john

@Liam you sounds like me in this respect, I was manager at a secondary up north that had just expanded, close to home etc.. so ticked many boxes but was time for change for me and to spread my wings further. I'm now an IT Manager covering a large region spanning to +8hrs in time zones from the UK and it certainly differs and its mainly good. We have funding to buy kit to improve the business etc.. its not on tap however it needs justification but if we can justify it and show management what it will do it can usually be found, even in a school once convinced due to limited funds available it didn't always happen. I get to travel and have been across Europe with this job which is nice as I had never been abroad before, I have staff in the UK and elsewhere that I manage which gave me new challenges and dealing with people across different time zones, countries and cultures which are also very exciting and can be incredibly frustrating as its clear IT in some countries which are maybe seen as good places are very much not and I do get tired of the porkies coming from some resellers in some parts of the world as they forget I buy things everywhere so they can be found out. I do miss the kids however I have big kids instead that sulk that the PC is too slow or crashed or a website is blocked or the email with cats in didn't make it or they need more disk space for X so replace kids with adults and its a business however we don't get the mangled mice, missing keys on keyboards etc that you do in schools which is nice and not had the chewing gum in USB ports yet either! Job Security yep a risk in life in any job tbh, I feel relatively secure in mine, I started as a Systems guy and moved to the management role I am in now so progression is possible but how much higher depends on the firm I guess, our structure is quite good but not much higher to go really in my view so if I want higher or more its go elsewhere. Pay is always something people think I must be a millionaire now... that varies tbh my salary isn't as good as it should be I see jobs on here in uni's that look attractive to me still however I get to work with an amazingly talented group of people which is a big plus and that group of people share skills as we are not silo'd we have areas that people know better than others but we are still jack of all trades in many cases. The shiny extras like heath care etc.. yep they do exist I have some medical cover that pays towards Dentist, Eyes etc... that's a nice thing but it certainly, for me anyway, doesn't make me go I must stay and they respect me as its not that bigger fuss unless your a frequent ill person or have lots of claim potential which I thankfully don't. You need to weigh it up after 10 years maybe your a bit stale and stuck in your ways and a change will re-vitalise you for the better, I know I was, and I know that if someone offered me an amazing package to go back to Education I'd have a lot of new ideas and things I would do differently to how I did them in the past seeing the technology we use and things we have done which are all transportable to Education just on a smaller scale.

other items of my wardrobe are from the range of Edu-Wear that I have or cheaper shops than M&S

Other option, which is what we have just done in our meeting rooms, is use a 10M HDMI to HDMI cable and then get a Display port to HDMI adapter works out much cheaper but one more bit to go missing in a school I guess....

OMG You cannot bomb M&S where am I supposed to get my chinos from!

I'm guessing you have them in and its not great? I haven;t used them but had experience of a firm fitting Chalmore stuff for T5 and it was awful didn't work and was very badly fitted and then in the end we got the usual sparkies out and they said we could have done same work for half the cost and used better kit which tbh they would have. I would always suggest talking to your local sparkie about these schemes as they may actually be able to offer the same or better or an opinion especially if they are a decent firm

Try the card in something else to check it works?

So just me that doesn't like the ad and want the penguine back from last year as that was heart string tugging this year its just meh. Also they did ruin the song.

Not saying that the kit you are getting is at risk just if your thinking I see threads for years ago they have been around a long time like Nationwide have then its not strictly accurate. I have not seen or use the new Vericool but did see the old system when I evaluated Nationwide, Cunninghams and Vericool at the time and in the end went Nationwide

I love that skin Must be great fun in a Primary school to have them

So the modern Vericool is a new company, think its about 4 years old, they were however around with the same name for many years previous to that (you will find threads back to 2007) but that company vanished a couple of years ago just before a BETT if I remember correctly and then the new firm was at BETT and were making it clear they were nothing to do with the old one etc... we did have a discussion on here about it at the time but cannot find it in the many posts that mention Vericool.

With MDT in use here as part of the initial steps of selecting what image you want it gives a box saying to enter the machine name and select the OU for it,.

I was very happy with Nationwide with Parent Pay and the support was excellent and great people at Nation Wide they are a big firm and know there stuff they do a lot of commercial systems as well so have good background in retail technologies and certainly forward thinking. If I was spending my own money I'd use Nationwide and given how Vericool went pop a few years ago and left lots stuffed then re-appeared as a new non-connected firm etc... they are a risk I'd not take. (search Vericool on here you will find threads from a couple of years ago on the subject).

I never really got into Lewis it was too different to Morse in my mind and I much preferred John Thaw in that anyway

I use Crashplan and been very happy with that have the family plan and its unlimited data from many sources and can use it to backup others PCs to my NAS via the same software and to the cloud seems good tech to me

Worth talking to @Net-Ctrl about this they do IP CCTV and I think they use Milestone as well from a past conversation I had with them.

We had some pool phones for school trips and site team had phones, they were through the public sector EE framework agreement so only cost us a few quid a month for basic packages and were fine for that job.

Where I work we have to be specialists in everything, however we all have our stronger areas and people come to the person with that info for help and we take tasks and jobs in those areas based on that but we all share skills and experiences, for example when I started I hadn't really done anything with VMware and now I know lots thanks to my great colleagues sharing skills and experiences

Another vouch for Plex, my Qnap has it (among many other media apps) and its great

Mrs @Dos_Box will love your christmas gift then as much as the dishwasher tablets last year then - - - Updated - - - Mrs @Dos_Box will love your christmas gift then as much as the dishwasher tablets last year then

I remember that fun, didn't I find the magic config lines to fix it last time but alas you didn't have access to run them as root so were stuffed still

If a deal sounds too good to be true it probably is would be a good piece of advice....

No need to buy a server OS License with it you can do that under your EES agreement however the requirement for the Desktop still exists you must have a base license of some form on the Desktop to upgrade from as the agreements only have upgrade licenses.

Multiple time customer here vouching for those services, in fact one of the first in the UK for Ruckus with Net-Ctrl and that good I've bought Ruckus from Net-Ctrl at every job I've ever had now including my current job Top notch support and services from the team so well worth talking to them

What's wrong with your drawing it is quite cool

The cost of that chair good to tell you work for a huge multi-billion $$ company We have some nice chairs in our office Techo Sidiz Range : Techo Office Furniture Systems and they are really comfy and probably one of the best I've had and a collage swears by his Hermon Miller Aero chair