kestrel1

I won't even go to the door of PCWorld let alone buy anything from them. They are an insult to IT.

I ain't going to keep them, so why bother?

I was lucky, we bought our house about 11 years ago. The prices had dropped to their lowest for years. We couldn't afford to buy our house now, if we had to start afresh. The prices are going through the roof. I know what you mean about living with your parents, you love em, but you need your own space. Around here, I couldn't even afford to rent now, coz the rents are out of this world.

If I ban a user from the network, they are allowed on during a lesson & their account is disabled at the end (If I remember) Internet can be blocked per user or per room & is very useful. I do the occasion shadow of users if I have time, which at present I don't.

Network Manager about 18k. Things is I have little help, apart from a non IT person for 1.5 hours a day. Any technical stuff I am doing all on my own. I have told SMT, but you know what it's like. (sorry, no money for a technician) I started on the IT side about 7 years ago on 11k, but the network was a hell of a lot smaller & I was only the technician. Head of ICT (teacher) was the NM, they have since left & I got lumbered. Still, it's a job. Pays the mortgage (just)

keep your eye on them tech_guy. I would be amazed if you don't have one go down sooner or later. Unless we have just been unlucky of course, but according to our Printer service engineer they are prone to problems.

Yeah, we had 2 of these. Only one is working now. They are prone to loosing sync with the colours. I managed to fix it on a temporary basis by re-flashing the firmware. Didn't last long. If you want my honest opinion, get rid as soon as you can. More trouble than it is worth. The only HP printer that we have had that I wouldn't recommend though. If you want a nice HP colour laser try the 3800, there is also a duplex model. We have a normal 3800N & the 3800DTN. Been happy with them so far, toner does cost a bit though.

My advice would be to have a look at the IBM kit. Much more reliable than Dell.

Plain old boring default Windows Blue. Thought of creating a school background, but not got around to it yet.

We have a thin client network & would fully agree with going down that route. It has already been said that the cost may look a lot to start with, but you will have less down time. Your existing hardware could be turned into thin clients as well, so you could keep them going for a little while longer. Our oldest thin clients are about 8 years old now, but are still able to run Windows 2003 server & the applications via Citrix. Citrix may not be ideal for your situation though (11 - 18 school here) Have a chat with Precedence Technologies http://www.precedence.co.uk They can supply the servers, clients & the software to turn your old machines into thin clients (Thin-IT) & they will be able to install it as well. It may seem expensive, but you won't be thinking of getting new machines a couple of years from now. Server upgrades may be required though.

I must admit the better half hasn't spoken about it yet, maybe I can get away with it this year. Wishful thinking I suspect.

My two rackmount UPS's are beeping at me, telling me that the batteries are failing. Yet more money to shell out. Not sure we can afford it though. I will see what reply I get from SMT.

Webman. I think you have flipped your lid.

I hate Christmas shopping. Baa humbug.

If it's that old, I expect it is the batteries as suggested above.

Who said that we are superior to the kids

I buy what ever seems best at the time. Normally WD, Seagate or Maxtor. Okay, I have had some Maxtors go bad, but I have had others go bad as well. Got lucky once though. Had a Maxtor 40gb fail on my works PC. Nothing I could do to get the data back (not backed up, ooops) Then someone sent in thier PC that had failed. I got thier data back for them & they told me to keep the rest for spares. HD was the same model as my failed drive, swapped the controller board & got my data back (phew) We have some real old Seagates stuck in a box about 300mb I think. Still work though.

Lucky you.

I officially start at 7:45am & finish at 3:45 with half an hour for lunch. I normally start at a 7:30am & finish at 3:30pm with no lunch break. When I get home I often connect to the network to do some more work or research something or other on the net to do with work. I can't claim to have created a great network, but I think I do a fair job as I am the only one to look after the network & whole school computer system & anything else that is remotely technical. I think my problem is I have been at the school to long (23 years next June) & know how the school operates. Obviously not been doing the same job all the time. I wonder what would happen if I kealed over one day? I think they would just step over me & carry on. So, you are not alone.

Cheers Geoff I will have a look.

Anyone know if Papercut works with thinclient networks? PMP is not reliable on thinclients (well the version I used wasn't a couple of years ago) Have found PCounter to be more restrictive & can't restrict file name, size etc. on a per user basis only per printer.

Cheers Geoff. No they haven't blocked sourceforge now, but a month or two ago they did. I had to get on to them about this as I couldn't download ClamWin, as that is also hosted by sourceforge. They said that there are some sites that required blocking, so instead of doing those sites they chose the whole of sourceforge. They have seen the errors of their ways & have been slapped on the wrist. Thanks for the link.

I would have checked this out, but RM have the site blocked. I will have a look from home. Thanks for the info Geoff

Just remember you won't be getting the full benefit of PC3200 if you are mixing the two types. Probably won't make much difference though.

I would go with MyDejaVu's suggestion of using the 40 new sticks in some machines & the old sticks in the others. You should be able to use PC2100 & PC3200 together, but you may need to change the RAM timing in the BIOS, if you are able to change the settings on these boards. Only thing is the slowest RAM determines the speed, so using two new sticks would be best for half of your machines.