Busybub

What do you normally take pictures of? How much weight are you prepared to carry? Are you happy about frequently changing lenses? Everything has a compromise! If in doubt, buy Canon (widest choice of sensors and lenses, cheapish S/H stuff - though frankly it's all pretty expensive since prices shot up earlier this year)

Can we bring BRICKS???

Strange! Never had more than 80 computers, been on School Agreement for the last 4. Never had anything other than XP, Office, and Desktop CALs. Servers have never been on SA.... Microsoft have never moaned (other than when payment is overdue) Oh well, Will worry about it if they ever kick up a stink!!!

Flashy git!

Precisely why I'm glad that we've missed out on this recently. It's difficult enough for staff, not sure I even want to think about the hassle with the kids...

Have prices gone up recently? Think we paid 78+VAT for ours...

Eh? Two of my sites have between 75-80 workstations, with Servers under Select licensing. ???

Lyons coffee bags. Basically ground coffee in a teabag. About 2 quid per box (20ish bags) in my local supermarket.

Sandisk Enterprise sticks completely disable themselves after 10 incorrect password attempts. You can also buy central managment software which can send a suicide instruction over the Internet if somebody in your organisation loses one. Sandisk Professional ones format themselves after 10 attempts if I recall. Very fast sticks, not cheap though. Another alternative other than these, the Integrals, or Safesticks, are the DataSafe ones which you can get from RM. 22 quid for a 4gb unit, but no central management.

Of course, if you want to be a real nerd you would only use these with it: maxell Metal Vertex Cassette Tape

Er, no. This is more like the real experience: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvSgfFNptuQ]YouTube - Nakamichi DRAGON The worlds' BEST cassette player/recorder[/ame]

Have you got accurate room measurements (to the nearest cm) including doors, windows, radiators? I've had to produce around 60 different plans for 3 different ICT rooms in the last year. Would be happy to have a quick stab at yours if you send me the specs.

Next time I need something I'll send you a note

Ordered a projector lamp from them on Monday by fax. Arrived Tuesday, with 30 day credit, no questions asked. Can't complain Have to say that Simon's note has sparked my interest but I prefer to browse and see prices without having to set up accounts that I may not actually use

Throwing distance of the projector is determined by the lens, hence short-throw, ultra-short throw, and long-throw. Some high end ones can have different lenses attached to modify the throwing distance If you have an identical projector somewhere else I'd swap the lamps to see if the problem follows the lamp. Otherwise, any of your kids bright enough to program a PSP for use as a remote control? Some of ours did it and were turning the projector off in the middle of each lesson.

If you're looking at this kind of money you might be better off buying the photocopier outright and taking out a support contract on it. This is what we do with Canon. Under the terms of our contract we are charged per page for the upkeep of the unit. Something ridiculous like 0,02p per black and white page, and 6p for colour. Might be an annual charge (which I don't see) but we don't pay anything extra for toner, spare parts, labour...

Sounds about right! Best ones I've found so far are the Computergear ones that RM supply. Work out around 10 quid each. Got around 50 of them, pretty robust, not had any destroyed yet. Avoid the Cornbow ones, the kids keep ripping the earpads off!

If you have desktop licenses under School Agreement that include the OS and Office you can upgrade to the next release. Servers can be licensed in the same way but may not be cost effective depending on the interval between Server releases. For example, select licenses for Server 2008 are cheap, ISA licenses are not. Sounds like you need to clarify your situation with the reseller who you purchased the licenses from (presumably your bursar would have paperwork). Failing that, if you get no joy, send me a PM and I can track down an email address for somebody who works in MS licensing and you can confirm with them directly. Worst case, if you do have a School Agreement and it goes unpaid, you'll get an email from them anyway!

Er, NO, my understanding (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) is: If you have a select license (you pay for it once) you own it outright on a perpetual basis and can downgrade to the equivalent operating systems which preceded the ones you have. ie if you have Vista select licenses, you can use Vista/XP/2000 workstation/ME/98/95/3.1. You cannot upgrade to 7 on it's release unless you buy another license to replace your existing ones. If this is something you want to do, you need to switch to a School Agreement with software assurance, but you pay for a license on an annual basis. Re: Office. If you have a select license you own that version and can downgrade in a similar fashion as above. If you want to be able to upgrade when new version come out, you're probably looking at a Desktop License under the School Agreement which gives you the desktop OS and Office. If you want 2008 Server and SQL, you buy the select licenses or have them under a School Agreement in the same way as the desktop OS and Office. You'll need SQL CALs. Welcome to the world of Microsoft Licensing... even some MS licensing people aren't really sure how it works!

Recently replaced my Acer Aspire One with a Samsung NC10, but if it were me I would go with the Acers for student use. In terms of build quality, there isn't much you can do about kids picking off keys, but the keyboard on the Acer is at least pretty easy to swap out. The main weakness of the NC10 is that the cover around the display tends to flex a lot more and is thinner, whereas the Acer is much more solid. The Acer also has a significant cost advantage for what is essentially the same spec machine. With what you save with a Linux unit (you would have to upgrade both to XP Pro anyway) you could cough up for a spare extended battery for each unit and still save money over a Samsung solution. Wireless on the Acer appeared to be slightly more sensitive than the NC10, I certainly preferred the interface. Only thing that swung it to the NC10 for me was the matte screen and slightly bigger keyboard, 2 things the kids are not likely to appreciate mcuh.

Richer Sounds sell one which you can hook up to an existing system. About 25 quid last time I checked.

Think the new Asus 1000HE also has it as well. It also shares the odd placement of the right shift key which was enough to put me off buying it...

A hardware usb keylogger is about 40 quid (15 to 20 for a PS2) and sits between the keyboard and PC port. Undetectable by AV, but the risk is a paranoid user finding it and yanking it out. The ones sugeested by Grumbly will do the job but at a cost. AB Tutor as suggested would be a cheaper alternative but with none of the automation for screendumps. If you have the system tray disabled in group policy, you could use iTalc for nothing.

Google Colour Management. Will give you more info on monitor profiling.

Give them OpenOffice instead?