tmcd35

I have it set up on a USB drive on one of our Win2012R2 file servers, works fine.

All the opinion polls and pundits at the moment seem to be favouring Labour winning about 2 seats less than Conservatives, but Milliband is more like to succeed in forming a minority government with SNP/LD/Plaid Cymru/Green/etc support on a vote-by-vote basis rather than entering in to any formal coalition. Tory+LD+UKIP won't have enough seats combined to form a majority coalition government and the others (the 'king makers') just don't want Tory, full stop. Regardless of vote tally, Cameron will have first bite at the cherry in forming a government (even if Labour wins an outright majority I believe) but is unlikely to carry the confidence of the house which is were Ed will come in.

Thanks to a student who smashed the hard glass screen, and a deputy head that left, I'm now rocking... A Stone 21" All-in-One with a Hanns.G 22" second screen Spec: 3.6Ghz i3-4160 (Dual Core + HT) 8Gb Ram 120Gb SSD Windows 8.1

I think we've discussed this before - Thatcher's problem. And I for me the biggest disappoint of Blairs Labour government was they perpetuated it. Right to Buy, great policy. Preventing councils from replenishing lost stock - barking. Both Labour and Tory's are equally bad for this. Both sides talk the talk about 'affordable housing' which really just translates as more unaffordable private rents. Neither want to talk about social housing. We need (a lot) more social housing. And we need to reverse this strange sigma attached to it. Owning your own home really isn't all they make it out to be, it comes with it's own set of pitfalls and problems. Knowing what I know now, I'd soon rent and let someone else worry about maintenance.

The Zoostorms that I've seen and used I've always been fairly impressed with. The cabling is neat inside the chassis and to my eye the choice of components, for price, tends to be pretty good. We have a couple of feeder schools using them. Not aware of any major complaints/issues. I tend to get three quotes from VeryPC, Novatech and 'A.N.Other'. 95% of our business is split pretty evenly between VeryPC and Novatech with VeryPC being our preferred supplier on the customer service front. 'A.N.Other' tends to be either Stone or Ergo were we are after something specific (HardCase Pro's, NUC's, Classmates, etc).

Was going to edit above, but people with mortgages do also get some state assistance: https://www.gov.uk/support-for-mortgage-interest/overview

As someone who has never been unemployed (well 2 weeks in 1998 hardly count) and owns their own home (well mortgage), my response would be... We're in a different position that isn't directly comparable. I'm not aware of a bank that will approve a mortgage without a certain level of job security. The only acceptable ways into unemployment from that position are all insurable. If you can afford a mortgage, maybe affording those insurances are sensible. With the subsidy we are talking about people who are not in such a blessed financial position. No argument from me there. But you might understand why I'm so vehemently against that particular policy. It is a particularly bad policy and it does, whatever its justifiable intentions, victimise a certain section of our society that we should be showing a level of compassion to. It'd probably come as no surprise that I feel the same way about VAT and other sales/consumption taxes since it's the poorer in society that are effected most by them.

Hard evidence that will stand up to your scrutiny - no. Anecdotal evidence based on an accurate 1st hand account - yes. My dear mother is 59 and single. Dad passed away 3 years ago. She has been left with a 2 bedroom council house, only needs 1. There are no 1 bed properties available. She is currently working. When she was last between jobs she was hit very hard by this policy. Only income JSA, council tax and rent benefit. She had to cover the missing rent from the meager JSA payments. Thankfully she had some savings to full back on, they were decimated by this policy. Had she not had that I can't see how she couldn't have survived without food banks or other charity/hand outs. She's had work for nearly a year, temporary contract about to come to an end. She's rebuilt her savings (a couple of grand). She is obviously panicking about not finding a more permanent job to take her to retirement quick enough. Now explain the justice behind the spare bedroom subsidy. Should my mum have to choose between the threat of eviction and refuse to pay the spare bedroom subsidy? or pay the subsidy and be forced in to visiting food banks to survive? If she is unfortunate to be unemployed for too long after this job ends in August.

Or they haven't lied and as an outside observer you don't understand the nuances of their particular situation. How many people with dementia can you spot from 10ft away?

You see a BMW on a council estate and think scrounger? I see a BMW on a council estate and think...t**t driver. Then I think, right to buy, home owner, middle income, possible management job.

For those that refused to pay the subsidy most councils shyed away from that because of the inevitable backlash. However, given the the letter of the law, failure to pay rent is grounds for eviction. If your only income is JSA, council tax and housing benefit, you may not be able to afford the extra cost for that room (assuming only 1 room). If there are no smaller properties available and you can't keep up payments on your current property...

You know I'm using the word Tax to wind you up, right (also it best describes the net effect of the policy on those it effects)

Just playing devils advocate on this one (no I don't agree with what I'm about to type)... ...It could be argued the childs parents/other parent/who they live with mon-fri should pay you for the spare room. (I feel dirty thinking like a Tory).

Build more 2 bed houses to move them in to and charge someone not on benefits extra rent for bedrooms they don't use, then we can talk! The problem: Not enough houses. Tory Solution: Tax people for living in those house - create homelessness. Housing stock now freed up (to be sold as on the open market since its now surplus). Crazy.

I suppose it's worth remembering, other than The Greens, we don't have any major left-wing political parties. All major parties are right of center to various degrees. I believe the current left-right line up (left being party closest to right of center!?!) is something like BNP -> Labour -> Lib Dem -> UKIP -> Tory. I think the 2010 line up BNP -> Lib Dem -> Labour -> Tory -> UKIP, with Labour and Tory practically being the same party for all the distance between them. It's interesting to see how the parties have moved in policy over the past 5 years. (*source: political compass, economic left/right axis)

Solar panels are proving popular

Dear China, We have decided the responsible way of dealing with our debt - is to not have one. Sorry but as from May 8th 2015 we have unilaterally decided we do not owe any one, any thing. That said, we can't really raise taxes to pay for HS2. I don't suppose you'll lend as a fiver? Thanks Britain.

Picking at and opening an old wound... ...The 'Spare Bedroom Subsidy' (There I didn't call it a tax) is a direct assault on the poor! As LD voter last time I'm actually ashamed they went along and continue to defend this more than their more understandable (under the circumstances) u-turn on university tuition fees. Kinda back to current topic... Thanks to @sonofsanta I've been playing Democracy 3 the past couple of days and it's been a bit of an eye opener. I must say I'm struggling to keep to my Liberal Socialist principles and grow GDP and reduce the deficit. And fact I've failed point blank to do anything other than grow the deficit to various degrees any every game. I've always view capitalism as a necessary evil. I think I now understand the idea of creating jobs, to create wealth, to grow the country out of recession and ultimately pay down debt. The problem is this coming at the expense of the poor, which is where I think Tory's push the capitalist policies to far to the right. It's a surprising difficult square to circle. Debt and deficit are two different things. The debt will always go up, it's completely unavoidable, until the deficit is reduced to zero and wont be even start being paid off until we have a budget surplus. The goal at the moment is to reduce the deficit, reduce the amount the debt is increasing by, not pay off the debt.

Another solution - if you want to be clever (from an end users perspective) is to run a Windows 2003/2008 server with your 16-bit software installed and user Terminal Services to present the application to the end users (just the application - not the entire RDP desktop). *EDIT: Damn you @localzuk - option 2, snipped - beat me to it! lol.

I assume you are using either Windows 7 Pro or Windows 7 Enterprise? If that's the case use XP Mode, no additional licences required - https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/windows/en-US/f5475e04-c0fd-4dce-b29a-6a8fb431c1f1/windows-xp-mode-licensing-for-corporate

Pretty much this. Cost savings didn't end up that big either sure £150-£200 vs £350 for the clients, but if you want higher powered multimedia clients then that gap shrinks, then you need to take the specs/cost of the server into account. For word processing and web browsing fine. For everything else, why reinvent the wheel?

So when you install new software you need to add a new icon in every machine? What's the point in redirection then? We only redirect for students. We have a single start menu on our file server that they are redirected to. Software is catagorised by subject, we accept there may be dead links on some machines.

This seems like an over reaction every bit as bad as suggesting everyone on benefits are scroungers. Surely you can debate without taking offence over another opinions (be they genuine, misinformed, or whatever)?

If a foreign visitor were to base their opinion of the population of the UK has a whole based solely on the lifestyle choices of my immediate neighbour they would conclude that we are a nation of benefit scrounging, work shy, drug dealing, drug taking, burglars and general wasters (allegedly).

I believe the police are currently on the look out for some suspected diamond thieves, might be worth tipping them of about these BMW driving, home owning, JSA claiments. Just a thought...