DrBeaker

Depends on how some of these PAT testers get paid - some get paid per device, so the more "Portable Appliances" they find the more they get paid! Believe it or not!

I hope you've got power tools to do that then. Otherwise it's wear and tear on your hands. It's a health and safety issue then, so report it to your health and safety officer!

Agreed. But when I'd spent hours reinstalling, recovering data etc to be given a 4-pack of Fosters as payment? Worth about £3.79 at the time. It was a insult to me and my skills.

Scheduled and agreed downtime, otherwise come back another day!

I had someone the once come to me to support their personal Macbook. After some "discussions" I advised them if they could afford a device like this, they could damm well afford a £40 HDD to back it up. Never saw them again after that. If they don't respect you during the day job, how are they going to respect you when you're doing it as a favour?

Surely that would apply to IT Techs who have to use their own kit as the school doesn't supply a laptop, phone, tablet etc? These days it should really be as simple as a work device for work and personal for personal. E.g. I can't go to work and start using the work phone (work resources) to call my friends to have a catch-up about their weekend. So why should I be expected to use my personal resources for work purposes? Sometimes it's a bit of give and take but I've found it's mostly take. I know somewhere that brought mobiles for SLT etc but wouldn't buy them for the IT team.

I'd suggest yes then use a proper bracket, but obviously that's gonna cost a bit more. Neat always costs more - why do you think quotes for chasing cables into the wall is double or triple compared to surface-mounted trunking?

If you're not too fussy on mounting it or if it's not in a viewable area - is heavy duty velcro an option? https://www.amazon.co.uk/VELCRO-Brand-Superior-Holding-Indoors/dp/B00186Q7XY/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1548609062&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=heavy+duty+velcro&psc=1 We've used this before behind some TVs for some small NUC-ish Nettops and it's still there to this day.

If they have a sulk because they didn't get their way, run off and tell SLT - that tells me all I need to know about their teaching and adulting skills and I would deal with them accordingly after that.

What about "unauthorised access to data" - i.e. why do you want to see or have access to any of their personal data on their device? What about liability for repairs - There's a difference between a competent tech and a "certified" tech when it comes to repairing things. What about insurance for repairs etc? Whole bulk deal on cans of worms there my friend. Short answer is No. Ultimately no - I'm paid to look over work equipment not your own, if they want to pay my personal rates I charge after work hours that's a different story and it's not cheap.

I was still having to fix netbooks up until 2015! Some were ASUS with soldered on 1GB RAM - guess what the complaint about them was? They're slow. No Sherlock!

Hopefully this will be the start of the end of JAVA once and for all! Good scam though you've got to admit - spend years of business, schools etc using your product for free, then start them charging for it.

Before I started the school replaced some SMARTboards and projectors with a TV and the biggest complaint was - I can't freeze the screen. As they're just normal TVs - yes you're right and no you can't freeze the screen. This is what happens when IT isn't part of the conversation - an expensive mistake.

Some departments in schools claim that all year long, until suddenly towards the end of the academic year - there's a bunch of cheap tablets off eBay turn up on my desk asking them to be setup etc. so they had the money somewhere. No I understand that the priority is for the teaching and learning. But a teacher losing a pen, or taking it home in their pencilcase, locking it in their locker or desk drawers so only they and they alone can use it etc (which I've all seen) also affects teaching and learning the same way a faulty pen would. It's probably down to the view that some people hold that all IT equipment is a consumable not an asset - until that view changes, nothing will change.

Interesting angle - that would be a safeguarding issue then and one I'll be honest I never thought of. Perhaps some students do it to get the attention they're not getting at home. OR as an attempt TO get the attention of staff to point out something that is going on at home? Intriguing. If that were the case then the SLT and school should be monitoring IT suite damage even more closely, to link in with the Safeguarding. Or is that us in IT support being ahead of the curve yet again?

I wonder how the school insurance company would feel about that if it was online publicly and that kit DID actually get stolen?. Hmmm

It took about 3x weeks just to get everything finished and prepared for the year 11 leaving video we used to do. So I'd imagine this project to be honest you'd be looking at a year or more if not doing this full-time. Could you get a company in to do it maybe? What resources in terms of computer hardware, cameras, disk space etc do you have? Plus who's providing the VR headset? You're talking at least £130 per headset at least? What if their phone isn't up to scratch to run the version of the VR app etc? Loads of issues here I can see. The concept is good. But it seems again they want a technical solution to what's not really a technical issue to begin with? Surely this is a job for the SEN team? E.g. we have issues with SEN students having problems entering passwords for example. As long as the account works, IMHO anything after that is down to the SEN team, that's what they're trained for and their role.

Have you got any policy in place for charging/re-charging the faculty who have lost the pen? IMHO a technical fault with the pen is different to a "lost" pen.

Just wondered what everyone does for home backup/file storage on your home networks and your network itself? I'm looking to modernise or centralise mine to make it a bit easier to manage - from a file and networks point of view. Bear in mind I'm sure we all get enough of this at work! Do you have a NAS at home? If so where do you keep it - living room, cupboard, garage etc? Have you run any extra cabling for wired network connections? Anyone moved to PoE access points and a central location for your broadband etc? Do you use the NAS for centralised storage for your files e.g. as a file server or as a central backup for your 'client' computers? Ideally this is what I was thinking: Getting Virgin to run the fibre/coax to the garage, use their router in modem mode. 1Gbps main/core switch with some PoE ports OR PoE Injectors PoE access points - 1x upstairs, 1x downstairs. NAS in the garage wireless clients/run some ethernet cabling to key locations Maybe this is a pipe dream but just thinking from a way to make things easier. Weirdly enough every other tech I know just uses the default router from their ISP so I must be the odd one out. What are everyone's thoughts?

Back years ago they had a really bad rep (in the days before Amazon Prime and when Maplins, dabs.com etc were still around) but they seem to have sorted that out in recent years. I've had issues in the past, they eventually sorted them out. I wouldn't use them for mass purchases to be honest just based on past feedback and experience. But for cables, etc the standard stock stuff they're OK.

I've never found anywhere that's willing to take them. They only want genuine ones it seems. It's a bit of an environmental disaster

Thanks for all of the responses folks. The short reason for the post is this: Just to point out this is how I've inherited the situation from a predecessor, and quite frankly seemingly a lot of neglect of the IT systems over the years I'm now trying to unpick. The school currently has nearly 90% of classrooms and IT suites as RM PCs that are 10x years old. Otherwise there's a few 5-6 year old Dells around, but that's pretty much it. The main complaint is obviously slow machines, but the ones that are 10x years old there's nothing else I can do to "speed things up". Already tried the SSD/RAM route with negligible difference, so they're really at the point of no return now. We've not got the budget to replace en-mass unfortunately, so will be looking at doing it in phases and probably looked at refurbished kit purely due to costs. Obviously I don't really want to be buying something and then replacing it again in 1-2 years time if I can help it, but that might be the case just to keep things ticking over. Anyone else been in a similar situation?

And that right there is spot on. It's very indicative of how unskilled and unwise some management and SLT "leaders" are, in that they really have no clue how to lead.

For example we've got areas of our school with completely dead zones for mobile signal coverage.

Good point - any software/server/network based solution would have latency or any number of issues that could have a serious delay on a first-aid or 999 response. The network was slow, switch had died, server hosting it had died etc. any number of reasons. Walkie-talkie, rotated first aider on duty, care plans in place for the students/staff. E.g. why do they tell you not to use the lift in a fire in a tall building - you could but the risk increased dramatically of something happening/going wrong during that time. If in doubt remember the KISS principle.