Sirbendy

Currently using an Ipaq 514 Voice Messenger (WM6 Standard), with my trusty old Motorola MPX200 (upped to WM2003, with a WM5 upgrade I've not got round too) as a backup.

Not worried. 1 chap, suited up, briefcase. Pen pusher, not a heavy. No problem with that. Declared my position outside first, no issue there. As to people calling on the missus..well, it's their funeral. Good luck to them, and I'll bring the mop..

oh yes...looks for external hard disk molex power packs. I have one in my bag..came with a USB to IDE converter.

We got a chap round last week...knocked on the door, "I'm looking for x".. "Ah..well, I'm afraid I can't help..we moved in a month or so back, and we're getting mail for all sorts still...did you say Mr X? Hang on..there's letters for someone with that first name but a different surname..hmm..come and have a look, see if it helps. No idea where he's gone though.." "Oh. What a cheeky sod! He's bought a car and not kept up payment..sorry to bother you." "No problem - come in and have a look at these letters, see if anything jumps out..I'm going to recycle them anyway.." I'm expecting a few TBH..there's been a high turnaround of tenants here. Just keep a form of ID and tenancy change proof to hand, job done. My friend lives in a really iffy area, in one of 2 old tower block things that were full of undesirables..police cleared them out, and the local housing made everyone who moved in sign a contract etc. He's had SO many bailiffs, debt collection and "break your leg" merchants at his door you wouldn't believe it. Big ex-navy biker chappie though..the last ones I saw were a bit hesitant when they threatened entry and were met with his wargaming broadsword and told "I think not."..heh.

It's been hot? Damn, and there's me with this fool brain wiring that can't sense it.. It seems to infuriate people. I might go short-sleeved tomorrow. Does anyone wear a namebadge of any sort? I'm contemplating finding an old DIL microchip and engraving my name on that, then turning it into one. I refuse to answer to "Steve" (No offence, Steve), or "Oi".

Black jeans (basically black trousers but harder to kill), cheapo £10 black shoes (destroyed by my feet in a year), black socks (cheap), my choice of long or short sleeved shirt (currently a very faded once-red shirt from about 6 years hence). Tie doesn't happen unless it's a parents eve/special occasion. I have a collection of IT themed ties for that. Can't be doing with dangly things in my way. Non-uniform days - same apart from the shirt..usually a T-Shirt, usually black, usually Thinkgeek. Probably the "I void warranties" one, this next time.

We use it...again, our librarian isn't that clued up. It's very powerful..but she only uses 1 or 2 functions. It's overkill IMHO, and the £500 a year service contract is not worth the use it gives us.. I've been lightly involved with it since it was "Bookshelf"..heh..and I've had to reinstall/upgrade and repair the damned DB so many times, it's not even funny. I scripted it to backup every night after the last time. She only went and ballsed it up and then said "Oh..backup? No..."..we had to send it off on CDR to the makers and pay the piper to get it recovered. TBQH, I've seen the missus write something not too dissimilar that's PHP and SQL based..it can't be that hard to do a book issue/track system...I've asked her to knock up a quick one for consumables for me..although she did one for a local college a few years back. My opinion of it is: Plusses: It's good. It's powerful. Bad: It's expensive It feels cobbled together The damned CLI narks me off The DB narks me off (I mean, PICK..come on..Move with the times..) The featureset is great, IF you use it..we only use the very basics, and would be much better served with a basic product. All IMHO, of course.

1. blinds or white paper on the windows. 2. Go on a raiding spree for old PSU/case fans, cableties, an ATX PSU, and a paperclip and make up a fan grid array. Noisy, but pretty damn effective.. We've got..ooh..laserjet 4250, 1 Xerox waxjet, 3 PCs, 2 laptops, 2 humans, a glass wall to outside with blinds, and lots of furniture in here, and we're at a comfy temperature. The stable door is helping..it's like a permanent exhaust for the heat, and the windows open at the top to bring in cool air. The teaching office next door has tiny windows, same size office as us, 7-8 staff, 4 PCs and SatCab1 full of switches, plus UPS and 3 servers..again, temps are comfy.

I'm shocked... server room = aircon...I can't believe that some haven't got it! IIRC, Telford Council fitted all "nodal" schools with it for servers at planning stage. Ours should be sat at 17, with the backup unit sat at 19. On the few occasions we've had a total fail of the A/C, we've hit the 30s and one one overnight, 45s...the Poweredges have gone red light, but we've caught them before they hit "safety off". Always been a case of opening the window/door and grabbing as many fans as possible. The portables aren't great..but they're better than nothing, just.

They've been spot on with all of our servers..heh. When Jem bought the Vostro it had a faulty key on the keyboard..it's under business class support for 5 years, and one call later a new KB turned up next day. Not before the phone tech had talked her through removing and refitting the existing one as well. We were both quite impressed..especially as when I called them 2 years back needing a KB for my Inspiron, they told me it was an RTB job, and not an "end user" task. I just bought a keyboard from a chinese laptop breaker on the net for a fiver..heh. Still going strong.

Did you go for the magnetic close case as well? I like that.. I wish I could find a screen protector for it though..I already have a tiny, tiny scratch...annoying.

Odd...mine is using: ROM Date: 11/21/07 ROM Revision: 2.05.00_WWE and I've had no problem. Most of my contacts were sim based..it nuked the phone ones on reinstall. All I did was a straight "plug into USB, run ROM update, let phone reboot"..didn't even remove the SIM. That said, on the original ROM it was just a case of "bung SIM in and fire up". Just been looking at mother-in-laws latest ebay purchase..for £28ish, a Blackberry. Interesting unit.

ohhh..I wish.. Still got the cough, sore throat is easing, still sniffing. Either it's hayfever, or one of the little darlings has infected me..sigh. Alcohol could only ease the pain.. I ended up having to drive as well..not a nice experience with slowed reflexes..heaters on full, windows shut, fleece and thermals on, AC/DC on loud..and I was dead to the world by 10.

Hmm..I'll check again, but compared to WM2003 MPX200 it's positively silent..the MPX used to beep for a good 30 minutes before dying..this one just says nothing at all until I pull it out and find it's powered down. That said, I was off work yesterday with a cough/cold/bad head etc, and could barely crawl out of bed...and it was incredibly useful to have a phone point of contact and both work and home e-mail being checked by it over wifi. The voice reply to e-mails is good...

. When the letters go black . When the keys jam . When my fingers stick to it . when staff members prat about with it . in the event of a random outbreak of ceiling wee . in the event of random fluid seepage or spillage *whichever comes first. Mostly I just upend it and smack it on the desk a few times. The home keyboard has tomato soup in it...one day I'll get round to cleaning it. ;-)

http://sirbendy.jemjabella.co.uk/images/hexsp3.jpg Couldn't resist..

HP iPAQ 514 Voice Messenger- Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center About the only thing that tiddles me off with it on occasion is the low battery handler..there doesn't appear to be one. It just goes from "on" to "off" with no warnings..

just a mail update - they've increased the £14.99 usage limit to 15gb now. Bonus.

They're good...I bought one at christmas..heh. Make sure it's got the latest flash firmware update off the HP site though...the battery life was quite rollercoaster until I put it on mine..now I get 2 weeks on a charge. Got mine linked into exchange, home webmail, internet, SIP..good fun. You can lose the startup jingle as well..heh..that really lets WM6 down.

yep. IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS. I end up doing it here sometimes..Netsupport does something similar on rare occasions..heh.

oh gods...I didn't realise it'd expand the links!! Sorry about that..

Plus.net. Community Site News from PlusNet ^^ Community forums. It seems they really do give a toss..so far, not one complaint I can level. I exceeded my 8gb, they throttle to 128k but you can keep going and just login to the members CP and up the cap for a quid with instant effect..I was impressed. I also like the honestly of PlusNet | Home & Business Broadband Internet Access & Phone Services UK main page..the "why do we not offer unlimited broadband" bit, the free overnight usage and so on..I like companies that are open and up-front. and no, I don't work for them. Heh. Just a happy user.

been here 8 years now..heh. We've pretty much lost all the original staff now. Most ran away scared. Last big exodus/change was..erm..2005ish. So, most of it was in a 5 year period. It's reckoned there may be another not far away..I'm watching with interest (and a cuppa and biscuit). What happens, happens..it's an interesting ride, and there's no point in getting off just in case it gets a bit hairy.. That's always been my outlook when advised to "get out while you can"..by my HODs/Managers..."No, I believe I'll stay and see what shakes loose, but thankyou..and it was nice working with you". So far, I've been justified. Compared to 8 years previous, this is a dream. Besides, new facility in 2009..new kit to play with, new servers, our own ship instead of LEA controlled (thus far)..how can I resist? I'll be like a kid in a sweetie shop..

Hah..no, not really any extra work. Work to-from home gets done either "on pen" and therefore through us, or via mail, and again, that is done through our machines via OWA. We DID gove OWA to the kids, and outlook..so much abuse of mail going on, so many "Mass domain mails" going out (try the entire of telford for size - no fun), so many staff/kids from other schools complaining..we called it a day for that functionality. Sad, but needed. Staff can't supervise the kids..some of the mails and grovelling we've had to do, and other schools have had to do to us show that. If they want to be treated like idiots, then that is what I shall do. No skin off my nose. As to privacy of data - not once it hits my system. Same with their phones - when they get brought to us with a request to go through and download footage etc from SMT..then I have no issue with it. It's all in our AUP..whatever you do, we watch. There is no escape, there is no excuse, there is just us. Basically. The kids are fine with that, and those that protest get to read the AUP instead of just clicking "Agree"..and boy, do they stop complaining when that happens. Although, with some the reading of the AUP is painful. It's maybe 2 minutes out of my day..I have a USB extender fixed to the desk, and they just plug and go. Work is either put into their user areas (mapped drive on mine), or communal "work temp" folder that gets nuked weekly. They then have to grab and move that themselves. It's really not been any problem at all, compared to the issues with games, lophcrack, dubious software and files etc that were coming in. Bear in mind the LEA run our servers, not us.. It may not be ideal, but it's good. Staff have "normal" USB access..it's only off for kids. Staff in general have no student area access though, so it still has to come through us. The policy has been in place for..2? 3? years now.. Add to that we do frequent user area/shared area scans and nuking, and we're fairing quite well compared to some we've heard about. Of course, we can't police the bluetooth stuff, the PSPs and so on..but if they can't plug in and go, it's fairly irrelevant.

I'll have to play with this...it's like XP. I got that running on a P120 with 96mb ram and 1mb graphics. Amused..