CHiLL

I use SCCM and these can be done: How do you name the computers automaitcally? This can be done by using variables in the Task Sequence. I don't have them to name them automatically, just before it deploys the OS, I go round each one, type the name and start the imaging process. This can be automated though: https://www.windows-noob.com/forums/topic/1133-setting-computername-during-deployment/#entry5374 How do you join the computers to the domain? This is done in the Task Sequence, there's a specific step for joining the domain and specifying the AD credentials. Is there any way to use different local admin passwords somehow? (we have a different password for each IT room) We use Microsoft's LAPS for all local admin passwords. Though not different per room, every computer has it's own unique local admin password, which we can find by using the LAPS GUI, installed on our technician machines and domain controllers. I believe the above can be done fairly easily in WDS too, if you don't want to purchase SCCM.

Our staff agree and understand that their Internet usage is monitored and saved. We periodically get requests from the Head's PA (who does HR) to provide logs of Internet usage for individual staff. This is fine, because the request is logged and it's periodic. I would be less inclined to provide unlimited access to all staff history or forward captures automatically.

We use SCCM (which sits on top of WDS and we've integrated MDT). We haven't required sysprep since we implemented SCCM back in 2015 and migrated from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

I've encountered this, though it was mainly an issue in the start of lockdown when staff hadn't brought their laptops in before everything shut down. I also encounter an issue where the VPN and/or certificate just magically disappear from the user's profile/certificate store for absolutely no reason. It's there and working one day, they go to bed and get up the next morning to work remotely...and BAM...it's gone. I thought I'd found a solution to this...until it didn't work for a user and I was like "meh, staff are back on site now, so I won't investigate further". We have the free version of Cisco Meraki deployed to all of our clients. We can use their cloud dashboard to remotely control the user's laptop when it's at home. I can then get that user to log onto RDS, open their certificate store on RDS and export the VPN certificate. I can then upload it to their OneDrive, exit RDS and download the certificate to their remote laptop. Once downloaded, I can install the certificate. This worked well a handful of times and the last time, it failed and despite the certificate being there, the VPN wouldn't connect. We deploy the VPN profile as a Script Application via SCCM, which simply executes the PowerShell script and configuration XML. I copied those files to OneDrive (I think I had to change some file extensions to bypass the file type block) and shared it with the necessary staff. I then downloaded it from their OneDrive and executed it. That installed/reinstalled the VPN profile. We have Intune, though I never looked into the SCEP deployment that @Norphy mentioned. I'd like to check that out at some point.

I wouldn't have expected any difference, much like where wasn't any noticeable gaming performance difference between 2.0 and 3.0 when it launched. Where it does makes sense with with the new PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives and file streaming in games. We can actually thank consoles for pushing this, though pricing and hardware compatibility will remain an issue for a while.

Yeah, Overclockers, Scan, Novatech, Aria PC and others have all had/still having downtime due to demand.

I think I will be upgrading from my 1080 Ti to a 3080, most reviews I'm seeing seem to say that there's about a 70% performance increase between the two. I've been increasingly playing through my 4K LG OLED TV than on my 1440p 165Hz monitor and the 1080 Ti does struggle, especially on new titles to maintain 30-60fps on even moderate settings on modern titles. I want to see the AIB reviews that should be going live today. I can't afford the high end £800+ models, like the Asus ROG STRIX, but the lower £650-£700 models like EVGA FTW and Asus TUF, possibly. I want to see performance comparison between those and the founders edition before I make a decision on which to buy.

We have the GT710 in our office workstations purely because it can support 3 displays. It does the job perfectly well and it's cheap.

This is the third school I've worked in that uses this approach and something I've seen people say they do on here over the years. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm just going off personal experience and observations over the years. We use exceptions to allow students to send/receive from specific domains, such as GCSEPod, UCAS, etc. These exceptions can be added to, providing it is approved by a higher up.

The general agreed practice, regardless of the student's age, is that they cannot send or receive emails from outside of the domain. The only exceptions we have in our emails is that they can receive emails from online educational resource sites that the school has signed up for, so that they can register and also reset their own passwords. GCSEPod is an example that springs to mind. This is starting to become less common recently, since a lot of sites are able to be configured with O365 SSO. Using that approach, their usernames/email addresses aren't being exposed outside of the domain, except for GDPR compliant educational resources...the username format doesn't really matter. Though we specifically use the format in your example for ease. Intake year, first letter of forename and surname. It's quicker to type than the student's full name. Sure, we often have duplicates...but they just get a number appended to the end of their username. Better than the previous username format on the system I inherited: Year they leave year 11, first three letters of their forename and first four letters of their surname. So a new year 7 called James Smith currently gets the username: 20JSmith, whereas on the old system it would be 25JamSmit. I have no idea why they chose to do it that way and it offends me! It's one of the first things I changed when I started.

Les Miserables (2019 - French language) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10199590/ The story follows a cop from the countryside, who relocates to the city suburbs and joins a local police team. Following the aftermath of France's 2018 World Cup win, raising tensions between different groups of the community spiral out of control after an arrest of a troubled teenager, suspected of stealing from one of the groups goes wrong. I really enjoyed this film, it was tense and enthralling. 8/10

I doubt it, I'm just going off what's already in the room. All rooms have speakers, but they're not self powered, they get it from the amp. The speakers also have bare speaker wires that are terminated in the amp. If you're using speakers without a separate amp, are they mounted above/in line with the top of a whiteboard? If so, what do you do about the volume control of the speakers? Our classrooms are generally average size, for ~30 students. What sort of speakers are you using in your classrooms?

We have wall-mounted speakers that connect to a wall-mounted amp box. This setup has been in place for donkey's years and the older amps are particularly flakey. Specifically the volume control knob becomes very fiddly, where it only produces audio if it's in juuuust the right position. We're in a case now where we are having to use Teams for some remote learning and these amps are flaking out in the room and we're looking to get them replaced. I was wondering what sort of replacements I should be looking at. Maybe we need to look away from something with a volume control knob? Ideally we'd prefer something with downward facing cable inputs, instead of outward because they end up getting smashed by the back of a chair or something. Anyone got any suggestions?

I think after the start of term a lot of us have had, these socks would a welcome gift!

That would make sense, though it's the rest of the config that confuses me. I'm under the assumption that core config data is all stored on the internal storage.

I'm super confused. Our QNAP TVS-1271U-RP failed and we ordered a TVS-1272XU-RP to replace it. It arrived today, so I've removed the old server and fitted the new one, then swapped the drives over and connected the power and network. Since it's a new server, first use would involve it obtaining a DHCP address, I used QNAP QFinder to locate it...and this is where it gets weird. QFinder lists the device, but it was the same name and IP address as the old one! So I browsed to the IP address in Chrome and was able to log in with the credentials used on the old server. All the file shares and data are also there. The old server was configured with two RAID groups, 8x 8TB drives in bays 1-8 and 3x 3TB drives in bays 10-12. I installed the 8TB drives back into bays 1-8 and 3TB drives into bays 10-12. I doubt the exact drive went into the exact same bay number though. At first, I thought I'd done a stupid and removed and then refitted the server. But no, the system information lists the new model number, new CPU and it's diagram of port layout also reflects the new server. The only thing I can think of is that QNAP have taken the config/backup of the failed server and configured the new one with it. Though I didn't supply them with a backup/config data. The only thing I've sent to them previously is error logs and they didn't make me aware of anything like this.

I hadn't heard of GamerHash. I just Googled it and my first thought was nope. I just don't trust blockchain type things when it comes to 'making money'. I also doubt, like you suggested, whether the money earned would outweigh the electricity usage. I have a smart metre at home and it's usually in the green when the average items (TV, Sky box, router, fridge, etc) are running and the PC is idle. When I'm gaming, it'll go orange due to the extra power draw. If the PC is on all day and I'm gaming for several hours, it can add an extra £1 per day in electricity. As for the PSU, it could have simply just died, whether of old age, hardware failure or from an overclock. When it comes to overclocking, you need to make sure that the PSU has enough wattage headroom above the full-load capacity the system already draws. AI overclocking doesn't take that much extra, but manual overclocking can. The PSU isn't the only thing to consider when looking at manual overclocks, you have to have the right board. Most Intel unlocked and AMD Ryzen CPUs allow overclocking, assuming the board has the capabilities. However even if a board has the options, it doesn't mean you can properly overlock. The VRM/power delivery on some cheaper motherboards cannot handle the extra power demand required and can fail.

A few years ago our executive head at the time gave an instruction for all staff to join a union. This came from an incident in his other school where a student had made a (later found false) allegation against one of their staff, who wasn't in a union. Police were involved and it was a mess because the member of staff had no legal protection whatsoever. It was this incident that made me join Unison at the time, as I wasn't in a union, despite working in schools for ~5 years prior. I kept thinking "oh, I'll just do it later", which I constantly delayed. I then switched to the NEU because I wanted a union that was more education oriented, as Unison/Unite/GMB are all generic industry unions.

Tenet - 8/10 This was my first time back to the cinema since March. It was pretty empty and masks are required inside the foyer and during the screening, though you can remove them to eat/drink. Nobody seemed to enforce it in the screening though. I enjoyed this film, even if it was a complete mind bender and I'm not entirely sure what was going on. A lot of timey-wimey-ness but I thought it was an enjoyable watch with some good acting (even if Sir Ken's accent was a little dodge). Maybe it helped that I just enjoyed being back at the cinema after so long (even though the aircon was far too cold and I was sat there freezing)

Ohh, I didn't realise there were two Education skews of Windows 10, based on Pro and Enterprise. That makes sense then. In that case, can you not just use SRA to block the exe name as a wildcard? Or have a block all and operate a whitelist for allowed Windows apps? As for VAMT/ADBA. I had originally been using VAMT and migrated to ADBA a couple of years ago. It's a fairly straightforward process and clients just activate themselves for both Windows and Office Professional Plus (but not ProPlus as that's subscription/O365 licensing based).

If you're looking to block Windows Apps from running, use AppLocker. It won't remove them from the Start Menu, but it'll stop users opening them by displaying an access denied message.

I wouldn't keep it insured if it's owned by someone else, you'd then be liable for any damages or injuries occurred by that person.

An update if anyone else comes across this thread. Further investigation lead to discovering that the QNAP was rebooting itself under heavy load, which was causing the iSCSI LUN to break and the RAID to resync every time. I raised the issue with QNAP support and they determined it was a hardware fault from the logs I submitted. They suspected a RAM issue, though memtest ruled that out, so they surmised that it must be an issue with the CPU or motherboard. The cost for out-of-warranty repair and out-of-action time wasn't justifiable, especially when you consider the cost of a new unit and the three year warranty as standard.

Sorry, I should have been more specific in my OP (edited now!). This is a dedicated backup device, we have 2x HP DL360 G9 as our ESXi hosts for our production servers with 2x HP MSA 2040 for storage.

Our dedicated backup NAS (QNAP TVS-1271U-RP) has developed a hardware fault and it's out of warranty. It's more cost effective to purchase a replacement than to repair it out of warranty. We're getting quotes for the TVS-1272XU-RP, which is their direct replacement since ours has been discontinued. Our requirements: Rack mounted 12-Bay Supports 8TB disks (Seagate Ironwolf) RAID6 support At least 4x 1GbE ports that can be trunked (we don't have switch capacity for 10GbE or fibre) Software/apps that can perform other tasks, like file/media hosting (Emby for example) Companion iOS file sharing/syncing app (QNAP have QFile, which we used to sync photos taken from the shared iPads to our system) The QNAP has been pretty good and reliable in the 5+ years we've had it, with good performance, I'm looking for similar specs. I'm open to looking outside of QNAP if the price is right. Does anyone have any suggestions?