Geoff

Given the budget I'm not hopeful you'll find something suitable (our dictation machines here cost ~£200 each). Something we are doing as well that might work for you is to use apps on smart phones.

Well it proves it works.

I would suggest to start working your way through the following resources that are recommended for malware/ hacks: FAQ My site was hacked « WordPress Codex http://wordpress.org/support/topic/268083#post-1065779 How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation | Smackdown! How to find a backdoor in a hacked WordPress » Otto on WordPress Additional Resources: http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/ Website Security Check - Unmask Parasites http://blog.sucuri.net/2012/03/wordpress-understanding-its-true-vulnerability.html Hardening WordPress « WordPress Codex

I was unaware of the limitations and cost of VSAN so thanks for point that out @AButters

You should look at VSAN if you are using host storage. Virtual SAN Software-Defined Shared Storage: VMware | VMware United Kingdom

VMWares page on it covers both options. I think you get HA in standard and you need Enterprise for Failover (I have SRM so I'm not sure). VMware vSphere with Operations Management: High Availability | VMware United Kingdom

Oh and don't forget 'Privacy Shield' might end up a load of old tosh as well. Privacy Shield doomed from get-go? NSA bulk surveillance waved through | Ars Technica UK

I'd like to point out there's somewhat of a question mark as to if the UK DPA complies with the GDPR anyway. If this follows through to it's logical conclusion you might find that having your data stored in Ireland at the behest of Amazon AWS (for example) is more compliant than having it in your own server room. 'Leave' or 'Stay' in the referendum? UK has to implement GDPR either way • The Register

I'm on McAfee here. I have not had any warnings.

If you like PoE then can I also suggest Marvel Heroes 2016? It just relaunched (hence the 2016) and its a very enjoyable Free to Play game. Mr Totalbusicut live streamed it recently (hence me revisiting it) and highly recommended it. Something he hardly ever does. Also it has Deadpool in it.

Youtubers are going nuts about Portal Knights at the moment.

Sounds like SWGfL is an MPLS cloud like mine. It depends if it's Layer 2 (in which case, yes VLANs) or Layer 3 (In which case OSPF routing). Either way this is technically possible.

Yeah, that would of been my next suggestion.

Backup your mdadm.conf then run this: mdadm --examine --scan >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf Some manual cleaning up of mdadm.conf may be required.

I have managed VPN links between our sites provided by Virgin Media. It's an addon extra to their MPLS cloud offering (which we use). The theory would be that if the MPLS Fibre went down the IP VPN backup link would kick in. It's a very nice system and we've not lost connectivity to a site since we installed it. It costs lots. If I was doing this on the cheap I'd probably use pfSense VMs for my site to site VPN. So this might be something you wish to look at. https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/OpenVPN_Site_To_Site

If you lose more than one disk in a raid 5 array you are screwed. With the capacity of disks these days RAID5 isn't feasible anyway (the likelyhood of a read failure on another disk during a re-silver passed 100% some years ago). That said, even with 3 of the 4 disks you should be able to get this array working. However for mdadm to work properly you really need a copy of the /etc/mdadm.conf off the original server. If you don't have this you'll have to recreate it. You can reassemble the array with the following command (DIRE WARNING: Using this command improperly with the wrong parameters will destroy your data) mdadm --assemble --scan --verbose /dev/md{number} /dev/{disk1} /dev/{disk2} /dev/{disk3} This should give you your array back.

Easiest thing to do is to set the transport rule up manually and use 'Enable-TransportRule' and 'Disable-TransportRule' in two separate scripts. They are basically one liners then. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996744%28v=exchg.160%29.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125180%28v=exchg.160%29.aspx

Script the Transport rule changes with Powershell. Run the Powershell script on a schedule?

Can't you do this in the Transport rules? https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj919238%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx

I have over 30 Ricoh copiers and generally speaking do not have a problem with them. Overall we do several hundred thousand pages per month on these copiers. I'm curious which models and what issues you have had. Edit: I lease from Copyfax.

Battery backup on the raid card write cache isn't a big deal if you have the server on a UPS. You can run without it. The server obviously doesn't know it's attached to a UPS so will complain ofc. Obviously for the paranoid have both your battery backed write cache and a UPS. It depends on the value of the data on the server I suppose.

Glad to hear it. I remember when Linux was hard.

I was sniping zombies from my tower with my tinkers bow and arrow (to level it up).

Yeah if you have a local printer run cups. You can then have the windows server share it out via LPR. Dead easy.

digging in my powershell scripts folder yields: <# .SYNOPSIS Map printers based on group membership .DESCRIPTION Normally you want to map printers using Group Policies, but if you have a LOT of printers you'll find login times will slow significantly, especially if you're using Item Level Targeting. This script will map printers based on a user's group membership. To use this script scroll down to the bottom and add Set-MapPrinter statements to match your environment. TROUBLESHOOTING: the script will log successful and unsuccessful printer mappings in the SYSTEM Event Log, with a source of "Set-MapPrinter" and include the full error message in the log. .EXAMPLE This example is for the internal Set-MapPrinter function within the script. Set-MapPrinter -Group "Printer-HP4555" -Share "\\PrinterServer1\HP4555" Set-MapPrinter -Group "Accounting" -Share "\\PrinterServer1\HP2025" -default Maps the printer if the user is a member of "Printer-HP4555", and if you are a member of Accounting it will also map HP2025. Additionally, HP2025 will be set as the default printer. .NOTES Author: Martin Pugh Twitter: @thesurlyadm1n Spiceworks: Martin9700 Blog: [url]www.thesurlyadmin.com[/url] Changelog: 2.0 Added ability to support nested groups 1.11 Non-administrators cannot write to event log, just skip log writing. 1.1 Add ability to specify default printer 1.0 Initial Release .LINK [url]http://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/2302-map-printers-by-group-membership[/url] #> [CmdletBinding()] Param () #Function Function Set-MapPrinter { <# .PARAMETER Group This parameter is for the internal Set-MapPrinter function within the script. Name or partial name of the group. If the user is a member of the group they will map the printer that you specify in the Share parameter. .PARAMETER Share This parameter is for the internal Set-MapPrinter function within the script. This is the full UNC name of the printer you want to map. IE: \\server\printer1 \\server\printer2 .PARAMETER Default Will cause this printer to be set as the default printer. #> Param ( [string]$Share, [string]$Group, [switch]$Default ) Write-Verbose "Mapping $Share if member of $Group" If ($Groups -like "*$Group*") { If ($Printers -notcontains $Share) { $Retry = 0 $ErrorActionPreference = "Stop" Do { Try { Write-Verbose "Attempting to connect..." $Network.AddWindowsPrinterConnection($Share) If ($Default) { $Network.SetDefaultPrinter($Share) } Write-EventLog -LogName System -Source "Set-MapPrinter" -EntryType Information -EventId 1 -Message "Successfully mapped $Share, set to default: $Default" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue $Retry = 3 } Catch { $Retry ++ Write-Verbose "Error mapping printer: $($Error[0])" If ($Retry -eq 3) { # Show user the error, but Window will only stay open for 8 seconds $Shell.Popup("Unable to map printer: $Share`n`nError: $($Error[0])",8,"Mapping Printer Error",0) | Out-Null # Log the event in the Event Log Write-EventLog -LogName System -Source "Set-MapPrinter" -EntryType Error -EventId 2 -Message $Error[0] -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue } Else { Write-Verbose "Retrying...`n" Start-Sleep -Seconds 2 } } } Until ($Retry -eq 3) $ErrorActionPreference = "Continue" } Else { Write-Verbose "Printer already mapped: $Share" } } Else { Write-Verbose "Not a member of $Group" } } Function Get-Groups { <# .SYNOPSIS Recursively get all the Group objects from a group .PARAMETER Name Name of the group #> [CmdletBinding()] Param ( [string[]]$Name ) $Return = @() ForEach ($Object in $Name) { $objSearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher $objSearcher.SearchRoot = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry $objSearcher.Filter = "(&(objectCategory=Group)(distinguishedName=$Object))" $objSearcher.SearchScope = "Subtree" $obj = $objSearcher.FindOne() If ($obj) { $Return += $obj.Properties["distinguishedName"] $Return += Get-Groups $obj.Properties["member"] } } Return $Return } #Setup - Get user group memberships and printer names Write-Verbose "Setting up script..." $Network = New-Object -ComObject Wscript.Network $Shell = New-Object -ComObject Wscript.Shell New-EventLog -LogName System -Source "Set-MapPrinter" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue Write-Verbose "Getting $($env:USERNAME)'s groups..." $objSearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher $objSearcher.SearchRoot = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry $objSearcher.Filter = "(&(objectCategory=User)(SamAccountname=$env:USERNAME))" $objSearcher.SearchScope = "Subtree" $obj = $objSearcher.FindOne() [string[]]$Groups = $obj.Properties["memberof"] $Groups += Get-Groups $Groups $Groups = $Groups | Select -Unique Write-Verbose "Getting PC's network printers..." $Printers = Get-WmiObject Win32_Printer -Filter "Network = True" | Select -ExpandProperty Name ######################################## # DO NOT EDIT ABOVE # # EDIT BELOW TO MATCH YOUR ENVIRONMENT # ######################################## Set-MapPrinter -Share "\\PrintServer1\Acct" -Group "Accounting" Set-MapPrinter -Share "\\PrintServer1\CS" -Group "Customer Service" Set-MapPrinter -Share "\\PrintServer1\MailRoom" -Group "Domain Users" -Default ######################################## # DO NOT EDIT BELOW HERE # ######################################## Write-Verbose "Script completed!"