Kitkatninja

Does that mean that I get a shirt of my own due to the mental anguish of sharing half a shirt with Fazza (with the apology that Fazza's getting)?

It's only my opinion based on my own CPD over the years. Others may have a different take, some may agree. It all depends on what you (the person) has experienced.

When you say management, what do you mean? Do you manage a team? Or the IT equipment (eg networks)? or both? With Project Management, you have a variety of different qualifications out there: Prince2 (foundation and practitioner) Comptia Project+ PMP range of certs - Project Management Professional Certification (PMP) The OU M258 - M258 - IT project and service management - Open University Course For IT Management (more on the technical side rather than people side), you got: FITS (level 3 and 4 - the previous versions were level 4 and 5) - The FITS Foundation - Professional qualifications and support for ICT staff within education ITIL - https://www.exin.com/NL/en/exams/&exam=itil-v3-foundation You could go for a Postgrad Cert in Technology Management - C49 - Postgraduate Certificate in Technology Management - Open University For general management, take a look at the: NVQ 3 in Management NVQ 2 in Team Leading This depends on what you actually do on a day to day basis. What do you do with MS technologies? Do you work with/in a multi-domain/multi-site environment? Do you work more with client OS, Server OS or Server App (eg SCCM, Exchange, etc)? Depending on what you work with, should dictate which route to go down. The Cisco certs are one of the biggest in the industry, however I would say be careful with them. How much work do you do with Cisco kit? Added to the fact that Cisco certs need to be renewed every 3 years. It may not be worth it at this moment in time. If you want more generic networking info/certification, look at the following: BTEC Advanced Diploma in Network Design & Admin Level 3 - Home or T216 - Cisco networking (CCNA) - Open University Course (if you really want to do a Cisco specific course, you might as well get credit for it) If you primarily work with HP switches, look at the HP route of certifications. They do from Associate level (entry level) to Masters level (advanced level): HP Institute for students | HP ExpertOne Not really. Either way is fine. Which route do you want to concentrate on first? Are you planning to leave your current place soon? Which route do you want to concentrate on Management or technical?

Same here...

I guess it really depends on what you want to do with it and if the price of the course and exam is worth it (bearing in mind that the certification also has to be renewed* every three years with at least 120 ECH credit hours) For less than the price of that course, you can gain the Post Graduate Certification in Technology Management (a 1/3 of a Masters) which doesn't expire and includes the Digital Forensics module which covers UK law. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with Firebrand, they have a very good rep. Just wanted to make sure that you have alternatives out there. *The credits can be earned in many ways including attending conferences, writing research papers, preparing for training classes in a related domain (for instructors), reading materials on related subject matters, taking an exam of a newer version of the certification, attending webinars, and many others. Qualified ECE activities must have been completed within ECE program’s 3-year window and must be submitted in only one ECE 3-year window. ECE credits are earned on a per annum basis, between January 1 – December 31 of each calendar year. Certified members must register their ECE credits earned by 1 February of the following year to maintain their certification status.

Hi All, We're currently looking for a temp Senior IT Technician for a couple of months (at this moment in time up to the end of summer 2014). We're using a couple of agencies, but you can see the advert from one of them here and here. Sorry I can't give a wage at the moment as it's still to be confirmed (and it's also based on the successful person's experience). Basically, the closing date is as soon as we find someone suitable. We are a Multi-academy trust, we support both schools within our trust as well as school's outside our trust (total of 8 - on a regular & ad-hoc basis). We are currently a small team of 3. Kind Regards -Ken

I've used Neos-IT before, they are pretty good Doing the MCSE within 6 month, even with experience is going to be very hard. Maybe a more pragmatic view would be to aim for the MCSA within 6 month?

What do you mean, when you say classroom based? Actual physical "sit in front" of the lecturer or would a more virtual learning environment do? What type of skills do you want to backup? What type of certification are you aiming for? Have you checked out your local colleges? Or even your Uni's (like the Open U)? What about an apprenticeship? Which combines work based assessment with courses for the technical cert.

There's a wide variety of qualification that you can do... Further Education: BTEC Advanced Diploma in IT Network Design & Administration Level 3 BTEC Award in Computer Engineering Higher Education: OU Open Degree CertHE/DipHE/BSc in Computing/IT BA (Hons) Learning Technology and Research Professional Registration: ICTTech Mark Vendor Agnostic Comptia A+, Network+, Server+, Security+, Project+ Vendor Specific Microsoft Technology Associate Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate Methodology FITS ITIL MOF Prince2 It all depends on how much time and money you want to invest in your training/education...

Hi All, We're looking at all the new printers coming out and have come across the new Epson Laser Killer (we're looking at the WP-4015DN) to replace our printers in the suites. Has anyone here gone down that route? If you have, how have you gotten on and how much have you saved? -Ken

You could propose a hybrid. Virtualise your servers and have a copy of your servers in the cloud in case of server failure. Anyway... Cloud based only: As for issues... Internet connection, what type of internet connection do you have? Do you have a backup line in case your internet connection dies? What company would you consider? Are your Governors happy to have their (the school's) data in a different country that may not different data protection laws? Cloud based failures; Azure, Amazon EC2, etc... Prices can change per year Positives... Lower/reduce hardware costs (server, backup, etc) Go green Up skill yourself to the cloud environment For Virtualisation: Not reliant on external services for your network. Depending on your infrastructure, can be expensive upfront costs. Up skill yourself. Go green These are just a few points

It was nice to put some faces to online names. Keep up the good work -Ken

Resolved for now I built a 2008 r2 RDS server and found that the issue was with the server name in the connection settings of RemoteApp (it had the internal FQDN not the external FQDN - the URL minus the https). It is working for now, so I have released this to staff while I investigate further 2012 r2 and where this option is (it looks like it's been renamed). -Ken

When we connect to the external https site, when trying to launch a published app, it comes up with: RemoteApp Disconnected - the remote computer could not be found. Please contact your helpdesk about this error. In this implementation, all the roles relating to RDS is installed on one server and the required ports have been unblocked on the firewall.

Hi all, We've been looking at getting Windows 2012 r2 RDS working externally and are unable to. Has anyone here got it working successfully externally? Internally it works fine. I'll post up the error in a bit. Thanks -Ken

Wow, that's something that we will have to resurrect over at CF. Basically the awards were quarterly, we didn't give any certificates or trophies out (but that doesn't mean that you can't do it here), but what we did do was give them a status symbol or flag just under their username to show everyone which award they earned. The following was the basic format of the award system: 1. Person had to be nominated for an award by 3 other members. These nominations to be posted on the nomination thread and a running tally will be kept on each thread. 2. Staff (admin and mods) are to be exempt from the awards. 3. A maximum of 5 nominations from the members for each award - this was basically the first 5 people to get nominated by 3 people. 4. Members may nominate only once per category and a person can be nominated for more than one category. 5. Staff award to be nominated by the staff and voted for by the staff. 6. Voting (via a poll) will commence after a weeks nominating and will be for a period of 2 weeks. After this time the member with the highest tally will be awarded the award. We also had/have a page that listed all the members and the awards that were won, sort of like a history check. What else do you want to know?

TBH, the list is endless... You could see about doing the NVQ 3 in IT Systems (or equivalent) or jump straight onto the HNC in Computing course. You could look at getting FITS, ITIL or MOF - best/good practice certs. If you're looking at technology based certs, there's the Security+ and Server+ (both from Comptia) or if you work with specific technology, you could start working towards the MCSA (from Microsoft), the ACSP/ACTC (from Apple) and/or the RHCSA (from Redhat, a Linux distro). As to what potential future Employers look for... Employers look for rounded people (I won't say well rounded people as certain skills will be developed on the job), people that have technical skills, soft skills, some with certain qualifications (this is dependent on the job and the organisation itself) and some don't require qualifications... One other thing that you may be interested in is either the ICTTech professional registration from the ECUK or the higher CITP from the BCS.

I'd also like to add fibre's immunity to electrical noise as an advantage

Have you tried a different domain admin account?

See here, applies To: Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 As it may apply to your situation. You may be logging on as a Domain Admin, but that account may not have the rights.

Yes, we will be deploying it after we finish evaluating it (and after it's properly released )

You haven't listed your motherboard or the type of ram that you're using, plus also the PSU is also important You may find that purchasing a AMD CPU with built in GPU, eg the AMD APU A10 6800K (that has a HD 8670D) with a compat motherboard and compat ram (if your current ram isn't), may be a cheaper option than upgrading your GC and Processor separately (but it does really depend on your upgrade choices/spec and budget).

If it ain't a bee, it's lunch for the spiders

We've got a couple of NASs and I have to say that out of all of them (we've got Drobo, Netgear and qNap), the Drobo is the best out of the lot. It's not the cheapest, but it comes up straight away after a server reboot, we've got it connected to a Windows server 2012 server for DPM - the other NAS take a few minutes to appear (not saying that the others are bad, just that the Drobo in this case is better)... The one we have is the B800i, fully populated with 8 x 3TB drives. However if it's for speed and data thru-put is needed asap, then I would say go for a san. I guess it all depends on how much you can spend and what your future requirements are...

We were looking at something like this a few years ago (we compared laptops, tablets, etc) and in the end, not only was the initial cost high, but also the running costs (this would have included the VDI infrastructure, the increased IT Support staff, network infrastructure, etc)...