Fazza

We follow the Cyber Security Essentials program (pretty much the same as the DFE recommendations) so if it's not 'cyber secure', then it's removed from service.

Smoothwall support being a bit 'iffy' at the moment aside, we use it at our Secondary School and Primary Schools and out Safeguarding leads at each Academy love it. They particularly like the repors they can get from it. We wanted to do a test so we contacted Smoothwall and the person we spoke to gave us a specifically worded phrase we could enter on a computer that would trigger the software in to action. Unfortunately the person we had spoken to gave us the wrong pass phrase to use so when we typed it in to a computer at one of our Primary Schools, moments later they got a telephone call from someone at Smoothwall informing them of a major safeguarding issue with one of their students so I can confirm their software definately works!!

We lose internet connectivity fairly regularly due to something going on on the Smoothwall box so we have to keep rebooting it. We've got to the stage now that we schedule it to reboot out of hours every other day. Logged months ago and Smoothwall dont seem to realise the importance of an internet connection during GCSE and A-Level exam time! Reported to out account manager who replied saying support is really busy. It sat with 1st line for 3 or 4 weeks before even being looked at by 2nd line. When it works Smoothwall is great, when it doesn't there's very few people in support to look at the issue let alone fix it.

Most of the time right-clicking the pdf and opening with Word works for us.

If as you say they are not the normal home inkjet printer and are MFD devices then are the print heads replaceable?

Education is the same as Enterprise and (unless it's changed) with Education you can sideload your own (student) written apps on to them.

Out of interest, how long do you think they should be providing updates/patches for then? 10 years is a very long time in the cyber world we live in.

We like the VeryPC Flex PCs with a monitor mounting kit so it takes up less desk space etc. and we can use existing monitors that we have. Fully customisable and great value.

Rather than actual damage/wear to the keyboards I'd assume (from personal experience at our Academy) that they will prise off the keys and eat them (no idea what they do with them) so having a toughbook wouldnt stop that issue. A cheap laptop with a removable keyboard. Might have to look at older refurb laptops as a large proportion of modern laptops are all held in place with plastic rivets.

I assume this is for Support Staff then rather than the Teachers?!

Look at doing a P2V and then you'll have it as a VM just in case. The only real way to find out if anything is using it still is to power it off and see what/who complains!

£407 for just the rack mount kit?! 😲 Bargain!

Where we've had servers without rack mount kits we've used shelves from StarTech: https://www.dcdi.co.uk/adjustable-depth-19-rack-shelf-with-passthrough?of_tid=MFRWG5B5HE3SMZTFMVSESZB5GITHA4TPMREWIPJSHE3TQ&gclid=CjwKCAiA44OtBhAOEiwAj4gpOVUoGy0jBGo59ThSqGM29zG1jPuOEPdzTPg8R1RhCsUx0Co7Ds0ulBoCYEkQAvD_BwE&model=D402017 Disclaimer: We didnt get them from this company it's just the first link from Google! We paid around the £50 mark for one of them from our regular IT suppliers.

Sadly mine have still not arrived so this is what I'm currently wearing on my feet:

I doubt it, as WHS has been used since at least 2006 in New Zealand and it has been on a lot of their own brand items inside the shop for years in the UK too. I think in New Zealand it's a license deal a bit like you see the Black Horse bank logo on one of NZ's banks (or at least you did when I was there in 2006) which is on license from Lloyds Bank etc.

Reseat the RAM (if more than 1 stick try just having one stick in at a time and maybe try different slots), reset the CPU. If you have a GPU and your CPU has an APU then remove the GPU and plug your monitor in to the motherboard to rule out a graphics card issue. Try removing anything that isnt required for a PC to boot, i.e. HDD/SSD/NVME/Optical Drive/Expansion cards and then try to power on.

My colleagues have all recieved their socks but I've not got mine and I filled in the form before them!

I wouldn't touch any of those to be honest. See if your regular suppliers can get hold of PSA (AKA 2Power) batteries as they're a proper reputable company - they also make/sell screens etc. and Duracell use them for some of their non-OEM laptop batteries I believe.

I always use the StarTech ones, it's a trusted brand and they're well built.

Did you send them via Evri by any chance?!

Try here: https://sorinelectronics.com/book-a-service/ Sorin is a very experienced electronic repair engineer and fixes everything from TV's and Amplifiers to Laptops and Speakers - fill in the above form with the make and model of you device and see if he can quote on fixing it or not.

All the details including the URL and password are in this thread.

YouTube, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, Cisco Skills For All, Cisco Network Academy, Open University, Apprenticeship if you dont already have a Level 3 qualification, Internet Archive (loads of PDF books you can borrow for free from their virtual library). If you find the right person on YouTube you can learn so much! I've even seen the Author of a popular CompTIA A+ Training Book on there teaching you parts of the A+ and recently I've been learning Microelectronic Repair from a few content creators building on my Electronics background - all for free (just a few adverts to skip)!

Not seen any here yet either!

Knew I'd seen it somewhere, I just couldnt remember where! Only thing is, it's already disabled!! I'll take another look at this later...