Iain.Faulkner

Hi @tp2 I've bought Ergo PC's for most of the last 7 years and I will be brutally honest with you....For the first 4/5 years they were brilliant, never had an issue with build quality, after sales support was absolutely brilliant. Engineers would turn up on time next day, problem would be resolved very quickly. They would even provide us with a stock of parts (if we wanted) to do the repair ourselves (this isn't something everyone would choose, but for us it means that Pc's get repaired straight away without having to wait 24 hours for an engineer). In 2014 they went through a takeover by a group called VIP (who also own ZooStorm) and at that point the company seems to have split into two (Ergo Solutions and Ergo Devices) and at that point their after sales support went massively downhill....it was difficult to get an engineer out, when they came they'd come with the wrong part, wouldn't know how to get into the cases, support would prefer us to send the PC's back to them despite the warranty etc etc....However(!) since the turn of the year it has massively improved. I get an engineer out next day, he knows what he's doing, comes with the right parts...for me it's back to the service levels of 12 months ago. Had they continued as they were last year, then I would have moved away from them, but as it is they are certainly being asked to quote for the 100 PC's I want to replace over the summer (also partly due to the fact that they are always the cheapest in my experience). I have no experience with VeryPC other than to say that @VeryPC_Colin_M is probably the friendliest guy you will ever speak to and people who have bought PC's from them rave about them and the support they get after sales. I would like to give them a shot with a PC purchase but I do find it a struggle when the business manager looks at the total price of the order.

I'm a big fan of their chippy tea song :-) Saw them at Glastonbury in 2009 really good, very funny

My postcard arrived yesterday :-)

Congrats @Scotbynature :-)

Watched "The Theory of Everything" on Friday night....really really enjoyed it from start to finish :-)

I like the idea of a "How can we help you?" Session and get people to come and discuss their issues with you. We've only ever run either SLT supported "You must attend this" type training sessions (when we replaced the whole network one summer for example) or have run sessions based on what people have specifically asked for...we ran one on "the basics of Twitter" for example. Both of these types of training have been well attended. I do find that anything in between is poorly attended.

It was the drug scene that made me laugh....only bit of the film

I just want to agree entirely with @Mako setting small goals is essential. If you're trying to lose weight try not to think "I've got 5 stone to lose" as it seems like a mountain and it is incredibly off putting when you don't feel you're making progress. When I started losing weight, this time, my first weight loss goal was to lose 2lb's which would take me under 20 stone, my next one was to lose a further 3lb's as then I was 2 stone under my heaviest ever, then it was to lose another 2 lb's to get to my first half stone, then it was to lose a further 4 lb's to get to the weight I was at my wedding and so on and so on.

Just to echo this, well done @RabbieBurns ! I, like @elsiegee40 am not looking to get to my weight when I was 17...I was the best part of 20 stone when I was 17!!

Watched 21 Jump Street last night...there were a few mildly amusing scenes, but on the whole not for me. Certainly won't be rushing out to watch the sequel

I find your lack of faith disturbing.....

This is going to look like I've copied this from the two posts that have already come in...but yes his first name is Wulff

Not much to add, we use it across the school. We use it as a network management console (useful for logging what students are doing and provides evidence in some cases). Staff use it for displaying student work (share screen), changing passwords and passing out documents that all users need access to. When we're doing bits of maintenance it's very useful as well to be able to centrally turn on a whole suite of PC's and log them on as well without having to visit each machine individually. We also make use of the powersave functionality, forcing PC's to shutdown at specified times. It is expensive, but it's very good and does make our lives much easier.

We've used GBM Digital in Manchester for the last small iPad project we did (10 iPad mini's with a mac mini running OSX Server), they were very good. We're now in talks with them to do a full iPad deployment to all teaching staff. Our contact is Anthony Darlow, and he's been brilliant for us.

Wow! That's incredible

I've got around 200 of their PC's in school and it's rare we have a fault with them. On price, I've found nobody can get near them either. They did have a few issues about 12 months ago with regards support, but it's been much much better since the turn of the year. If we report something, we get an engineer the next day.

This is what has worked for me (approx 7 stone below my heaviest ever weight).....portion control is key as is everything in moderation. Don't tell yourself that you "can't" have chocolate/beer etc etc whatever your vice is, as you'll crave it all the more. Fix the diet first and then increase the exercise. I lost most of my weight through diet alone (first 12 months) and then introduced exercise gradually. I'm now not really losing any weight, but I am changing shape thanks to the exercise.

Thanks :-) I forgot to add, that this time is 26 minutes better than my previous Manchester 10k time :-)

Not sure if this should go in here or not (It's in danger of becoming a general running thread!)....but yesterday I ran the Great Manchester Run 10k....Actually ran it! I ran the full distance (which was my primary aim), and then had a finish time of 59 minutes and 55 seconds!! I am utterly ecstatic at this result, never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd do it in under an hour :-)

The smallest ones we have are for the Casio lampless projectors, they don't get through as we found out when we lost the key for the guard!! Had to cut the lock off with bolt cutters :-(

We've always bought compatibles to replace lost remotes and have always bought through @CPLTD We use something called a remoguard (link below) Selectasize | RemoGuard Which we lock the remotes into and we don't lose them anymore :-)

I have also tried this since my Son was born (he's 21 months now)....and my wife is still having none of it :-( I even tried the "But it might not be available when he's old enough to appreciate it" line, but to no avail :-(

I'm not sure I ever had one

In my experience, @dwhyte85 has summed this up well. This is pretty much how I've found working in education and in industry (only did 12 months in industry and hated it, it was insanely pressured compared to how I've found working in a school - although it does have its moments). I think the only other thing I would add, in my experience, in the negatives is that there is the expectation to deliver the world on no budget.

In some ways yes...but it is quite handy for doing cabling runs :-)