Butuz

True - but a few quid x 100 is a few hundred quid and a few hundred quid = a few more monitors Andrew

I'd say go for 19's now. Think of the future - you want your monitors to last 5 years ideally - in 5 years time you might need to run 1280x960 or some such resoloution whearas now 1024x768 is probably fine. Saying that - the budget is so bad here at the moment I would completley ignore my own advice and get as many 17's as i can for the money. Still running 800x600 on pupil PC's as have such a variety of monitors incluing old 15 and 17 CRTs Andrew

Wow!!! My perfect job!! Pity my SIMS knowledge is a bit weak. Butuz

Hehe @ wireplay. Played Quakeworld and Q2 _alot_ on Globalnet - cue a couple of £400 phone bills and my parents banning me from the internet for 6 months. Pity as I was kicking some ass! Butuz

Darn shame its temporary! Butuz

I've got loads lying around. How many do you need? Dont mind sending them to you if you cover postage. Andrew

Because its coded using bloaty rubbish java- it will probably hit your network quite hard if 100+ users at a time. I would deploy it - it runs slow enough coming off a nice fast hard drive! Andrew

Departments pay for Pens here - thus they seem, to take rather more care of them. Andrew

Wow! Round here you would get sacked for having a conflict of interests like that! Andrew

Sounds like your array could have become corrupt. Did your hot spare actually come online and succesfully do a consistency check? Andrew

Spiceworks server does not have to go on the forest root - it can go on any member server, or even a workstation. Andrew

Yes, and yes! Butuz

Rich - if your call was important then there would be a real person at the end of the line willing to listen to you. Put the phone down, and call someone else! Andrew

To be honest Kerry your mind seems to be firmly made up no matter what we say. TCO - Total Cost of Ownership, it is no managment babble buzzword - it is real life. When you buy cheap equipment that you know is not up to the job, you end up with higher TCO. It's garunteed. You / the head may think your saving money now, but it will cost your school more over the next 5 years than you will probably realise Andrew

If your having ahard time just ordering a laptop - imagine what is going to happen when the laptop breaks down! Maybe try a company based in the UK? Andrew

Good luck with that budget! I wouldnt expect to get a quality laptop with any sort of durability built in for those prices Expect a slow laptop that will more than likely break - and end up costing you more in the long run than a decent one would have! Andrew

Sounds like a sloooow network and a biiiig headache! Andrew

The PC should pick up the resoloutions the monitor supports once it boots up with the monitor attatched. At least all of mine do that. Worst comes to the worst you can force it to see the resoloutions of the monitor by using the monitor driver on CD. Andrew

Can anyone give me about £300k so I can replace all of the out of date, expensive to maintain equipment we have here, an employ a well qualified techie :? That would be my blue sky Butuz

Problem is mate - the scenarios you are quoting appear to be the "ultimate LEA", the LEA that actually is at the forefront of educational ICT, driving change, and providing excellent support. These "ideal" LEA's are few and far between, I bet country wide you could count them on one hand. The rest of the LEA's tend to offer mediocre to poor ICT support, and very little in the way of innovation. I am watching this thread, and indeed BSF with great interest as it has not yet come to Wales. Andrew

I'm using a 19 and a 20" widescreen on my admin machine and I have to say I probably wouldnt want to go back. The 20" widescreen has a much better res (1680 x 1024 i think) wheras the 19" is only 1440 x 900. The extra res on the 20" widescreen makes it veryt worthwile - and you can get 19" ones with the same res now too. As for widescreens in the classroom, I fail to really see any benefit to be honest. BUT it is an inevitable thing in the same way TFT's have replaced CRT's, widescreen TFT's will become the norm very soon, and if you run non widescreen resoloution on widescreen TFT the image quality is reduced so it is not a good thing. Andrew

Sudden broadcast storms tend to be a network loop caused by a little cherub plugging in a patch cable to two drops. As has been said above, if you have managed switches then spanning stree can prevent this from taking your network down. Good way to find your network loop would be to unplug each of your switches one at a time from your core switch until your core switch returns back to normal activity - at least then you've isolated the loop back to a partiuclar network cabinet / building, you can then further isolate the fault on that particular cabinet until you find the port that's actually looped. Andrew

Hmm mine does this too - it will drop back from the log on screen to the HP thin client screen for several seconds and then just as randomly it will connect back to the log on screen. I think it is a problem with the HP clients themselves because old workstations i have here on thin client do not do this, they stay at the log in screen reliably. Andrew

Wow @ the Group ICT Director! Butuz

John - may I take this opportunity to say that getting rid of local clipart was the worst "improvement" you ever made to Office! Welcome to Edugeek by the way! Andrew