HTCPCP

The license cost lasts for the life of the device that is enrolled on. Using both Google and Office 365 on different sites, the google management system is infinately better and well worth the agro of swapping. And as for updates, Google seem to make things better and easier, Microsoft make things more annoying - like the random password generator!

Now I have started to get used to Server 2012 I am starting to really like it! Yes it looks very different from Server 2003 and server 2008 but there is a load of stuff you can learn how to do on Microsoft Virtual Academy

We have 90 chromebooks here and they are brilliant for what they do. Yes, it doesn't have Office or some specialist programs. However our email system is Google based so everyone has an account already. the Samsung XE03 chromebooks we pay around £200 for them and £19 license for the management system which is really easy to set up and can get it so that users profiles are taken off. Can also push proxies, apps and other settings out to them through this too.

Not far from Stevenage there is also Welwyn Garden City. Other places to have a look at will be Elstree and Borehamwood, Watford or Slough too... Good luck finding a hotel and remember to check when the last train is - platforms aren't very comfortable to sleep on!

Not sure RM would be a good way forward for anyone at the moment. No longer selling any hardware, a lot of their hardware warranties heading towards the end, so techs are set to be made redundant. Sales team has been slashed as well from what we have been told. By the drop in service standards too makes me think that they have started getting rid of (or at least losing without being able to replace) engineers...

If you use Papercut V14 (I think you can with v13.5 too) you can set up google cloud print and then get users when on site to release the jobs through a weblink to their user details on the print server

We have about 90 chromebooks in the school now, and have just managed to get hold of the google management system which we are about to start rolling out to the chromebooks (will tell you what it's like as soon as we have the paperwork come through)... Can't really fault them too much really. We already use a google apps system through SmartAssess so all school users have accounts set up automatically. It's something you really do need a google account for though, as without it, it's just a glorified web browser. The other thing (which we are hoping the management system will fix) is having to manually tick the allow proxy box which is a touch annoying and they aren't hugely locked down. On the plus side though, they are super quick and can easily be reset if it all goes wrong!

For us in our office it's Iiyama only, and for the cheap ones we get Philips, BenQ,Hannspree etc - what ever is cheapest. As for the height adjustability, got a lovely samsung a while ago - peach of an image, but stupidly heavy though...

We find that our laptops tend to do the same thing and is caused when it has been woken from sleep mode, or when users connect before the machine has authenticated and obtained an IP address from DHCP. This issue has become a lot more prevalent after county came in to install a new core switch.

If I can actually get to them, it looks like someone 'stashed' a couple of BBC Micros in some ceiling storage space in one of my primary schools. Don't want to go prodding around until the builders get the intrusive Asbestos survey done though. Got plans to ditch the P4's we have as soon as County take away the IT suite to become a classroom...

We have loads of zoostorms, some of which have 1 year and some 3 year warranties. We were nearly caught out about the licensing of these machines when we were told by different sales reps different messages about the licensing. Adding a SSD to the machine will speed it up, but I would suggest buying the SSD separately as at that price, they probably won't be a fantastic one then formatting and selling most of the rest on via ebay or similar (but keep some in case of needing a warranty fix). Insides are simple, mostly have gigabyte mATX motherboards, cheep power supply, unbranded memory and an optical drive. Unless you need the space then I wouldn't bother about SFF over just the ordinary tower really though. Quick tip, always make sure you keep half a dozen or so boxes with the rest of the packing in case you need t return to base, as they do charge for sending out fresh boxes. Also if something goes wrong, try asking if they will let you do the swap yourself and send them back the faulty part in exchange for the new one. We do this most of the time now and we get the new part within 2 days or so, rather than the machine being away for a week.

I have a PhenomII X4 on my home PC, can't really fault it. When we buy computers and equipment, all our schools ask for new equipment, with the exception for one school when they get free reconditioned printers when they order over a certain amount of own brand toner in a year. However I might suggest to the head to look at the AMD kit if some machines we need to rebuild in the summer aren't feasible to redeploy.

Enjoy Matty, I hope you are enjoying your apprenticeship, and the inability of some people to be able to do anything doesn't put you off!

Has anyone had any luck getting building an RM CC4 package for Office 2013, or getting hold of a copy of the RM Application Library. We have tried the normal build application, but with no luck at all. Last time we ended up having to fork out the equivalent cost of 2 machines for the 2010 pack. if anyone has a working copy, can you send me a copy please?

as Duke has said, run Memtest, However if that comes back without a fault, is it that the computer is trying to put itself in sleep mode and isn't waking up again?

got a load of #2's in one of my primary schools. Got donated to the school years ago and are still in service. Slow doesn't begin to describe it, even with 2GB RAM and a good hard drive in it. Not tried with a SSD, but as they are being scrapped in the summer when the building work starts, and we can redeploy some newer machines to rooms. If you can, scrap them and if money is tight get a refurb! Funnily enough can't find any companies wanting to take them off my hands either.

We have given up with Ruckus after 2 years of trying to get it working properly and are now heading down the Meraki route now as we can then see what websites that the students go on in case of issues. Having spent 2 days on trying to get the 2 test APs sent out to us by Cisco, we have built a new DHCP server running 2012 plugged into the transparent proxy via a mini switch which goes into the core switch and out that way. Bit of a hassle to set up, but with more than one brain and a few hours with the door shut it all started working as expected. (stupidly used a desktop and not a rack mountable PC as a base so we now have to work out where to put it...)

I love my RAT5 - kinda regret getting it in Red though now... Thought I'd try and match it with my keyboard backlight and fan LEDs. I think they look like any gaming mouse should really. A bit wacky!

Don't recycle them, sell them! Worth a couple of quid on ebay now!

Just taken out of service an old Pentium 2 machine running Windows 2k.... No one realized it was still there working either! Ah the good old days of technology we grew up with eh?

AMD don't seem to make a good competitive rival to anything above the mid range i3 processors. However as others have said, you may well struggle with those specs. I paid 300 ex VAT for an i3 with 4gb of RAM, Hard drive (albeit with a 3 year warranty) last week and they are fine for day to day use by students and most staff and for when we are off main site for us too.

Yeah, not even looking at HP or ACER at the moment. Acer as it took them 2 months to replace a screen (where they also wiped the hard drive...) and HP as I hate ringing them up on the phone. From the big few suppliers, I quite like the Lenovo range at the moment. Got a B590 from Zones last week with an i3 processor and it built a dream to our network!

our pat testing company failed a few machines last year because of missing blanking plates, but having done the course we retested and they passed. As long as the insides of the computer aren't accessible to fingers (and usually the blanking plates are there just for asthetics, then they are not a fail. It would only be an issue if you could touch something like the motherboard from the gap. Might be an idea to put some superglue or no more nails on the other blanking plates to see if the kids can pull them off then? I also presume you have checked inside the bottom of the case to see if they have fallen down to the bottom of the case at all?

I have been asked to get 5 competitive quotes for new laptops. I have quotes from Stone and VeryPC, and have a quote coming from UK Zones who we do a lot of work with. However finding 2 more competitive quotes is proving hard, Dell were not competitive, we no longer have any dealings with Misco. Who else do people use from here? They are going to be used in a primary school so they will need to be really quite robust.

We use a local company and lease Sharp MFPs. spent a lot of time working with them to make sure that it would work properly though. We replaced 100 + printers with 8 MFPs (4 colour, 4 mono) and use papercut to make sure students don't print loads. Still get a lot of waste, but at least we now know how much is being printed. Got them nearly 3 years ago and have now started working on sorting out the new lease for December.