Zoom7000

I was thinking the same thing myself! If you are planning on holding what would expect to be a top end meeting (because you are after all asking for £200 for the privilege to attend) I personally would expect the organiser to have impeccable spelling and grammar at the very least, as well as not using so much bad language every other sentence. Very unprofessional in this circumstance if you ask me. Do you know we have a "FFS" forum here?

My school refused to pay for transport for me to get to the EduGeek Conference. On top of this, they don't want to tell us a damn thing about BSF. Almost 2 months on, I still haven't been told by anyone, SLT, LA or otherwise who the preferred bidder are... Don't you just love the Internet! As mentioned above, we all know what the problems are with BSF, and in my experience I can't get the parties to sit down together in an office, let alone ask them to come discuss the issues and give me £200 each to come and tell me, frankly put, what they don't seem to want to tell me anyway! Sorry to sound rude, but from the start, BSF has sounded like a right disaster from the day I first heard about it and the news just gets grimmer and grimmer and you want us to pay £150 to come and be told that's how it is anyway, because it's either sign a nice contract and you won't pay a thing, or don't sign and you won't get a penny towards ICT for the next 11 years till the contract is up! No thank you... You don't have a business here and I won't be investing so... I'm out!

Does anyone know how loud it is? We're looking for an Air Con/Cooler for our office but don't want something that's gonna give us ear aches!

Don't drink I'm afraid! Either way though, it is true, I can't get a mortgage down here on £24.5k, I dunno how on Earth I would manage a mortgage on £13-15k. It is true though, albeit house prices are cheaper it is true, most things (ammenity items) are the same price regardless of where you are in the country. BT phone line and Be* broadband still costs me £11 and £18/month. Virgin Media will still cost me £11/month. O2 contract will still cost me £25/month. Nappies are no cheaper up north. Prescriptions still £7.10 The list goes on and on... As much as I'd love to have my own home and not waste £750/month + Bills on rent, I'm almost becoming accustomed to accepting that owning your own home maybe isn't the be all and end all of everything! Still would like more money though!

Google SketchUp comes as an InstallShield package, so I got round the need for the MSI by recording the Installation log file and then deploying it with SCCM by pointing it to the log. The details on how to do it can be found here.

Are these really low salaries common for North West England? I was very loosely thinking of relocation to get away from expensive London life but those salaries are like almost a £10k cut!

Not entirely sure about the upgrade period, but whatever it is you choose to do, shop around! Can't stress this enough. Use moneysupermarket.com to help. However, you're with O2 and have been on what they consider a premium contract. Anything over £35/month. I was on O2 for 18 months, £35/month Nokia N73 400mins 100txts Cashback deal with Mobileshop.com. My upgrade with O2 was in February and after much haggling and giving them the statutory "give me the best phone I want for as little money as I want to pay or stuff your contract", they gave me the latest Nokia N82 (worth £400 at the time!) for free 600mins 500txts £35/month for 18 months with £10 discount/month for the duration of the contract. So £25/month for 18 months no hassle, no cashback, sweet and simple! Either way, follow the guidelines over at Money Saving Expert these guideline work superbly and I have got family and friends some brilliant deals by being stern. Make sure you haggle, you'll be surprised how low they can go to keep you! If you do decide to leave and go for a cashback deal, I'd suggest to go for a major company only. e2save, Carphone Warehouse or Phones4u. Don't be tempted by cheap offers from non major companies, chances are they will go bankrupt, it's happened to at least 4 companies lately. Also, sign up online, try going through Quidco you can earn cashback if you place an order online after clicking through the site, so you can't go wrong. Money to be made on your shopping!

For viewing Microsoft sites in Firefox, I use the IETab extension. Failing that, some Microsoft sites only work well in IE.

You might need to submit a ticket telling them about your missing earnings, I know I have had to do this in the past. But hey, it's all good, free money for doing some shopping that you wouldn't have earned anything on anyway!

I'm with Be, Unlimited package, getting 15Mbps Down. £18pm. If you sign up via Quidco you can earn £40!

Got another Debt Collection letter today. I opened it up, final request for an £814 bill to T-Mobile before starting court proceedings. How do you rack up £814 on T-Mobile without getting cut off? Anyway, a quick call telling them I have no idea who the addressed person is and that I have no forwarding contact or any other info, and I got a "Thank you and we will ensure you don't get any more letters." He did say they will try to find him elsewhere. Either way, that should be one problem sorted. I'm opening them all from now on, seems to work better than "Return to Sender"

Oh no they can't, cause it ain't my debt! Besides, I don't have a TV, just a LCD Monitor with TV Tuner which is my main monitor for my PC that I use to connect to the school servers at evenings, hence it becomes use for employment and so therefore cannot be taken by bailiffs anyway! And for the record, the laptop belongs to the school and it has school stamps plastered all over it! Don't you just love how the law can play in to your hands sometimes? I was just a bit worried about the "Certified Bailiffs" letter. I wish I'd opened it now, but oh well. I don't think the RTS system is working. I have written all over the letters, "Return to Sender - Person does not live at this address, please do not send any further correspondance" and they still keep sending letters. So, from now on, I'll deal with these myself. Like I said, just don't want the hassle of possible HMRC/Magistrate/Court Bailiffs trying to break in for a debt that isn't even in my name!

The letter I opened was definately a Debt Collection agency appointed by Thames Water. The other 2 identical letters that I didn't open said "Certified Bailiffs" in the Envelope Window.

I pay the council tax. When I signed up for council tax, they told me there was no previous liabilities so I should be OK there. I dunno what other taxes the HMRC could want, if any, I just hope those letters that I RTS'd were petty bills, I know 1 was for Thames Water and I called them up saying there'd be hell to pay if they cut me off because I am all paid till Apr 2009. They said not to worry. Electricity is a key meter, gas is a brand new meter that I'm still waiting for British Gas to register, they said it could take up to 12 weeks if not more. There was no previous phone, cable TV or anything else. Also, I'd be surprised if the previous residents even bothered with TV License.

Yeah, I'm not worried about anyone turning up when I am home, I can deal with that, ID, Tenancy Agreement etc. I just don't want any "HMRC bailiffs" breaking in when I'm not!

I spoke to a friend in Royal Mail who told me the "Return to Sender" system was flawed and doesn't really work. Essentially it stems from people "taking the mick" and sending legitimate replies using RTS. So, the letters end up as "dead letters" in a post office sorting centre corner somewhere. Also, I read somewhere that the opening of letters was only illegal during the stage of transit. I actually got a letter from DVLA today which said, "If undelivered, please do not return to sender" yes you have read correctly, do not, and in bold too. I opened it and it was a letter thanking the addressee for informing the DVLA he was no longer in possesion of his car. Funny he didn't tell them that he'd moved house! Muppet! They told me to return the letter with a cover letter stating I no longer live there anymore. Unfortunately I can't get my landlord to budge on the matter, he just said keep RTS-ing and if I get any unwanted guests, to call him. Thing is, it's all good that bailiffs can't force entry and such, but I dunno what debts these fools had. It states on the Directgov website that if the debt is owed to HMRC they can break in...

I should have stressed that I was asking if there is an adapter of some sort (or should I say transformer) that will throttle down the voltage to not fry myself and the fan! I almost sounded as worse as a teacher!

Is it possible to plug a 4 pin molex connector straight in to a UK mains socket. If so, what kind of connector/adapter do I need? I'd like to plug a 200mm system fan I've got lying around in and cool our office down!

Thanks for the replies guys. It's seems a very complex and lengthy process. I'm more worried about my wife having to deal with bailiff than myself, but she says she just won't open the door!

I have recently moved in to a new flat and I'm receiving loads of letters in previous tennants names. Recently, I have noticed that many of these letters are from Bailiffs and debt collection agencies. I have been returning these letters without opening them simply marking them as "Return to Sender - Person does not live at this address" Am I doing the wrong thing? Should I be opening any future letters and calling the compaines up telling them that I do not know who these people are and that they do not live here. What do I do if bailiffs turn up at my door? Can I simply show them my ID and tenancy agreement and say that there is no one of those names living here?

I've never had much luck with portables. Usually find you need to sit right in front of it and then you tend to get a slight breeze. Is this one much different? I brought a AC/Heater for home last year £80 from Argos and it was OKish! Anyone had any luck with this one?

Is there any free software that will allow me to create an image of my laptop hard drive and then back it up to DVD. Thus allowing me to boot up from the DVD and restore the HDD back to the image that I created?

Bloxx, School Guardian, Websweeper and the likes are great when at school. Unfortunately, personal finances for the home never seem to reach so far! Are there any good free web filtering solutions for the home? Before anyone suggests, I have tried the hosts file with no luck since upgrading to IE7 and also couldn't get Firefox to read the loopbacks either. So, something commercial like, but free would be very nice. Any suggestions?

I'm not too fussed with conversion myself. I've installed MPC with K-Lite so it plays almost anything. The conversion is usually good cause teachers usually have no clue how to play .flv files at home. Especially ICT Teachers!

You can't blame us for getting heated. I have heard very little positive information about BSF and the ICT outsourcing. The public criticisms seem to have gone totally unnoticed. Communication is very little, if not totally zero. In my LA, the contracts were all signed and agreed upon in March, the details were released to the Internet in March (RM Website, Newham Website, Yahoo News, Contract Journal and many more) I have seen this info for myself, yet have we had any formal announcements at all? Not even a whisper! Infact I told our Bursar the info and she received an email a few days later telling her not to disclose the information to staff! So, it's fine for the general public and whole world to know the information, but don't tell the people who's careers and livelyhood it actually affects! In addition to all our personal worries, is the actual fact that this will probably be a very poor move for eduction ICT support as a whole. I know of many schools who have moved away from previously outsourced ICT support to in house. I applied for 2 of these jobs and they told us what a terrible state of affairs their support was in. 1 of the schools just so happened to be run by RM! Enough said... Teacher's are totally shocked when I tell them "you're gonna have to call the support hotlines for support... in India!" Time to get out of Education IT!