Nibiru

PEBCAK get used occasionally here

Get yourself onto the CPC website & get yourself a few tools ordered! Your workplace cant possibly expect you to work efficiently if they wont provide any tools.

Ive got a nice office next to our main staffroom. Just me in here, plenty of bench space for fixing wonky equipment, a whiteboard for scribbled notes, a big pinboard, and a nice window overlooking the central courtyard and the pond. Im lucky

+1 for cable tie the leads to the network cable. We went through several phases of keyboards & mice being either moved to the front ports (WHY?!) or swapped to the adjacent machine (presumably for the chaos that causes) All stopped once I deployed my magic cable ties.

Resistant Material - Living in the Plastic Age - Buggles Heart of Glass - Blondie

PE _ Who Will You Run To - Heart RE _ Dont Stop Believin - Journey

Whilst wandering around Zakopane in the Polish Tatra mountains a couple of years ago we stumbled up a stage finish for the Tour of Poland so spent a very pleasant afternoon being entertained by that. Zak is lovely - not much English spoken there, but we got through with many laughs and pointing at things, we found a small bar a couple of miles out of town where a pint was about a pound

The TDF experience is awesome. I was lucky enough to see it when there was a stage finish on top of an Andorran mountain a few years ago. We were 5 miles from the finish on an insanely steep mountain road and even after a 200 mile dash from Barcalona the lycra clad warriors were going at a fair clip when they passed us. Seeing all the advertising vehicles going past beforehand was great fun.

RE - Losing my Religion REM...... History - Never in a Million years - Asia

Maths - Living by Numbers New Musik. Music - Thank you for the music - Abba Geog - Far Away - Nickelback

Watch your power requirements. A desktop and monitor typically draws about 3amps. So 4 computers will max out a 13A fuse. Plug more in and you are risking a fuse blowing, or a fire. It sounds like you seriously need to get an electrician in to install extra permanent sockets.

You have quite a fire risk there! Get the sparkies in and get it wired up properly....

Our council put proper air con in our server room when they replaced our servers a couple of years ago. The aircon is wall mounted opposite the cabinet so that cool air is blown straight onto the cabinet area. What a difference - instead of all the fans howling at full revs all summer its nice and quiet in there - and as a bonus its pleasant to work in there on a hot afternoon Well worth whatever the investment was.

Business as normal up here - no half term....

~900 kids & 110 staff And theres just little me (plus some backup from a council team when things go completely pear shaped)

1) When troubleshooting a recalcitrant bit of equipment always make sure you switch it off wait 30 seconds & switch it back on People laugh but it clears an amazing array of faults 2) Believe in your super powers. Just arriving in a room mysteriously fixes many faults - no end of times Ive heard the wail "it wasnt working before honest"

+1 for getting the teachers to use extended desktops - if you give them a twin monitor system. The secondary monitor displays the output of the projector so its just a case of drag & drop stuff onto the second screen. Extended screens is pretty hopeless with just one monitor though. Ive done most of our rooms here and the majority of the staff have been delighted with the additional flexibility. I used cast off 17" monitors from our last refit for the secondary screens so it was done at minimal cost, I just had to buy some vga splitters - mainly passive y-splitters although I did find some projectors that didnt like the voltage drop and I now use usb powered splitters. There are a few technophobe luddites holding out but the last few rooms will be done over this summer with training put in place for those that believe they cant cope.

#1 - John Wetton. Superb voice and some decent riffs on the bass guitar. Asia is his best known group - still touring 32 years after Heat of the Moment was a mega smash hit in the summer of 82. Plus the bonus of the Phenomena track Did It All For Love.

Exactly the same problem here. I completely re-equipped my department at zero cost to the school & council using perfectly adequate cast offs.

Windows all the way here. Sibelius on the network machines & Ive patched up some old redundant ex network kit as standalone none network machines that have open office & dance ejay - the head of the department having picked up a big pile of dance ejay discs for peanuts a few years ago. No network & no internet = the kids dont get sidetracked off task Oh and utilising redundant RM 2020's stripped out of other rooms during our last refit meant they got a uniform set of equipment for the cost of a few hours of my time, instead of the assorted hotch potch of elderly none standard base units they had to put up with before. The 2020s aint great but they do what the deaprtment wants from them with very few problems. I only see the base units again on the rare occasions they suffer a hardware failure - mainly power supplies, occasionally the cd drives pack up. ANd there are plenty of spares of both in my store room.

Not a great tv fan - I only have the basic sky sub to keep the OH quiet - I prefer my foreign tv channels off my ultra complicated satellite system However Ive collected Who Pays the Ferryman from 1977 Allo Allo Monkey Up Pompeii original series from 1969ish slowly collecting The Two Ronnies. Also been archiving Top Of the Pops from 1977 onwards as they have been shown on BBC4 over the last couple of years. (Plus ahem acquiring unshown progs and anything from earlier years that appear online )

Much against my wishes we put Epson projectors & pull down screens in our 3 cookery rooms about 3 or 4 years ago. The filters need to be cleaned regularly to get the grease out and we have had 1 lamp failure when a techno-pillock let it run too hot too long ignoring the overheat messages, but its not been the disaster I expected. I give the outer cases a wipe over with a cloth that has a few dabs of meths on it a couple of times a year to shift the grease. Ive just had to mentally decide these particular units are expendable, we cant afford any fancy mounting boxes or tv screen solutions.

Toy Tory - Umm I'll let you make your own gags up for this one

Chariots of Ire - anger in the Roman army

Ickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie - a sad story of sea sickness