sonofsanta

I've just done a five year plan to help with budget planning, so SLT/Finance had an idea of what ballpark to aim for with my budget. I wrote up what had been done over the last ten years (because that's how long I've been here) to give context to everything, then presented numbers for any annual cost >£1000, including a plan for how many PCs would be replaced and when with an approx cost based on last purchase price + 5% inflation. I was only going to do three years, but as we replace hardware on a five year cycle I needed to work out the five years anyway. Lots of specific financial info in there so I don't want to post it publicly, and I cba to redact it, but if anyone wants to see it PM me and I'll fire the Word doc over. I warn you that it's not very exciting though!

A 1030 won't be an upgrade over a a 560; it'll be a backwards step I expect, as the x30 cards are basically just video outputs for office machines. If you can chip in another £23, you can get an 8GB Radeon 580 for £143; I can't find a direct comparison as your 560 is so old (sorry), but that new AMD 580 vs an nVidia 750Ti (about the same as your 560) shows the new card to be about 3 times better. The Radeon 570 is not much cheaper, so it's worth the £13 extra for the 580 IMHO--and definitely get an 8GB card, so it will last you a good few years yet. An i5-2500 was a very fine processor in its day, and honestly probably still holds up--certainly more so than your GPU will.

I was very underwhelmed by Rise of Skywalker. (Will white everything that follows out, for spoileriness, even as I'm going to be as vague as I can be just in case.) It spent too much of its time trying to backtrack on things Last Jedi had done--it started with the reforging of Kylo's mask!--rather than just accepting it and moving forward. Nothing anyone did seemed to have any consequences: the trailer itself spoiled one supposed shock, because I knew we hadn't had a certain scene yet so said shock must be a fake out (and it was). And another character made a sacrifice that was undone. People got their way without needing to sacrifice anything personally--there was a lot of physical effort from characters, but no emotional effort. Redemption came way too easy to others. Leia felt very shoehorned in, such that other characters had to talk to her like she was Chewie, making sure they announced all the important details themselves because her response was going to be so generic (though tbf, I don't know how else they could have done it--you couldn't recast Princess Leia, and I was never convinced by CGI Leia in R1.) Rose was abandoned in favour of new half-baked characters with not enough time to be developed. And the big reveal for a certain character was so obvious and unnecessary my eyes almost rolled back in my head. It didn't surprise me at any point, like Last Jedi did: it all felt plodding and predictable and completely lacking in tension or development or arc, instead content to just throw out more flashy CGI and characters running while shouting exposition. This essay from Film Crit Hulk discusses a lot of my problems with the story far more eloquently than I ever could. The lightsaber fight was pretty cool, though, and the concept art book is going to be amazing. Also saw Spies in Disguise with the kids, which was more fun than I expected. Carried entirely by Will Smith being Will Smith and Tom Holland being Tom Holland, but it's a good pairing, and better than some kids films I saw this holiday (the new Addams Family, omg how did they make it so bad). Klaus on Netflix is surprisingly excellent, too, if you're looking for options next Christmas; beautifully animated, cleverly conceived, surprisingly emotional.

tbh I don't use the CD player--just the USB port and the line in. Is there a way I could disconnect the CD player specifically? Happy to live without that if it means living without the noise!

Seems like it can be pretty much immediate, and it's always after flashing CD PLAYER ERROR. Definitely a speaker sound too, not a fan sound (though could the fans be inducing interference if there's some sketchy wiring going on?)

I have only heard it start while the engine has been running, FWIW, though admittedly that may be because I don't tend to sit around in my car in silence going nowhere!

Not connected to revs, no--I get that sort of whine sometimes if I have my phone on charge and connected to Aux, so I know what you mean--and as best I can tell is from every speaker, though as it's white noise it's pretty hard to tell directionality (is that a word? I've decided it's a word). I was thinking it might be some shielding or something, but going to have to pull the whole bloody thing out to check that :/

If any of y'all are willing to fund the replacement I am more than happy to, but otherwise I'm lumped with it!

He says in the description that he ended up buying another stereo, but others in the comments say it worked still, so I might give it a go. I mean, my IT instinct is just to try reseating all the cables anyway, gotta be worth a pop (and if nothing else it's shown me how to pull it all out, was worrying I'd have to work from the passenger footwell) Bit concerned at all the people saying it was a flaw with the 2012-13 stereos. Certainly my 2010 Fiesta never had any trouble before it was written off, but this model has the USB input too so it is a different stereo

D'oh! Knew I missed something off. 2012 plate Ford Fiesta, 1.6 diesel (the Econetic one). Had it since September, so about 6-7000 miles at this point, and it's only recently started. Standard stereo system, nothing aftermarket. This'll happen after an hour's driving with the heater on as well, so I don't think it's cold/moisture

So about a week ago my car started making this noise through the speakers. I'll be driving along fine, then my stero system will flash up CD PLAYER ERROR (or sometimes USB ERROR) and that sound will start to build. Sometimes it then cuts out (completely and immediately) of its own accord, but other times it keeps going for minutes at a time, even if I pull over, kill the engine, get out the car and lock it. The only way I've been able to stop it and prevent myself going insane is to pull the fuse out behind the glovebox and kill the audio system entirely (specifically fuse 20 from page 120 of the manual). I've tried reinserting the fuse in the hopes that running without it would have reset it, but no joy; within ten minutes this morning it was building again. It's loud; louder than I'd play music, normally, perhaps a handdryer level of volume. All I can think is that there's a wire behind the stereo unit or clock display that's gone funny somehow, and isn't grounded, but that'll be an effort to pull out and look at and I don't really have a clue what I'm doing, so I wondered if anyone else had any ideas before I accidentally damage my car or lock my stereo!

I heard that from a sales bod on their pitch about two weeks ago

Oh my god, look at the bezel! Amazing stuff. No idea on how old it is, but our bell system still runs from some weird radio controller on the first floor of the caretaker's cottage, programmed on an old laptop kept alive for the sole purpose via serial cable. Must be from the early 00's at the latest.

We had a demo last week, and yes, properly web based. You can open multiple pages in different tabs to multitask/compare records, because it's all just web pages. Works on anything with a browser, including tablets and phones, though the latter might be a bit too awkward for the full-fat experience--there are apps available, though.

That's a really interesting read--thanks. Had no idea Advanced had tanked so hard, but goodness.

Well I just came out of three hours with Bromcom, and honestly, if we go with SIMS then I riot. I suspect the other staff who were in with me might join me, by the impressed sounds they were making throughout. Having been a big proponent of "an integrated system with all the data can do things better", knowing that was Bromcom's selling point, even I got caught out at one point when I asked about giving the exams officer extra rights on the room booking system. "Why would she need it?" "Well to book IT rooms for people with requirements--" "But the exams scheduler will already have booked it out for her." ~lightbulb moment~

I alluded to this in my feedback to the Head after the meeting. I challenged the sales bods about why should we move to SIMS 7 now only to have to retrain on SIMS 8 in a couple of years? "Oh you won't need new training!" Right, so that's an admission that you've not improved your product at all, then.

So is anyone else in the country considering a move to SIMS, or are we the only ones? (Again, not my preference...)

Following links and Google cache results from @supportman's link above, it looks like the initial release to secondaries was meant to be Autumn 2018. That's enough to prove that they've slipped before, they'll likely slip again, and we can't expect SIMS 8 to be ready (i.e. others have been the guinea pigs) until 2023/24 at the earliest. Cheers all!

I'd planned to do all this work a year ago, but then the Head up and announced he was retiring so we decided it was unfair to make this decision before the new Head was in place. Cos now I have to move CMIS from its 2008R2 server this month for probably no more than 6 months' life on its 2016 home!

Believe me I know. My purpose right here is less "evaluate SIMS 8" and more "provide evidence that they're selling what they ain't got"

They claimed in the meeting that they have got primaries running on it now, and some of them have gone so far as decommissioning SIMS 7 entirely, so they could have managed 2018.

Our new Head has kicked off a process of evaluating our MIS options, and he's come from a SIMS school so I know he's keen on it. I'm massively concerned that we'd be fools to go from the 20-year old FacilityCMIS to the 16 year old SIMS 7 when we're committing for a decade (no way I want to do this project more than that), and as much as SIMS were keen to impress upon us that SIMS 8 is Coming Soon™, I can't help but suspect that "January 2021" was not their first target date. Can anyone who's been talking to SIMS longer let me know how much they've slipped from the first date, i.e. how likely they are to keep slipping? What's the oldest date anyone has been promised for a SIMS 8 launch? (We're a state secondary, FWIW, as I know they're launching with primaries first)

Given that Microsoft give us, what, 1,000,000 student licences for O365 now, I no longer delete any accounts just in case. I disable them in October half term for data protection/security, having given plenty of warning: a lot of kids don't start uni until October and went through UCAS using their school account. We archive off their files to save space, but the account itself is doing no harm sitting there disabled, and we sometimes get requests to re-enable (because someone is taking a gap year and didn't tell us, usually). I'll probably need to start deleting some at +7 years for GDPR, but that's a few years away yet.

And here I am nagging an Assistant Head to go and look at a new monitor in the DT room to see if he'd like a 32" 1440p screen like that one or a 27" 1440p screen. If you are looking at 22in monitors, I'd seriously recommend talking to @ICTDirect_Dave--the monitors he has are not necessarily any cheaper than what's on eBuyer, but they are a proper business class of device, so come with a full range of adjustability (vs none on a cheap BenQ) and a good contrast ratio (don't get anything less than 1000:1), plus they're just generally sturdier to survive classroom life. 19". Good grief. Get him to go into literally any other school and check what they're using, cos I reckon any of the rest of us have 22" as a minimum now, except where matching to a 4:3 projector.