steveg

Can't you use a relay wired in series with the kettle's switch - just leave the kettle switched on ready to be used from the network? Has the advantage that anyone that doesn't know how to switch it on from the network can't use your kettle! Steve

How big is your network overall? How many of the advanced features do you need? It would be useful to get an idea of your overall network design, and which specific parts you are looking to replace to recomend an appropriate switch. I'm a big fan of the netgear kit, and now use it in all but the biggest of networks. We've purchsed over £25k worth of their switches (the most recent lot came from Millgate, who came in the cheapest) in the last 2 years alone, and have only had 1 device fail in that time, which was replaced under warranty. Steve

We use prm as well, i think you need a minimum of 30 devices before they will collect. We normally get a free mug as well :-) Steve

Are you planning to use it with adobe cs5? If so i'd go for a core i7, 8gb ram and a cuda compatible graphics card. At work my machine is the following spec: Quad core athlon 8gb ram Some pretty expensive nvida graphics card i cant remember the model of 4 1tb hdd's in raid 5 This runs it pretty well, could do with a quicker cpu. The graphics card is great for previewing effects - renders very smoothly even with hd video. Basically it depends on what software you are planning to use, how long you're prepared to wait for things and what your budget it. Near enough any new pc these days will do video editing to some extent. Steve

It does the same thing for me, but only on some lines, and only while I'm typing! As soon as I press enter to go to the next line they then look fine! I hadn't noticed before. IE 9 and win 7 x64 Steve

I'd remove it from the external case, and directly connect it inside a pc to see if it's the controller that is the problem. If it still doesnt work then there are a number of different recovery software programs you can run which should be able to still get the data back. (search for recovery software on these forums should bring up a few) Steve

Misco have quite a few cashback deals on at the moment, recently got some core i3 acer laptops for 275 ex vat after cashback. Steve

Videospin (also by pinnacle) is great in a primary setting, but its a complete pain to buy the extra codec packs that you will need (no option for buying a load, they have to be purchased on each machine. For this reason in the end we went for the full version of pinnacle studio, and although it does crash occasionally with the flip videos, its been pretty good, even ran fine on some of our older pc's. Steve

We have 3 cabinets, 1 (server room) ,2 and 3. 1 and 2 are linked via fiber running at 10gig, 1 is connected to 3 via 4 cat6a cables trunked to give a 4 gig link. There is then another 4 gig trunk for redundancy running between cabs 2 and 3. All client connections are gig, and sever connections range from 1 gig to 4 gig. Steve

Technically its not another offer? It's just the same offer being used a lot of times! Steve

A lot of the places that sell the camera's also do 30m cable extensions, not sure how good the video signal is over that length, although if they sell them I assume they would be ok! Might get it to an easier location. Steve

We've done exactly this using an old pc, a cheap capture card and a copy of Zone Minder. Also has the benefit that you can set it to record when it detects motion. Steve

We've got a few bits of old kit to get rid of that still have some value (we re-cycle most of the old kit, but I think these are worth selling) any idea how much these are worth second hand? HP procurve 5406ZL with 2 24port gig modules, 1 Wireless Edge services ZL module, and 12 11.g access points HP Procurve 2810-24g switch Cisco Aironet 1200 series 11g access points (I think we have 5 or 6 of these, got to dig the box out!) Thanks Steve

All microsoft client operating systems are limited to 10 incoming connections, not sure if this would apply to ip traffic 'passing through' though, but if it does that severly limits what you can do with this. I think if you factor in configuration and troubleshooting time, this is not going to be a cost effective solution when compared with a lower end managed wireless system. Steve

It's worth looking at the Polycom PVX software. It's only around £90 for a licence, so with a good webcam on a pc you can do most of what you can do with a £2k polycom VC unit. Steve

Most manafacturers will have something that will do it, personally on that sort of scale I like Netgear kit, and would go for something like the GSM7328S in the core. This comes in either 24 or 48 port copper varieties, both of which have 4 sfp ports to accept fiber modules, and 2 10gig ports, if you ever needed to upgrade the speed of any of the links. (the 10gig modules are pretty good value, we have our backbone running over them) Steve

I believe /secfix just copies security information - for example if you copy all the files first, then decide you did want to copy security permissions, you can use that to just copy security settings and not all the files again. Steve

I normally just use the /r:0 and /w:0 options - so if it fails on a file it just moves on. I figure that if it fails to copy something on the first attempt, the chances are it isn't going to get anywhere by keep trying so it it might as well just move on. Steve

If you're doing this on your own (i.e dont have the backup of a large company behind you etc) then I'd say in the region of £130 to £180 per day is reasonable. Don't forget that to work in most schools as a contractor you will need public liability insurance. You may find it easier (although you will be paid considerably less, you wont have to worry about tax, national insurance or liability insurance etc) if you ask them to actually employ you as a network manager, but on a 'zero hours' contract - you would then just submit what is effectively an overtime claim each time you do work there. Steve

It's definately worth looking for something less popular. When I was younger the Corsa's were cheap to insure, because Fiesta's had previously been very popular with younger drivers. Obviously now because the Corsa was cheap to insure, it became popular with young drivers so the price went up. When I was 19 I got a 2.0 litre Hyunday Coupe which is about a group 11 in insurance I think, this was almost half the price to insure compared with the 1.3 hyundai accent I had previously! I think its just a case of keep running quotes on various cars until you find one that not many young people have crashed yet! Avoid anything with the word turbo in it - even a small diesel turbo engine seems to double the insurace price! Steve

I am setting up some old laptops for the nursery where my daughter goes. I have loaded them with edubuntu, as I thought there are more likely to be free games etc available for linux. It's got the Gcompris suite loaded, and tux paint, can anyone else recomend any free games or software suitable for 2 - 5 year olds? Thanks Steve

Hp have some great education discounts on at the moment. - For example (from misco) Hp 8100 Elite, Core i5 660, 4gb ram, 500gb hdd, dvd writer and win 7 pro with 3 year warranty is £477 ex vat for education customers, normal website price is £679.99 ex vat, Don't think that model has the graphics outputs you want, but worth looking at the hp range, and don't go by the website prices! Steve

This would be an ideal role for anyone who has a Term Time only contract and wants a few extra days work over the holidays, or anyone who can fit in a bit of extra work around another job / studying etc. Job Vacancy - Casual IT Technician Single status grades 1 (£12,145 FTE) to 8 (£22,643 FTE) depending on experience. During certain busy periods of the year, often over School holidays we have a need for additional members of IT staff. We are therefore looking to recruit several IT Technicians on a casual contract to work when there is demand. Pay will be dependant on experience, however experience of some of the following would be useful: • Windows XP, 7. Server 2003 and 2008 • SQl 2008 • Exchange 2003 / 2007 / 2010 • Office xp onwards • Virtualisation technologies • AV equipment installation / maintenance • SIMS / FMS • General DIY skills If you would like further details and an application pack please pm me an email adress. Steve

Would anyone else still continue to work? I'd cut down to 3 or 4 days a week, but would still work! Steve

That's just showing off! lol Do some LEA's centrally host sims and fms?