flyinghaggis

We virtualised ours in Hyper-V which has worked out pretty well to minimise downtime and maintain high availability. Is there a particular reason you're finding your print sever is often down by the way? Dodgy drivers/print jobs?

This happens in our Business Studies labs all the time!

Having no *nix experience it's probably not something I'd be able to do without quite a bit of work but that sounds pretty good. Would certianly be interested in having a look at your customised (boot to RDP) version of Slax if you're happy/allowed to share it. I'm sure a few other folks on here would appreciate it aswell.

WinDirStat is the daddy when it comes to quickly checking on sizes of files/folders! WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

I'd echo the above. The cost of securring just a desktop case in an enclosure isn't really worth it (assuming £50 a box). Given we have CCTV on all exits it's pretty hard to sneak out with a desktop unit due to it's size/weight. It's only happened once in the 10 years I've worked in a school and that attempt was foiled by staff who spotted them (actually an employee of an external contractor rather than pupils!) sneaking out with it. We are in a public school so perhaps that's one reason we're not experienced it. Having said that we do Zip-tie the PC cases shut to make sure pupils can't easily get into the cases to swipe individual components (RAM/etc.). Fundamentally it's not worth spending £50 to secure a £200-300 PC when the odds of it being stolen are so low IMO.

Do you know if there are any Linux images/distros out there that are specifically designed for that purpose (to boot up running RDP software and offer connections to a list of terminal servers) as that sounds like it could be really useful? Would be nice to have the option to "convert" a PC into a thin client. Especially if it could be done temporarily off a PXE boot on an ad-hoc basis.

Ashampoo Burning Studio Free Ashampoo Burning Studio Free - CNET Download.com I've used Imgburn aswell but found Ashampoo a bit more intuitive

Theoretically they could but I suspect there'll be a clause in the legal T&C's whereby they're not allowed to install the software since they dont actually have a licence for it on their home PC. Maybe if you were to loan them a school laptop with Cubase installed this might be an option though.

Fraid so It literally checks for the dongle everytime you run the program. In Cubase 5 the dongles need to be activated online with the key supplied in the box before using them (so don't throw this away!). I really wish Steinberg would make an online licence server as it's such a pain to have to go through activating each one individually. In addition to this, in the interests of security, we fit USB cards into the music PCs and install the dongles interally to make sure they don't go walkabout given they're effectively worth about £300 each! Way too much work for one piece of software! Every version of Cubase since SX 2.0 has had them AFAIK. I think some of the Cubase 'lite' versions don't use them though.

I need to install some kind of Virtualization software on my home computer (Windows 7 Pro 64-bit) primarily for testing Server 2008, Linux ISO's, etc. VMWare Player and Virtualbox seem to be the names that keep on cropping up as recommendations. Any others (or thoughts on which of the 2 above would be more suitable)? TIA

AFAIK you can copy across PDFs/txt files onto it but if you purchase any books from the amazon store (effectively itunes for books!) I believe they're all DRM'd so you can't give them to anyone else. I *think* you can install the Kindle reader software onto you're PC/phone/etc so given your account details you can, in theory at least, read any book you buy on any device you own. To be honest I'd never download a book from amazon (or a song from itunes) simply because I object to the DRM. Especially when I can buy a physical book/CD that I'm free use wherever I like or lend to my friends!

I'd definitely be interested to hear your thoughts about it as I'm quite tempted by one aswell. As above I loathe having to lug around 1000 page tech manuals. The thought of a nice lightweight PDF capable reader is pretty appealing especially at the £100 price point. Would be nice if there was some way to 'subscribe' to your favourite websites and have it auto-download the latest articles/news/etc over wi-fi. Sort of like a podcast but for books!

We've been looking at replacement cartridges for our printers and have noticed that our normal supplier (Misco) has started selling 'Inkrite' branded non-OEM cartridges for about half the price of the HP branded equivalent. What's everyone's experience of non-OEM toner cartridges? Are they a worthwhile saving from manufacturers who've been ripping us off or are they a false economy and more hassle than they're worth? TIA

In my experience yes ......! What about an Sony X10 Mini. Small, cute and available in purple/pink shade so it checks all the boxes. My g/f wants one Also runs Android and by all accounts is a pretty good phone. http://www.sonyinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/SE_Xperia_X10_mini_PP07_Black_1.png Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Mobile phones Not sure what you want to spend but it's about £200 unlocked and free on most contracts

Iphone Antenna problem? There is no iphone antenna problem! http://media.bestofmicro.com/C/J/254467/original/steve-jobs-heart-attack.jpg You just need to hold it like this....... On a more serious note it's a disgraceful way for a company like Apple to act. My friends iphone can literally lose all signal if you just accidentally bridge the black gap between the antenna's. Very easy to accidentally do if you hold it in yhour left hand. No other phone on the market can be nerfed totally by simply touching a single point on it. The offer of a free bumper/case (not even an Apple branded one!) is a slap in the face to all their existing customers. The offer of a refund is worthless aswell since, if like 99% of folk, you've bought it on a contract you can only returned the (heavily subsidized) phone but are left paying an overpriced contract for the next 2 years. Disappointed

I knew triangulating the signal was possible but wasn't sure if the data was automatically passed onto emergency services in the event of calling them. Mind you it seems like such an useful/obvious thing when you think about that you'd assume there'd be something in place to allow it!

Joking, and the obvious privacy implications, aside that would actually be really useful if you could call emergency services (Police,Ambulance,etc) and they then automatically had a way of tracking you from your phones GPS co-ordinates!

New article on theregister suggesting that there may not be a recall and that a software update could resolve the issue (again!)? iPhone 4 fix to centre on software, negate need for recall ? reghardware

http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/5/254777/original/me_neither.jpg

Just to balance the argument I actually think it looks better than the old one! The layout seems to have more "structure" now whereas before it was just a mess of random headlines and the layout/formatting was all over the shop. The page is now divided up more cleanly IMO. A few divider lines between headlines as suggested by powdarrmonkey would be a good idea though.

New Apple Friend Bar Gives Customers Someone To Talk At About Mac Products

Until you tell them they're losing the signal/connection because they aren't holding it properly that is ........

If I were you I'd buy a Radeon 5830 for about £160 :- Scan.co.uk: HD-583X-ZNFV - 1GB XFX HD 5830, 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 800MHz, 1120 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ HDMI/ DP + Aliens vs Predator*

I see Apple have issued an official update regarding the issue. Seems they reckon it can be fixed by a 'software udpate'? Doesn't really sound particularly feasible IMO that a software update could fix the reported issues with the antenna. Apple denies iPhone 4 antenna glitch, blames inaccurate signal bars ? The Register Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place. To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

Just tried the benchmark on my PC (i7/GTX470) and got 3016 for the high benchmark. Weird how the benchmark runs in windowed mode and not full screen though ?