HTCPCP

For the laptops, you can't go wrong with VeryPC! Great quality devices and the option for branding too (looks great when people visit the school, and gives them a bit of protection from scratches and scuffs!) My suggestion would be to look at splitting the order too. Gives you more of a chance of getting the best price on everything. I've used UKZones, Misco, Toucan (but be careful they do like to try and add extras onto the order!) and Insight (usually use Insight for the few iMacs we have). Trolley wise, I always go for Lapsafe, simply because I know they will work and won't break after a knock. Zioxi trolleys i've had nothing but problems with.

We've had it a few times, and its usually down to a glitch in IOS. If you haven't done it already, reset your network settings on your ipad through Settings, and try again. If that doesn't work, then try a restore. it's usually down to IOS having not quite installed properly (we didn't really have it until IOS 9.3, but 10 has been more frequent)

Another +1 for PRM here. I get an email every couple of months or so when they have a van in the area to see if I have any equipment to dispose of when they are usually more flexible about quantities, depending on exactly where the pick up is.

You need to make sure they are cleaned too, a bit of Isopropyl alcohol does that trick!

Couple of quick questions - the staff are complaining laptops are slow - how old are these laptops, and how recently have they been reimaged/rebuilt. A decent SSD will speed up the machines no end, but you need to find out what they are finding slow. Is it all teachers, or just some, as some staff think hybernate/sleep=shut down, and having 100 chrome tabs, SIMS, a weeks load of Smart Notebook files and a dozen word and excel files is essential, and moan about how slow their machine is, when in reality, it's just completely swamped by what they run. I tend to get i5s for staff machines with a SSD over a 4-5 year life span, and i3s with SSD for student devices with a 3-4 year life span, before wear and tear and demands start to mean that you need to think about replacements.

A quick WhoIs search shows that the website was initially registered in 2012, but the registrant doesn't have the same address as the business, or make reference to the only business running out of the address listed on its website... Total Current Assets of around £2600 is a bit suspicious for a website selling projectors (although they class themselves as a general wholesaler too), but they have filed accounts every year. Pay a bit more, get yourself a new epson with it's warranty and easily changed bulbs!

The M700s are well built - not got the AIO one, but have the other 3 in the range - i5s, 250GB SSDs on the SFF, 120GB on the tiny and normal ones, and haven't had a single one go wrong yet (around 30) But yes, when I saw the title, I was another one thinking that someone had resurrected spawn of satan!

I tend to go mostly with Sharps - bit more expensive than Cannon, but seems more reliable. In the council I am a member of, they have 2 Cannon MFPs, One is absolutely fine, the other does not like anything except DataCopy paper without jamming (including other premium brand paper). Neither Cannons are massive use printers - one is in a Tourist Info Centre, and the other is in the council offices mainly for printing agendas and associated papers, and the end of month finance reports , but if I remember correctly the last time I was asked to have a look at it, it had managed to rack up the best part of 40k pages since new (probably around 10 months or so), and the engineer had to be called out twice on issues, and had been out 5 or 6 times to try and sort the paper jamming issue.

That just sounds like the right driver hadn't been imported into the management console. Only bought 5 machines from dell in the last 6 years - and they were all Lenovo M700s that beat the prices from all the suppliers I have used before by quite some way!

That just sounds like the right driver hadn't been imported into the management console. Only bought 5 machines from dell in the last 6 years - and they were all Lenovo M700s that beat the prices from all the suppliers I have used before by quite some way!

Also, just found out that CC4 licenses are no longer an outright purchase, but a yearly subscription model costing far more than it would have done under the previous system. Considering CC4 is still the bedrock of the RM offerings IMHO, this seems a backwards step, and also one that will make schools move away even more into non RM Networks!

and a rising pension deficit... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/13/job_cuts_falling_sales_and_now_a_mega_pension_deficit_at_rm/

I don't like switches that don't have fans - simply because my experience is that they have a shorter life span. I tend to use whatever HP switch is the best for the job really, mostly 1800 or 2500 series, and if it's somewhere where sound is important, either get a pre silenced cabinet, or put in sound insulating foam (just make sure you don't cover any vents though!)

Looks a bit like an upside down PatchLock cable, when the button is pressed in, or fully out, does the clip get blocked from working? If you want to test it, I would suggest you do it in an unterminated module though incase there are problems/you can't remove it again!

Have to agree with difinity on this - it's usually the power supply for that. I would probably try swapping with a known working one to see, and put it back into location (probably with another machine in there for the tecaher to use. I have come across this before and it was the cheap power supply that was the cause of the problem, where normal fluctuations caused it to just shut down!

Just a quick question, on the device the smartboard is connected to, when you open up the Smart Settings, is it showing up as connected? As I believe those boards are externally powered. If it does show up as connected, main thing would be to check if anything is blocking the sensors at the bottom of the screen - Have seen that a few times, where dust basically stops the system picking up touch - usually just in certain patches, but could be the case. Also, the other one is to check reseat the cables coming from the pen tray. I know it sounds a bit silly, but they can get knocked. Even with power going through, the data might not be getting through properly.

Have you thought about getting a transparent proxy set up. HfL and Updata are able to set it up for you (although a certain amount has to be done by you without huge cost from HfL though). When setting it up we just used an old workstation with dual gigabit ethernet, with Server 2012 on it, set up with a dhcp scope with the IP range given to us. No need for proxy and all users get the standard student feed.

Well having watched Wales in a way that would make Romania odds on favourite if they played tomorrow, the fact that Howler is the backs coach for the lions should be ringing alarm bells not just for us Welsh!

Another +1 for Very PC on this! I've had them in a couple of schools, and they have been quite popular. Also, from experience, seem to have better build quality than the current set of Dells!

I always recommend Lapsafe to my schools - Metal construction with decent cable management that uses a different key. I wouldn't bother with the Inline charging solution, as it ties your hands to specific laptops without paying more down the line. Only issue with most of them is they all have a rather limited range of colours really (I do like different colour trollies for different areas e.g. Yellow for foundation, red for lower KS1 etc etc, but that is understandable really. Zioxi - I have recently (against my advice) had one of their trolleys delivered and it's basically chipboard glued together, so can imagine first time it gets pushed into a door, that it's not going to end well. Lapcaddy - Don't really rate them, find the wheels a bit iffy to say the least, and also the fact that a kid can open the back of some of them without a key is rather worrying. Might just be me, but the last one that arrived didn't come with a key, and without any information, they just sent out another key to us... Loxit - If you have the money, get one! Never had a problem (well except staff not returning keys), and still as easy to move as the first day it arrived!

Another one here backing sharp kit. Never had any problems with it except 1 machine that kept breaking down just before the end of the lease (we had underestimated the demand on it and this has now been replaced with a far higher spec device with a better finishing unit). We lease through a local company, and even have one of the top brass pop in a couple of times a term to see how everything is going. We run papercut here, with no real issues at all.

Never had had too many issues with builds before, with the exception of some hp laptops. The build had too many versions of a realtek pcie family controller on it. Cant remember the last time i bought from rm and we've not bought from misco for about 3 years. Machine wise we curently have zoostorms, dell 3020s, some HPs that use the same build as the 3020s, some lenovos of varying sorts, and whatever was best value when ordering. We tend to find system builders like zoostorm really easy to build as you can ust go onto the motherboard manufacturers website and download the latest drivers. Usually seems to be gigabyte or msi from our experience I know we have bought devices with oem license, but without windows being installed, which might be of use. All depends on account managers and if it would mess up their systems i suppose...

Depending on site, d2d2t is the main one we use with an extra cloud backup for SIMS through the LA. Then we also have direct disk to tape on smaller sites, and one school uses external hard drives to back up using encrypted drives. We are set to move to a d2d2d2cloud backup over the summer for the main site. Software wise, mostly backup exec, with 1 using microsofts inbuilt system

We use windows or dragon depending on which laptop they use with a decent headset microphone. Last ones we ordered were sennheiser, but hae some trust ones as well i believe

after many years our tandberg storageloader lto-4 has died completely, so was wondering if anyone has one around that we could buy to see us through until our new server and backup system is finalised and ordered. Our LEA has said that we need to 'source an identical tape auto loader to our current system' or get a chargeable repair' which tandberg have suggested probably isn't viable. Anyone able to help?