Irazmus

We have the SOR team on site now marking equipment for transfer, and it seems that most of our desktops are not yet assigned, and I'm told that the servers have not even been offered yet, so may still be up for grabs. If you're interested in any of our kit (except the switches and APs, they've apparently already been allocated), our SOR rep recommends you give the SOR team a call and express an interest. There will be a "viewing day" for all the kit that's not been allocated, but I'd suggest trying to get in before that.

Damn. It seems your communication is as bad as ours. Well that sucks. If I were in your position I'd be putting my recommendations in writing, with full justification of why it's a better use of funds than the iPads and Apple TVs, and submitting them to the governors in the hopes that they can overrule the Head. Even if that doesn't work, at least they won't be able to say they weren't warned when the inevitible problems occur.

Server room is up to 27C, the office is at 31C, and the techs are off the charts

Nobody thought to let me know. We could have really made use of some of your kit - but as you say it will probably be local schools first anyway. It might, but I'd still suggest bidding just on the off chance. Since I plan on using this as an opportunity to get out of I.T. support and into development, I might not at that.

They are a bit of an anomaly, and a dying breed, but they work very well. As far as I'm concerned there are benefits to both the 2 and 3 tier systems, and both can be as effective as each other if managed correctly. In my opinion, SOR is purely a cost cutting plan which effectively says "to hell with the current pupils", as the uncertainty and lack of investment over the last few years has not had a positive effect on the staff (and therefore pupils) in middle schools during the wind down. Thanks. I'm sure something will turn up sooner or later. On the upside, at least we won't have to migrate this system to Windows 10 According to our Business Manager, any Suffolk school can bid, but priority will likely go to our pyramid, so they'll probably get the best of our kit and everyone else will have to fight over the dregs. But it's worth a try as some of our dregs are still serviceable. We are open until the 22nd of July. After that it will be only me and my technician decommissioning and wiping the system, and the SOR team gutting the buildings and redistributing all the equipment to other schools. [sARCASM]Fun times.[/sARCASM]

Since you're in Suffolk, are you eligible to "bid" (no money involved) on the the kit from the middle schools (like mine) closing under SOR this summer? If you are, give it a look, as while most of our kit is getting on a bit (our main IT suite was bought in 2007), we bought quality in the first place so most things still work relatively well. Chuck an SSD (and maybe some extra RAM) into our desktops and you'd probably get another year or two out of them. To give some idea of what we'll be getting rid of: Desktops ~90 x Dell Optiplex 745/755 USFF 14 x custom build Stones - For music ~30 HP DC7700 Laptops ~60 x Samsung NC20 (Avoid like the plague. They've been nothing but trouble) ~40 x Dell Latitude D530/E5500 Network 11 x HP Procurve switches (2800, 2824, 2650) 10 x Ruckus ZF7363 1 X Ruckus Zonedirector 1100 Servers 2 x Dell PowerEdge R715 (2 x AMD Opteron 6276 (16 core), 32 GB RAM, 4 x 600G SAS) - Virtualization hosts. Currently running 21 VMs. Fully redundant. 1 x Dell PowerEdge R515 (2 x AMD Opteron 4234, 32GB RAM, 2 x 500GB SAS, 4 x 1TB SAS) - Main file server 3 x Dell PowerEdge SC1435 - DCs and firewall 1 x Dell PowerEdge 2950 - Mail server 2 x Dell PowerEdge 2800 - Redundant but kept "just in case" All but the R*** are over the hill, but they're still serviceable. AV ~30 SmartBoards - Most outdated and/or broken ~30 Projectors - Most so old they don't display properly except in pitch black, but 1 or 2 are decent I've no idea what kit the other closing middle schools have got, they may have a few hidden gems of their own. Also, I can't guarantee the local high schools won't manage to grab the lot (not our decision), but if you are eligible, you may just get lucky. P.S. If you need any help with setup, my technician and I are available for contract work as we're both redundant as of the end of term

We use a combination of Syslog-NG, Icinga, Ganglia and MRTG to cover all the bases. syslog-ng - Open Source log management solution Icinga | Open Source Monitoring Ganglia Monitoring System MRTG - Tobi Oetiker's MRTG - The Multi Router Traffic Grapher

I'm the opposite, I'm not sure I see the point. While it's not my favourite JRPG (That accolade goes to either Grandia 2 or Tales of Vesperia [i bounce between the two]), I don't really see how you can improve on FF7. The story doesn't want changing, the battle system doesn't want changing, the world doesn't want changing, even the graphics are fine as is. Infact, with modern HD, ultra-realistic graphics I think it may lose some of its charm. All things considered I think it's much more likely they'll ruin it rather than improving on it, especially considering where the series has gone from 10 onwards. Leave well alone and spend that energy on designing a new game which can live up to the legacy of 7. Now where did I leave my Nomex suit ...

We've not got proper stats, but I can give you some basic stats from ifconfig. Download of 2.2TiB and upload of 199.6 GiB over a period of 312 days. That gives an average of around 7 GiB per day, which interestingly is very similar to my home stats.

That depends on what DNS you're running. I'm running Bind, so for me it's a matter of adding something akin to git CNAME trixie to my Bind config. For Windows DNS it's Add Alias with the service name as the Alias name and the server's FQDN for the target. I've not used Windows DNS since Server 2003 so the terms may have changed, but I doubt it.

Have the best of both systems. Give the servers interesting names, then add the service/role names as CNAMEs. That way you can name them after the characters of 50 shades, but refer to them by DC01, DC02, SIMS, etc. Using CNAMEs also gives scope to split services to separate servers later with minimal config changes, just change the CNAME.

Apologies for the late reply, but opening it up to suggestion only made the decision harder, from too few ideas to too many Thanks for all the great suggestions, but there could only be one winner, and as much as I'd love to call it Ewe Baastard, I don't think it's family friendly enough considering some of the cachers I've come across, so I've finally settled on Ewestace.

This is effectively what we do, although we do it via Group Policy and create the background images with a CLI PHP script. It's in PHP because I'm familiar with the image library and have PHP on my desktop anyway, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Example image: GP Settings: Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Logon > Always use custom background = Enabled Computer configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Files Name: backgroundDefault.jpg Action: Replace Source file(s): \\wildfire\globaldata\background\%COMPUTERNAME%-backgroundDefault.jpg Destination File: %WINDIR%\System32\oobe\info\backgroundDefault.jpg Wildfire is our file server and globaldata is a share which has global read access, for things just like this. Creation Script: /* * Copyright (C) 2014-2015 Alex Kitching * * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or * (at your option) any later version. * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with this program. If not, see . */ # - START CONFIG - # $prefix = Array(# {{{ Array(# OFFICE {{{ 'prefix' => 'OFFICE-0', 'min' => 1, 'max' => 3, 'x' => 1280, 'y' => 1024, ),# }}} Array(# S-LT {{{ 'prefix' => 'S-LT-0', 'min' => 1, 'max' => 33, 'x' => 1024, 'y' => 768, ),# }}} Array(# S-LT {{{ 'prefix' => 'S-LT-0', 'min' => 34, 'max' => 57, 'x' => 1280, 'y' => 800, ),# }}} );# }}} $pcs = Array(# {{{ '4535676764', '6486090090', );# }}} $font_path_mono = '/home/ak/.fonts/LinLibertine_Mah.ttf'; $font_path = '/home/ak/.fonts/LinLibertine_Rah.ttf'; # - END CONFIG - # $num = 0; $logo = imagecreatefrompng('logo.png'); foreach ($prefix as $p) { for ($i = $p['min']; $i <= $p['max']; $i++) { $num++; $image = imagecreatetruecolor($p['x'], $p['y']); $font_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 162, 0); $bg_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0); imagecopy($image, $logo, $p['x'] - 300, 45, 0, 0, 255, 300); imagettftext($image, 36, 0, 35, 65, $font_color, $font_path, 'Stowmarket Middle School'); imagettftext($image, 36, 0, 35, $p['y'] - 118, $font_color, $font_path_mono, $p['prefix'] . ($i < 10 ? '0' . $i : $i)); imagejpeg($image, 'background/' . $p['prefix'] . ($i < 10 ? '0' . $i : $i) . '-backgroundDefault.jpg', 100); imagedestroy($image); } } foreach ($pcs as $pc) { $num++; $image = imagecreatetruecolor(1280, 1024); $font_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 162, 0); $bg_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0); imagecopy($image, $logo, 1280 - 300, 45, 0, 0, 255, 300); imagettftext($image, 36, 0, 35, 65, $font_color, $font_path, 'Stowmarket Middle School'); imagettftext($image, 36, 0, 35, 1024 - 118, $font_color, $font_path_mono, $pc); imagejpeg($image, 'background/' . $pc . '-backgroundDefault.jpg', 100); imagedestroy($image); } imagedestroy($logo); echo $num . ' images created.'; The $prefix array holds details for our computers which are named sequentially following their location, with min and max being the bounds of the numbering, and x and y defining the image resolution. The $pcs array is a list of all computers which don't follow the above convention, which for us are all the same model, and thus have the same required resolution. The script creates all the images in the backgrounds subdirectory, which must already exist. Just copy the contents from there to the path used in the GP snippet above, and Bob's your scutter.

I was given this little fellow yesterday as part of a geocaching challenge, and before I release it into the wild, I need to give it a name. Since my naming ability is rather lacking where sheep are concerned (who knew), it seemed apt to open it up to suggestions, so give me your best. Puns are not only allowed, but downright encouraged

The output is plain HTML so it should follow your site's style, which IMO provides a better look than the widgets. The main block shows the user's balance (if they are unrestricted) and the environmental statistics. The quota block simly displays the user's balance if they are restricted. I've done it this way as it suited our needs, but if you'd rather just use the main block for everyone, whether of not their printing is restricted, just comment out or delete lines 65 and 75 in block_papercutws.php Also, the blocks are hardcoded to use pounds sterling, which isn't ideal, but was good enough for us and should be fairly easy to adjust. One last point, the webservice API doesn't give access to the environmental statistics so the block has to calculate them itself, so expect them to be different than the ones Papercut lists. The main block: The main block in context:

Does the PaperCut block in ZiLink work if the PaperCut server is not directly accessible, i.e. if Moodle is accessed from home? If not, and anyone wants that ability, I've got a couple of blocks which use the PaperCut web service to grab and then display the relevant data. This also prevents the need for clients to trust the PaperCut server's certificate, as only the web server ever connects to it. https://github.com/akitching/block_papercutws https://github.com/akitching/block_papercutws_quota

Considering Xenoblade Chronicles is, IMO, the best JRPG (maybe best game overall) on the Wii, I can see it being worth it assuming they didn't screw up the port. Although personally I'll stick with the Wii version as I find handheld consoles too uncomfortable for a game of that length.

Our primary backup is to our second building, but we do still have physical offsite backups in case of total building structural integrity failure (i.e. both buildings blow up). I know someone who used to work for a company whose data centre was right next to the Buncefield oil depot, so I tend to use that as my 'disaster' yardstick (not that there's much likelyhood of anything on that scale happening here). My thinking is that is we have to change site due to a disaster, we'll likely have replacement servers before an Internet connection (it took 18 site visits over several months for BT to get the last set of lines in here ). In such a position, backups in the cloud would not be of much use, so I refuse to be reliant on them and would only consider them in addition to physical offsite backups. Although if we define 'Cloud' to mean a server in another local school which I can visit to grab said backups if need be, that would be a different matter. In fact, my backup server in another school and their backup server in mine would probably be the best option overall.

We have six still in service: 2 DCs, 1 SuccessMaker, 1 ESET, 1 Net2 for door control, and 1 IIS for SSPR. All six will be scrapped (along with everything else) come the end of the summer term, when the school closes.

Our more unusual tools include: A Dremel A three computer music system to drown out the pupils MPD running on my desktop A custom front end on my Joggler (below the centre screen), for easy control A RaspberryPi with a reed switch above the door to pause the music whenever anyone enters the office - Can't have the head walking in while we have pirate metal (among other things) playing, now can we [*]An X-Keys for my most used commands (and the school's stupidly long domain name) [*]A stress relieving pig [*]A custom made, raspberryPi powered, STONITH device for our Xen cluster - as we're too cheap to buy a switched PDU [*]An XBOX for those quiet moments we never seem to get One of these days I'll get around to adding a mini fridge too. The XBOX screen doubles as our monitoring system display when not in use for its primary purpose. STONITH

PM sent. Rather surprising how many of those I recognise.

PM sent.

Message sent.

@LincolnK I will be contacting some external companies. At this point I'm simply collating the options to pass on to SMT. @Boredguy That's pretty much what my self build system would be, except the Arduinos would allow it to utilize the existing infrastructure. @lazerblazer We've got radios already, this will be an emergency backup which will likely never be used. Except by pupils, as some just can't resist a button, especially not a big red one. @network41 If I'm reading that correctly it's a panic button for a house alarm system. While it's an amusing idea, I don't think the Business Manager would be pleased if I mounted a siren intended to be used outdoors directly over her desk. @SYNACK It isn't actually expected to be dangerous, but since it's an isolation space for pupils who have been removed from lessons, and it will only be manned by one member of staff at a time*, it's getting CCTV and a panic button, more as a failsafe than anything else. * We have staffing problems as we close next summer so staff (and pupils) are jumping ship.

Afternoon all, I have been asked to find a cost effective (i.e. cheap) way to provide panic buttons in our two isolation rooms, which will sound an alarm in our main admin office when activated. I'm contemplating building a system using Arduinos or RaspberryPis, but before I do can anyone suggest a ready made alternative which is inexpensive, quick/easy to install, and reliable. Required: Cheap Continuous alarm until manually silenced (i.e. Not a wireless doorbell as one of our staff suggested) Visual indication of which alarm has been triggered Stand alone system, although it can run over the existing network Cannot be switched off by pupils Desired: Alarm can only be silenced at the activated button, and then only using using a key (like a fire alarm) Thanks