (probably) not a scam but scrutinise the figures carefully - the last one I saw estimated energy use but didn't account for school holidays or even weekends (i.e. they assume a fairly constant 7/365 use).

HP A7506 on our main network.

It is a good time to act when equipment is telling you it is picking up errors (prior to failure). Bear in mind, even if it is part of a RAID array, another drive could fail and that leaves you with reduced (or no) redundancy AND a remaining drive that is dodgy.

When I first started here, 7 years ago (how time flies), we were about to run into the Seagate issue with the discs in our SAN. That would push the average up but even without that I think we must be hitting one or two failures a year. In servers (including NAS and SAN), we must have around 150 discs spinning away.

I had planned for a second core switch in our second server room and when we run new fibre we run to both server rooms. However, the cost of a second switch would be in the region of ~£30K when all the costs are in, plus ongoing costs (energy, warranty, support). Our core switch is covered by next day replacement (and HP are generally excellent in that respect), so the question is, would a couple of days downtime equate to >£30K. I don't think the answer is clear cut, whereas it would be for a business this size, so I've not actually put the switch in. Other areas seem more clear cut. RAID - we see disc failures every year and the cost of protection is essentially quite low. PSU's and UPS's - we see power interruptions regularly (every 6 months or so) although we see few PSU failures (one every few years). VMWare gives a lot of other advantages, HA almost comes as a free bonus. I think out biggest cost in terms of redundancy is a dual head SAN. I don't justify that on the basis of eliminating downtime, I justify it on the basis of reducing the risk of data loss on real time transactional systems (MIS but probably more importantly, Catering). We do have redundant switches on the SAN but the cost of that was ~£3K, which is much easier to justify against the disruption that would be caused by a failure.