teejay

What a nightmare! Maybe get a wireless battery operated nigh vision camera and stick it in your car?

Erm, ours works out at about £680 per year per desktop including our whole IT budget, staff costs, electricity etc and we have quite an expensive disaster recovery/high availability solution in place which does cost a fair chunk each year. If we did it per user rather than per machine it works out at £209 per person (staff + students), so yes £6,000 per year seems pretty high.

Millgate/Insight/Academia/Phoenix Software/Pugh Computers Always mention you are getting quotes elsewhere and it may also be worth getting prices for a 3 year agreement as they are quite a bit cheaper. It does not tie you to a supplier for 3 years, each year can be bought at time of renewal through a different supplier, it just ties you in for 3 years into EES. The only time it's not worth going with a 3 year is if you are going to have a significant drop in staff numbers as you cannot decrease licence numbers.

I just use a select list of suppliers, email them for quotes and see what comes back, it doesn't take long. If they are decent suppliers they know not to hassle you, if they do hassle you then knock em off your list:D

Nope, why?

I've tried all the government procurement schemes and others, they all come back dearer than going to our usual suppliers. Even our suppliers who are also on the frameworks say it's cheaper avoiding the procurement schemes as they can supply cheaper direct rather than going through the schemes. It's stupid really, but gives you an idea as to why the government wastes so much money in this country, they just have no negotiating skills and get ripped off left right and centre:mad:

Finally got chance to have a play with the flash and the wireless triggers, they both work very well. Took a bit of figuring out, the manuals are really useless especially for someone who hasn't a clue with flashes:rolleyes: Will test them properly next weekend, Mac has been in for the snip so he's on lead walks only at the moment so can't get any action shots.

Bill Bailey is 50/1 in the betting, now he would make a fantastic doctor Benedict Cumberbatch is 6/1....

Good, really haven't taken to him, find him too manic. As for his current assistant, well :love:

No you can't use HUP for the OS, only office. Please remember that the OS is licenced as an upgrade so you would have to have either an OEM or full retail version to upgrade from, so no you wouldn't be able to buy a pc without OS.

The £8.95 is a handling fee, there always has been one under the Home Use Programme. What you are thinking of is work at home rights, which is free but you have to provide media and licence key, with HUP the user signs up through a Microsoft portal, gets their own licence key and can download the media or get it on DVD. The big difference is that they are then signing up to the licence as an individual, whereas work at home rights the licensing is still the responsibility of the institution.

Do a clean install, you'll end up with loads of problems restoring an out of sync backup. This is one reason we're testing moving to server 2012 as that doesn't have the AD sync issues of previous versions, so might be worth looking at installing that if you have an licensing agreement that allows you to.

It's done through the Microsoft Volume Licensing portal under benefits, look for Home Use Programme.

I've done a full factory reset on my camera and that seems to have sorted out the green problem when shooting in jpeg, I think in RAW it's down to my lack of experience/skill in RAW processing. Roll on tomorrow when the new toys arrive

Well, in the end I've ordered the Yongnuo YN568EX and the Yongnuo YN-622C Wireless TTL flash triggers, which combined were cheaper than just the 430EX II. They're through Amazon so I've got a few days to have a play and if I don't like them then send them back.

Right, I think I'm going to go for the 430 EX II, had a look at those yongnuo ones and what puts me off a bit is that you cannot update the firmware so are unlikely to work with newer cameras. The canon flashes seem to hold good resale value so I can always upgrade later if necessary. Yes I'm slowly learning about composition and getting down to their height, I've also got to train Mac as when I get down lower he instantly thinks its playtime and jumps all over me:p I only really started again back in February and with the rubbish weather haven't had that much chance to get out, but I'm definitely seeing a big improvement. Thanks for all the advice, will hopefully get out at the weekend and test the flash if it turns up in time.

Thanks @pcstru, that looks a good option, would the 320EX be ok for this or should I go up to the 430EX II? Either way, that's a lot cheaper option than the USM lenses I've been looking at

Fantastic photo :-) I don't know, bungeeing the labs to a tree might be a good idea!

I'm not sure I fancy that with about 10-15 Labradors running around, they wouldn't last very long

4-5.6 on the 55-250mm 3.5 - 5.6 on the 18-55mm

These give an idea of distance: These are when they stand still:p And these are why you don't get too close:rolleyes: I would show some examples of when it all goes wrong, but I've deleted them, if it's dry in the next couple of days I'll try and get some examples. @CESIL I used to shoot motorsport pictures, so I'm ok with panning and also use monopod, just can't get any decent results, that's why I'm looking at possibly upgrading kit.

Generally I'm not using a flash as they are too far away for it to be of any benefit, if they are close then I just have then built in flash, but the closer range ones they don't tend to be running around. I'm probably expecting too much from the lenses, that's why I was asking if there are any better lenses for that camera.

Yes I've tried the continuos shoot mode, yes it's ok in bright sunlight, just. On an overcast day or in lower light levels it's pretty useless, even if you are tracking and using a monopod. I used to photograph motorsports with this camera and it used to be ok, that's why I'm wondering if it's a problem with the camera/lenses. I do mainly shoot in raw and yes with a lot of fiddling I can get the colour just about sorted, it just seems a particular problem with the green range, if I shoot a shot with not much green in it I get much richer colours straight off, if there is a lot of green then the pictures look washed out and dull and take a lot more processing to get even vaguely right.

I'm getting back into photography as a hobby after a break of a few years, my current camera is a Canon EOS 450D with EF-S 18-55mm IS and EFS 55-250mm IS lenses. My main interest is photographing our dog and his buddies, also a bit of landscape photography. I think I'm beginning to hit the limits of what the camera and lenses can do, I'm ok on a bright, sunny days but on overcast days or if we are in woods then I'm struggling especially with action shots as it drops down to too low a shutter speed to catch the action properly. I'm getting good results when they are stood still, which is a rarity, but not when moving. I've got a monopod, which helps a bit but still not enough, i'm actually wondering if the image stabilisation/autofocus isn't working correctly. I'm also not overly happy with the colour output, especially in the green range which looks a bit insipid. So, I'm wondering if I would see an improvement by just replacing the lenses with something better, if so any recommendations, or should I fleabay the lot and start again, if so what would you recommend? I'm happy to move up the range a bit, but can't afford the pro/semi pro kit.

There are some differences in the channels available on Freesat & Freeview, so have a look at their websites and see if there are channels which you'd want that are only available on one of them. Freeview will usually work fine with your existing TV aerial, sometimes in rubbish reception areas you'll need to replace it. Freesat obviously requires a satellite dish installing, if you've ever had Sky and still have their dish on your house then you can use that, but if it's old it may only have a single LNB on it, you really need a dual or quad LNB.