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Wow! Got in this morning to find a lovely mysterious parcel on my desk .... opened it up to find pens, a memory stick and a box of chocs. Thank you very much, and I will attempt to rein in my excitement about the mini-Sharpie pen, which has made my day!

*Sobs at the realisation I'm not a winner in a nauseous X-factor style* *Brightens up at the thought of us all posting our runners-up prizes - that should be fun!!*

Oooh just seen this in time .... and it's my birthday on Sunday too - hint, hint!!

Am about to sit 73-640 Active Directory next week, which is my first ever Microsoft exam. I'm struggling to find out much about the format of the exam. I know it's 3hrs 15mins and that I'll find out my result on the day. I studied the course materials with the OU earlier this year and when the exam was discussed, we got a reply which was something along the lines of "Microsoft say you're not allowed to discuss the exam questions". Can someone help me (and not give too much away lol!) about whether the exam is multiple choice or written answers and whether the exam takes the whole of 3hrs 15mins or if that includes feedback time on the results etc.? Any other tips or advice would be welcome too! Many thanks

Thanks for the suggestions ... willl go and see what i can buy. Will look at between 15w and 25w.

Can anyone recommend a decent soldering iron? This will be for sorting out a dodgy power connector on a laptop Not by me I add but I need to get the soldering iron to do the job. Also, have read that you need one soldering iron to desolder and a separate one to re-solder. Is this accurate?

A good pint of Guinness for me. Though actually I've never had a bad pint of Guinness.

I see ... I'll have a look what makes and models the kit is when I'm at work next week. BTW you're talking about a diaphragm inside the mic, not the human diaphragm? (Done a bit of singing myself and the dictat "breathe from the diaphragm is firmly engraved on my mind!) Most of the time the kids won't go anywhere near a hand-held mic and tend to hold it as far away as possible. We've got some clip-on mics (which I don't like cos they pick up every single rustle) and some over-ear mics to deploy too so it'll be interesting to test the distance / gain stuff with them as it gets nearer Christmas.

Fantastic - that makes complete sense about why then. Thanks for the links - I'm especially interested in the hand-held microphone techniques on the mediacollege website as I want to teach the kids here good microphone habits for the Christmas productions. I always thought it was better to hold the mic about 6 inches away from your mouth to avoid distortion etc. but then have been puzzled about why singers (singing live) seem to be right on top of the microphone. And this backs it up - though I still don't know why singers eat their mics.

Nice one! Just been back to have a look, unplugged the power and the crackling vanished straight away. It's a Toshiba laptop by the way. Interestingly, I plugged the power back in again and there was still no crackle and so am carrying on running with the power plugged in as well for now (teachers unplugging and plugging in laptops could lead to another problems!). But thanks for the links to the isolators too, useful to have as a back-up plan in case it happens again.

As part of our new school, I've now got a sound and lighting system to look after too. All was well with the sound system and I've had some beautiful outputs from it - until one of the teachers has done something - and now there is a "crackle" from the speakers on two channels which have input from a laptop. The microphone channels are fine ... it just seems to be when the laptop is plugged in that the crackle occurs. I've tried all the obvious things like checking the levels and making sure the cables are connected properly but can't seem to eliminate the crackle. Has anyone got any suggestions of any other steps I can take to try and eliminate the crackle? Not worked with sounds systems much before but have been on the other end of them as a keyboard player and I know it can often be a trial and error thing!

Ah that's interesting. Though I went to test it and got into the VLSC first time with no errors (though I promise I haven't tried visiting any blocked sites this morning 'cos I'm a good girl, me!) but I'll bear that in mind as another workaround until we get a definitive fix.

I know.

Ah, it's never as simple as you think is it?! Well the contact I've been dealing with at Derbyshire County IT Services will be on the case with Synetrix as well, so hopefully that won't duplicate the work already done. Yes please to any updates as and when you get them. Thanks.

I've spoken to Derbyshire County IT again this morning to request the Windows Live Sign-in be added as a permitted site at Level 1. Apparently they have received a few other similar requests over the last few days and have passed this issue onto Synetrix as a request. I'll post on here again as and when I hear anything back.

I'm really enjoying the suggestions on this thread. Interesting suggestion about PJ & Duncan. Scary thought for the day - this was actually played at a Haven site where I went for a weekend break as an intro to a music evening. Seriously ... some great ideas here, especially the John Williams ones. I also found the Rocky theme which is good. In the end, it'll depend what the head goes for so I guess I'll find a top 3 tunes and see what she chooses!

Having foolishly volunteered the work the sounds/lighting desk at the opening of our new school building, I now need to find some snazzy music to use. We have a world-class badminton player coming to do the official opening so something with a sporting theme would be nice. Just wondered if anyone can think of any fanfares / exciting music to use - preferably something fairly short so that I can program the lights around it. So far I've thought of: - Chariots of Fire (could be a bit long and not fanfare-ish enough) - Barcelona (but we're not in Barcelona. Could be offputting!) - Fanfare for the Common Man by Copland Has anyone got any other ideas??

Cheers, I'll give that a go as a workaround .... County IT advised me to add the VLSC URL as a trusted site. I also added the Windows Live sign-in page URL as well. So far, it's worked twice OK for me, but just tested it again and I'm back to the security certificate page instead of the Windows Live sign-in.

I'm having real problems trying to access Microsoft's Volume Licensing Service Centre from our school site running the embc broadband service. We're on an EES license now so the site is pretty crucial! I could get in intermittently on Tuesday and Wednesday, but had no access at all yesterday or today. The problem seems to be as soon as I try and log in via a Windows Live account and at that point I get an error message regarding the website's security certificate. Interestingly, I've just tried it again to be more specific about the error and this time it's let me sign in!! Has anyone else found this issue and is there a way round it so that I can get in first time, every time? I've got a call logged with our County helpdesk, but would be interested to hear others' experiences.

Yeah .... did that and ended up locked out of the laptop and had to reset the passwords. Albeit that was because I was a muppet and forgot to note / set the local administrator password. But if I have that information this time round, are there any issues around profiles if I leave / rejoin?

We've moved to a new school building with a new Windows 2008 R2 server. The old server has been retired and is no longer in use. We have a new domain with a new domain controller, and pretty much new IT kit - so new desktops and netbooks which can be joined to the new domain straight off, no problems there so far. We also have a few Windows XP laptops which have been brought from the old site and I'd like to get them on the new domain too. They currently point to the old domain - which confusingly has exactly the same name as the new domain. Can someone point me in the right direction for how to disconnect the laptops from the old domain and get them joined to the new domain? Google is surprisingly unhelpful on this.

Had to get some more CD-RWs to burn this onto but ran it through tonight and have cleared the Administrator password. Now I can get in again fine and sort out my mess. Thanks!

Oh that looks useful. Will check it out from home tonight and see what I can fix!

First day back after the holidays and I have done a very stupid thing! I have a teacher's laptop, which was set to log onto the old domain at our old school site. Over the holidays we moved and are now on a new site with a new domain (but which has the same name as the old domain). So to take the laptop out of the old domain, I set it to be part of a workgroup instead. Rebooted the laptop just at the moment when I realised I had no idea what the administrator password was. Now I can't log into the laptop at all with any combination of password / user account that we previously had. I've tried booting to a DOS prompt in safe mode, but still get asked to log onto Windows first. Any thoughts to rescue me from my pit of stupidity?

Headteacher is looking through everything this afternoon - should have some news tomorrow (in between setting up the phones for the new site as well!)