pshuttle

How dare you slander my religion! Just kidding Pete

I wouldn't bother. You will just get sucked into a vicious circle of re-qualifying every product upgrade and chances are that you will get no extra money anyway. Remember, you only rent M$ certification. I would go for something more permanent like these... http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/ictfocus/certs.html I have 2 of these and damm nice they are too, platform free, a recognised certification, and cheaper than M$ when everything is factored in. I agree with you Dos_box but it is pretty disheartening to find that pretty much every support job advertised in Lancashire (other than for a trainee or junior position) wants you to hold a Microsoft certification. Very frustrating! Pete

Grr I wont be getting MCSE certified working in a school!

Chris, I can't say I have had any problems with returning kit to them. I personally have rarely had any problems with the gear I have bought from them (lots and lots over the past five years or so). However, a friend of mine's motherboard failed after three months and they replaced it without any difficulty. I do understand though that people have many different experiences with customer services.... Pete

I have always found http://www.overclockers.co.uk to be very good for high powered boxes (without monitors). However, I don't know if they are a serious enough supplier for you to be able to deal with. Pete

Hehe well less kids with specialist IT knowledge = great news for us! But that is a bit short sighted I supose. Never mind

Why not try the Joomla!/Mambo CMS for your site. It is dead easy to use and looks pretty professional. We use it for the primary schools in our area. Alternatively you could try PhpNuke or similar.... Pete

There is a book called "Foundation Actionscript for Macromedia Flash Mx 2004" - You can amazon it up... I used it on a piece of uni coursework just over a year ago and I found it very good. My friends and I used to refer to it as the "Spermy Book" because of the publisher's logo.... (You will see what I mean if you buy it). Pete

On World of Warcraft I am a human warlock named Teviala. I play on the Azjul Nerub realm. Also play Battlefied 2 (mainly on the Wireplay and EA servers), Counterstrike: Source, UT2004 all as "Sloppy - The Wet Rabbit". Pete

agreed!

Odd really as there are plenty of us working in this type of capacity - you would think some organisation would "properly" cater for us? Pete

Just out of interest, are any of you members of a union? I looked into it but I could not find a union which I felt represented us as a technician in the education environment. Perhaps I did not look hard enough. My colleague and I have often joked about organising some industrial action! It is just easier to look for a job in the non education world. Pete

Thanks Mark - I actually have been browsing the forum for a while but had not posted. The lancsngfl forum members will know me and my ranting lol. Pete

Good effort on getting this published. Things at our school are not too bad I suppose but there is definitely room for improvement. We still lose one member of staff every year and to be honest if I want to get on with a career I will have to be next..... My colleague decided enough was enough and will be going on to do a PGCE. My colleague and I had to go through Hell and High Water to be made full time (not term time only) was only on 11,000 previously - they were not prepared to give us a pay rise but we both were in deserate need for more money I cannot complain too much as I had an operation recently which ended up infected so I have had four weeks off work - and the staff have been very good to me here. As techicians (I hate that word as it often gets used in a "he is only a young lad technician way" - not as an IT professional with a computing degree and BCS membership etc) we are definitely an under-class in schools and if things are going to get better this has to change! Pete