torledo

ipads and those other resources you mention aren't mutually exclusive, unless money really is that tight, and if money is then you'd have to factor in the cost of paying a teacher assistant every year. i don't really see the tablet concept as a fad, yes in a few years we'll be another few iterations of the ipad on and tablet/OS combo's will advance, but the t&l benefits and skills gained from using a relatively cheap classroom device will still be there.

switches do eliminate collisions and create smaller broadcast domains through microsegmentation and vlans on the up links respectively, that's my understanding anyway . but i suppose the problem is that's fine as far as the switch level, but not on the uplinks where you can't microsegment every communication passing through.

it's good if you didn't like spending a few hundred quid on additional os x server licenses. to be honest, i have no problems with Apple ditching xserve and rolling os x server services into Lion, but i would like them to come out with a mac mini server that had dual gigE ports.

On the point of the 'cloud' and SPoF. Surely the SPoF exists in the type of connection to an upstream service provider ie whether the money has been spent to get the SLA's and redundancy rather than in the SaaS being provided, where millions could have been spent to get five 9's availability. How many large education institutions have a fully hosted email solution for students running into the 10's of k's, how many large software companies provide a hosted-only system that allows company A to do business with it's customers or customer B. How many service providers provide large capacity virtual contact centers where there is no local telephony equipment apart from IP handsets and possibly a connection back to a legacy PBX or some sort of survivability via minimal PSTN connectivity. I'm not saying it's entirely bulletproof or that you can 'cloud' every app/service your users want to use, and i'm not expert on the information security issues, but if you make the investment in the required redunancy at the weakest link, i can't see any reason why an entity can't conduct a lot of it's operations through hosted/cloud services. IT's already being done i thought where the economies just can't be made in setting up 'on-premise' services.

i'd definitely go with that as far as the ipad concerned. It requires a different approach to any other device that people have previously tried to integrate their infrastructure. think, how to integrate a big web enabled smartphone into your network, as far as approaching a tablet like the ipad. I can't even see how terminal services can be all that usable given the sticking point of not being able to use a mouse, and anyway it's trying to apply an old way of working to a device that demands a different way of being productive.

i think that's one of those that probably needs a degree of international cooperation and possibly tax harmonisation across borders that just isn't forthcoming. you could take the view that as a result it's a fruitless battle because people are employed to legally minimise the tax burde of big corporations, while the tax authorities themselves are well advanced in the process of downsizing staffwise long before the current round of axe-swinging....such deals between the taxman and big business is like taking a very small piece of a large pie rather than being left with only the crumbs. i agree that the public sector could be the ideal vehicle for getting the unemployed and underemployed into work, but then my worry is that as soon as you start large scale job creation into place, you start to see calls for more manages and structures to oversee the additional recruits, so you just end up recreating the layers of management beuracracy that ideally we might otherwise want to cut down on or dismantle altogether in some places.

wherever the money normally comes from for funding such projects. Spending on needed infrastructure increases the deficit only where there isn't an increase in tax revenues, or where you can't make cuts elsewhere to fund the increased investment. So you see there's two ways of looking at the deficit and growth depending on your political view point. You can either see it as a need to spend more or a need to tax a little less. Those objecting to the cuts seem to want both increased spending AND lower taxes [ie reversing the VAT rise]. Sounds a bit like having your cake and eating it, or if your Ed Balls trying to be all things to all people. The national debt will increase come what may because it's the accumilation of money issued by the government to match the 'surplus' of public spending. The government doesn't start missing interest payments or anything like that. The debt interest i don't see as any more troubling than anything else the government incurs a cost in supporting [ie a large number of non-jobs in the public sector created under the last government or supporting a vast welfare state], the interest payments on that debt after all equate to income for the bondholders. Whether the government employs fewer people, or stops issuing debt...it all equates to the same thing, less in the way of income streams for those groups.

in the private sector that just leaves the banks that aren't a) or b). ;0) although given how much funding of PFI (secondary public sector) they've been doing, they get paid out in full from the public purse eventually.

the last time i checked i think we were no.5 in the world in manufacturing. It's probably a different type of manufacturing to the heavy industry we've lost, but it's a myth that we don't make stuff anymore. We're not as reliant on a grossly overweight financial sector because investment can always be boosted in other sectors, people can be employed to do other stuff like widen the M25 or build an olympic village or work in the third sector rather than devise and sell financial products. although with the current strategy of an export-led recovery, our financial services export market is a sizeable contributor to the export 'boom'. the irony of government 'deals' with banks, is that involves increased lending, when apparently lending was the problem to begin with back in 07/08. What short memories people have.

i disagree politically that there should be no real terms cuts in some areas of govt. spending. what i don't like is the cack-handed way in which the cuts have been allocated, with more money in some areas already flush with cash and 20% or more real cuts in areas already struggling to provide adequate service. the student fees decision is another example of this logic defying, cack-handed thinking. i'm not in favour of ditching the current system in favour of something that won't apply to welsh and scottish students for example. if those administrations can find the money to not levy increased fees, why can't westminster ? but equally, you can't avoid the redundancies and cuts in budgets and just focus instead on the easy stuff like not having a deficit reduction target or scrapping trident. And yes, as much as big finance can be squeezed a bit more, raising taxes on them alone is like trying to pretend their isn't a problem with public spending.

for auditing purposes perhaps ?

surely you mean white elephant ?

it's localism gone mad.

i would definitely credit the iplayer for popularizing webtv in the uk [by being accessible and raising the quality bar] rather than the apple tv....but i know what you mean. i'm as cynical as the next it tech re the 'cult of mac'....but to the sceptics, just try using them and you realise they are more than just a brand name. The unibody macbook pro can't be far off being top of the tree as far as battery life compared to comparable windows laptops. There aren't many bits that can fall off any of the hardware, unlike traditional laptops with their broken latches and bent power sockets/pins. The macbook air [with ssd drive atleast] stands up surprisingly well to being knocked about. ofcourse there are logic board failures, failed hardrives from time to time....but then when isn't there with any hardware. then there's actual deployment and install as windows/dual boot. one setup app for driver install on one disk, kick it off go away, come back later and all devices are detected and installed. i don't ever recall the process ever waiting for me to select a Yes, No or Cancel or whether i want to select a custom or express option. IT just does it, knowing i have better things to do with my time than responding to dialog boxes or scratching around selecting what drivers to install and whether i want a custome or express install. the mac experience is surprisingly no nonsense. almost the opposite of the new pc/laptop experience.

well said.