sonofsanta

@Joanne - dispelling female technician stereotypes since 2007. "I like the wooo wooo sounds they make!!"

Run it as a startup script? No reason not to. You could run the script asynchronously so it doesn't delay login, but you could get problems with people logging in and immediately opening something Java.

lolwut? On what grounds? What's the point in suspended ceilings if you're not allowed to go into them? Daft. Network cable testers are brilliant, though. You should get one.

As I always say, as I said yesterday in another thread, KPMS in South Yorks.

So you need to find which unconnected patch port is the other end of the cable? Oof. Personally I'd plug a PC/laptop into that cable with a known static IP, then go to the switch cab with another laptop, set it pinging that static IP, plug a cable into the switch then go along the patch panel with the other end. When you see pings answer you, you've got your answer. Alternatively go along and wait for the little green light on the switch port to come on, but you won't know if that's this device or another hidden thing you're not expecting...

+1 for KPMS, up Yorkshire way - fantastic bunch of lads, always been astonished by the level of their work. Never even bother going anywhere else for quotes on AV now.

The first two of Series 2 were fantastic, especially the second, White Bear - I still find myself thinking about it, a year and a half after broadcast. A perfect SF short story. The third I found a little weak, but then it's down to personal preference - personally I didn't get on with the reality show episode in Series 1, but loved the final episode. It's all on Netflix now.

Cheers. Just seeing the headlines is upsetting enough. Blocking now. When are we all going to sit down and agree that religion isn't working out and we'd be better off without it, then? I can't see any purpose to keeping it around any longer. It's like taking a childhood teddy to your wedding night at this point; we should've left it on the shelf long ago and it's time to grow up and face reality without the comfort blanket of childish things. That way we can all stop fighting in the playground about who teddy loves best. Sorry, just... very upsetting. Having kids really does rewire your brain.

All students sign the AUP. Years 7 - 11, the parent countersigns it. Gets handed out to them in their first IT lesson of Year 7. Any that haven't been returned to us by October start getting harassed by us, and eventually getting accounts disabled. It's amazing how quickly forms get found, signed & returned once they can't log on anymore. Sixth Form sign their own, they sign other things on their own so made no sense to get parents involved there.

To offer another approach to the 5406zl option: we went with a pair of stacked HP A5800s for our core when we replaced two or three years ago. Worked out a few grand cheaper and have been absolutely rock solid. Thoroughly recommended. Big selling point for us was being able to reuse 3COM transceivers for the fibre - worth bearing in mind if you have some of them mixed in. Edgewise, we have upgraded to HP A5120s at major cabs, stacked where necessary. Also rock solid. Love the stuff.

So Norton Anti-Virus really is extortion? "What's that, you want to stop paying and uninstall? Oh, that's not going to end well for you..." EES is one thing, as it's such good value due to the number it's based on - we have about a fifth as many FTE staff as we do PCs. When it was based on devices, we bought licences outright. If an annual Windows licence was a fifth what it is on EES - £7 - I wouldn't mind, but I suspect it'll be more, and add up to much more than the £45 I paid for Windows 7 on pre-order five years ago... ALSO: they're going to have a big problem with home users and appearances: most people won't consider "cost of Windows" to be part of the cost of their PC, so when they start having to pay a subscription for a free copy of Windows, they'll see it as a new cost from a company gouging them without seeing the saving they've made up front.

Now that is excellent news - TAP was basically the difference between VeryPC and the other two quotes (who were in the scheme at the time) when we went to tender earlier this year. Should make for an interesting tender board for the summer now

At this point I'm waiting for the next gen of Intel CPUs*, Broadwell, as they'll have proper support for NVMe - i.e. an interface designed specifically for SSDs operating over PCI-E, unlike AHCI which is meant for spinning media over SATA. Should be an order of magnitude faster again, all told. Broadwell should have enough PCI-E 3.0 lanes on die to support full bandwidth to the SSD and the GPU as well (and it'll be DDR4, so it's basically The Future Platform). *also a surprising and significant influx of cash, from an as yet unknown of source

Heavens no! What a waste of resources and effort :/

AnySSD > NoSSD. The 840 EVO is still a mighty fine piece of kit, and cheaper than the 850 EVO will be for a while yet. Unless you particularly needed the endurance, you're fine, and if you did, you wouldn't have bought a TLC drive in the first place

Reviews are out, though there's no pricing* this side of the Atlantic yet. AnandTech | Samsung SSD 850 EVO (120GB, 250GB, 500GB & 1TB) Review Samsung's 850 EVO solid-state drive reviewed - The Tech Report - Page 1 In summary: very fast (94k-98k read IOPS), very consistent, 5 year warranty and highly rated for endurance (75TB/150TB depending on model). The 40nm V-NAND mitigates all the issues of TLC, in essence. It all depends on how the pricing lands compared to the Crucial MX100, as far as I'm concerned, but it certainly looks an excellent drive. And look how small it is! So much empty space in its case (250GB on the left, 1TB on the right): *scan.co.uk have some prices up but they seem fairly high, and they're the only site listing them, so I suspect they've taken a cautious stab in the dark with pricing. I hope so, otherwise you can get a 256GB MX100 for the price of the 120GB 850 EVO, which will never work.

Novatech also offer this IIRC. VeryPC probably do as well, not got any direct experience as yet though. Personally I prefer an RTB warranty; both Novatech and Stone have both given me extra machines in the past to use as Hot Swaps while the original is repaired, or given me a stock of spare components on site for rapid repair, and I can then arrange replacement of the faulty part. Works out at much less downtime for the user - I can get to the classroom with a spare machine within ten minutes. Ain't no engineer gonna beat me on that

More information on him in an interview Ars have just reposted from last year: arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/12/in-the-beginning-ralph-h-baer-and-the-birth-of-the-game-console/

IrfanView also has batch file management built in, as well as generally being an excellent little image viewer.

I had big problems when I inadvertantly installed SQL Express on my SCCM Server running proper SQL. Some daft Office 365 component that hid the option "use the existing SQL install" as a /switch, rather than, say, offering it as an option in the install process... So I'd be very, very careful, though there may be steps you can take to mitigate the horrific levels of damage I inflicted (necessitated a complete restore from snapshot to fix it).

How did I miss this thread in the first place? I don't know whether I'm delighted that I can look so good for free or annoyed that it's going to be lots of work, but it seems too good an offer to keep to myself.

My problem with T3 was that it completely changed the philosophy from "there is no fate but what we make for ourselves" to "oh well, no way of stopping it, it had to happen cos it was fate!" It was an alright action movie, but it wasn't up to the level of T1 & T2. John Connor was a big wimp in it as well.

If it means we can pretend T3 and Salvation didn't happen, I'm all for it tbh. I will cry if they dare go near BTTF though.

omg actually looks amazing please don't be poop please don't be poop please don't be poop (Which, oddly enough, is the same thing I was chanting as I watched the Jurassic World trailer. This next year could either be amazing for my inner ten year old, or awful...)

giddy giddy giddy giddy I absolutely adore Black Mirror. Can't wait.