DrBeaker

I think that pretty much sums it up. I've found myself (YMMV) some techs have no idea on customer service, but great tech skills. Some the other way around. Each to their own. To do the job, we need a balance of every skill.

Thing is like when Germany decided to get rid of Linux after moving to it to save money https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/27/lower_saxony_to_dump_linux/ Google and BBC getting rid of VR in the news just today https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50080594 Technology can be stopped at any point in time - remember Google+? Just as sometimes with some open-source projects the author(s) or team(s) could stop being interested in the project, or simply die and there's no-one left to support it Or this one https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a16010/30-year-old-computer-runs-school-heat/ All examples of projects that had good intentions but ultimately weren't feasible or have essentially been abandoned for one reason or many. Open-source has it's uses, so does commercial software. Each to their own. The technology, equipment and software are all just tools at the end of the day and some tools are better than others e.g. Snap-On. Sometimes you end up using the wrong tool for the wrong job e.g. using a Phillips for a slotted screw

Yep - you want a service, you've got to pay. Time is money as per an earlier poster. Some people's time is actually worth more than others, some people just THINK their time is actually worth more than others. Open-source is all and good but it's not fit for everything. I can ring up support and get them on the case, whilst I work on the next problem on the list.

Yeah had the same and yeah it had changed the default app for one user to Dreamweaver. Changed it back and all good!

I've tried this week at home and got it working on a docker install on Ubuntu. I have no proper understanding of docker though, which is why I'm tempted with the cloud version to be honest.

Reminds me of this .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPMcJrlvz8c

Never heard of them to be honest. What's the 101 on it? How do you find it? Pros/Cons? I've used Xibo before and got some pretty clever stuff on it, but it was all in-house. I just don't have the time to manage yet another server updates etc for what is really a non-essential system. Only catch with the cloud version seems to be the bandwidth, but others say they've not hit that limit it seems.

We've done layouts with permissions within Xibo etc before but staff "don't understand it" despite us doing instructions, showing them etc. So it ends up IT doing it which is the opposite of what we intended. Best solution we came up with was exactly that - using an embedded Google slides doc.

How many displays do you have on it now? Do you use many display slots? How does it work on the cloud versus a local install? Does it download media from the cloud and cache the media e.g. MP4 files, locally on the device like it does with self-hosted Xibo? So it can still play in the event of a network outage?

Funny reading this post, a bit like going back in time for me. Got tasked with investigating this at one place. Got as far as spreadsheets that IMHO the Heads of House would have updated and then from there it would have updated on the TV. After numerous attempts, no-one was bothered to do it, update it etc so we had no choice to drop the idea. Pity but if the stakeholders weren't interested, what could we do?

How have you found it with using docker since? Are you running it on a linux install e.g. Ubuntu server?

How have you found the cloud version? Any pros/cons? What's the feature of the CMS like?

How have you found it being hosted in the cloud? How fully-featured is the CMS in the cloud compared to a local server install? Have you run into any bandwidth limits on the cloud version?

Would you mind sharing who quoted you and what items that was for? I'm looking for similar. Yeah it's OK for home use, not sure about even if they do site licences etc.

For photo-editing I've been trying to look into Affinity Photo https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/ it looks just as powerful as Adobe and a lot cheaper. We can't afford Photoshop either and my argument is are we teaching the kids skills or "How to use Photoshop"? I suspect the politics and skills of Art teachers (as well as people's egos) are called into question then however.

How old is the laptop itself? That would be the decider for me personally if it's out of warranty. My time spent fixing it overall would cost more than a replacement.

Hello, Name, reboot, still not working? OK I can't solve it, pass to 2nd line team. That was about how much time you had in one place to actually fix something. God forbid you actually 1) tried and 2) managed to fix it whilst on the phone - you got told off by management for doing that.

Yeah similar to one router I had once. There was an inbuilt tester in the settings, which upon investigation one of the tests it did was a DNS lookup on a domain which apparently didn't exist. So of course, the test always failed 100% of the time.

How does that work with the far edges of the school and getting connectivity?

Seems as always in IT there's been some scope creep from the original idea, to all the extras. What I envisioned as originally: * ISOs * Drivers * IT support documentation * IT Support files Has gone to storing any photos, videos etc on there too. Likely just as storage for the raw footage, video project files etc. Mainly for any one doing any video editing (Full HD at most) like exams, drama stuff etc. Just as a dumping ground for that. Likely to process on their PC and then store/backup to the NAS rather then edit it from there. I was going to go with RAID 10 purely a lot of other forums etc say SHR or RAID 6 would be best, so I'm not so sure now.

Thanks for all the replies so far folks. We might have to end up storing any IT photos and IT videos on here now too. As well as the normal IT stuff us folks have. Any particular Synology units folks would recommend? Ones's they've had good experience with? Anybody use the SHR RAID setup on these units in production, or bog-standard RAID 5, 6 or 10?

Interesting. I'm trying to invest in and improve the setup for the team compared to what's in place now, which is pretty much nothing except local storage. Most data would be static once setup, but also a case of offloading any videos etc the team are working on onto the NAS instead of the central servers. I was thinking of something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS418-Bay-Desktop-Enclosure/dp/B075D98BF8/ref=sr_1_35?keywords=2+bay+nas&qid=1570377505&sr=8-35 and then 4x 2TB Drives https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WD40EFRX-NASware-Internal/dp/B008JJLZ7G/ref=pd_bxgy_147_3/260-2103043-0021533?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00EHBERSE&pd_rd_r=09d669cc-7b35-4aa2-92ef-7763de7ed134&pd_rd_w=jT9OM&pd_rd_wg=69TNP&pf_rd_p=7a9d3b22-47b7-4932-be38-57f4219c3325&pf_rd_r=KESS35G4YJ80WZG2G1AR&refRID=KESS35G4YJ80WZG2G1AR&th=1 giving a total of 4TB in RAID 10 and then at a cost of under £500 that's good for at least 3-5x years so at a cost of £100 per year approx.

Hi All, I'm after some recommendations for a NAS for our IT Support team. Sort of a private NAS for our IT Support team and only for them - for items like storing drivers, ISOs etc - the typical sort of IT support files. Ones that it's not really practical to store in the cloud anywhere and don't really need to be on a fully-fledged server. As we're an RM school we can't just stick it on the file server as we'll run out of space for stuff that's sort of non-essential. Integration with the AD would also be a very useful feature, not too bothered about any video apps etc anything like that. Just secure, reliable file storage for the team. Just wondering if other staff/IT support teams have gone a similar route? If so what sort of NAS device, make, model and setup etc have you gone for? Not sure whether to go for a 2-bay NAS for now and upgrade/replace at some point in the future. Or just get a 4-bay one now and go for broke (so to speak) and get it over and done with? Synology looks quite good value for money, but some of their high-end 2-bays I could get a cheaper 4-bay and go for RAID 5/6 or RAID 10 instead? What are the thoughts of fellow edugeekers?Thanks

Recommended to set it to AHCI. How old are the PCs? If MBR/Legacy BIOS works, just use that. We have some Dells that technically support UEFI but as they're already over 5x years old I'm not planning to bother messing around with it, due to how old they are now.

It's nearly 2020! Is this symbolic of Cunningham's whole attitude towards things in this age? Crap software? I'm not impressed with them much in the jobs I've had when I've had to get involved with their team or company. Shoddy work, unhelpful engineers, I wouldn't recommend them but here that's down to the catering manager to manage it, not IT. Interesting - pros/cons etc? How about the service, response etc from Biostore by comparison?