Duranis

Having had to replace about 8 chargers recently in a year 5 area I would say no, they can't be trusted to put them away and take them out properly. The cables often get yanked out by the cable rather than the plug and eventually the cable will break. I image it will be a lot worse if your using Micro USB charging cables. I would suggest getting the thickest cables you can find and reinforcing them with gaffer tape. Having said that though the rest of the school's charging trolleys have not had any issues, they are however always supervised properly.... Maybe have a chat with your Site manager and look at making your own charging unit? I few multiport USB chargers and a bit of wood and felt/rubber would make a nice charging unit for under £100. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01F52DGBC?psc=1

Thanks a lot, pictures below.

So some darling has removed the keys on about 30 laptops. They are old RM "Mobiles One" models (310 and T12AR). While these laptops aren't the best in the world they do the job fine here (primary school) but I can't find a reliable source for replacement parts.

I think it has potential. I don't expect it to be the best film ever but looks like it will at least be entertaining. My Mrs agreed after she saw the guy playing Aquaman in the latest trailers I don't like the whole "every single scene is dark" look though. It has it place (I also liked Sucker Punch and it worked great there) but agree it doesn't work in this type of film (IMO).

Glad this came up. We are with E-On and the price increase is going to add close to £300 a year extra to our bill.

Funny this came up as I was having a conversation with someone who believed this the other day (thankfully not a friend or someone I really know). To begin with I thought they were just joking but people seriously do believe this insanity. Some highlights where: The earth is a flat disk and the Antarctic goes all the way around the edge with the "north pole" in the centre. If you go far enough out to the edge you hit a giant wall of ice that holds all the water in/stops things falling off. The sun works like a spot light and is a lot smaller closer. The seasons happen as sometimes it moves around nearer the edge of the disk and sometimes nearer the middle. Also the sun and moon are the same size/distance. The moon works in the same way, it emits its own light and doesn't reflect the sun. Also it produces "cold rays"..... The Earth, sun and moon are all contained under some kind of dome. The stars and planets are some kind of optical illusion. There is no gravity. The effect that we think of as gravity is just because the world is constantly accelerating upwards at the same speed.... GPS systems use fake data to trick people into thinking they are going around the world. Alternatively all pilots are in on the lie. I couldn't get to the bottom of what this guy thought was the actual case. The ISS space station, which I can see with the naked eye. Is not in orbit, it's a drone/plane used to trick people and flies a set path over the flat earth to mimic an object in orbit. All the photos of earth from space and of other planets are fake. Despite the fact I can see some of those planets from my back garden with a telescope. Also despite the fact that it is possible as an individual to set up a high altitude balloon with a camera that can take photos of the curve of the Earth. It was a truly terrifying experience having a conversation with someone who wilfully ignored the truth (which has an abundance of proof) to live a life believing something which is undeniably insane.

I have so much TV to catch up on. We never really seemed to watch that much TV but there are quite a few good shows around now and with a new baby we get very little time to relax and watch TV together now so the list is growing quickly. Things recorded on sky plus to watch: Humans season 2 The 100 (season 3?) Super Girl (whatever season it is on now) Marvel Agents of Shield (almost caught up with this again now). The odd episode of Walking Dead and Flash but we mostly have been watching these within a day. TWD is honestly starting to annoy/bore me now though. Sure there is something else as well, we have like 2% space left. Other things on our "need to watch" list: Daredevil season 2 Man in the high castle season 2 Jessica Jones Luke Cage Iron Fist Rick and Morty The Expanse Vikings Black Mirror Things we are waiting for the next series of: Game of Thrones. I would never watch any of the above shows if it meant I could have this right now! Forged in fire season 4 Killjoys Dark Matter Stranger Things season 2. I want this almost as much as Game of Thrones Probably at least 300 hours of programs to watch.....

When I started here we had a number of support contracts going, one of them with RM. They were completely useless, took forever to get information from them and when I did it was not correct (information about their own product). Your location will dictate your choice to a degree but if your anywhere near Kent I would highly recommend EIS. They did most of the heavy IT stuff here before I started and even though we don't have the "full support" type contract with them anymore I still call on their assistance from time to time. As a solo tech here it has been a sanity saver on more than one occasion to be able to make a call and speak to someone about a problem. They have done a LOT of work with RM systems so if that's what your running they can help with that as well. They have solved more than one issue I have had with CC4 which RM took forever to not fix. EIS – LET'S KEEP IT SIMPLE

Thanks so much guys, saved me a ton of time looking at it further, can't tell you how amazingly useful that saved time is right now . Will dig out my original plans and update them. Thanks again!

I have to admit I haven't looked into it much yet but can anyone give me a brief run down of Apple School Manager so I know if it's worth looking into more? Basically it's looking increasingly likely that we will at least get about 20 iPads here soon. Last time I looked into things (which was probably a year ago) I set up a deployment/management plan based around Meraki and Apple Configurator which would allow me to lock down devices and provision app's. However now it seems that Apple School Manager might be an easier solution? What I need it to do: *Rebuild devices ideally to a preset image/configuration. *Provision apps. *Lock down devices so for example remove access to the app store. Is this something that ASM can do? Also what is the min spec of device that it will work with? Sorry I know it's a bit of a cheat asking but I have 3 other big projects going on at the moment and I don't want to waste time looking into ASM if it is a pile of junk Thanks!

Had these calling our home number a few times over the last week. Unfortunately it has always been while I was at work so didn't get to play with them. Mrs is thankfully smart enough to tell them to get lost.

Short version there are a couple of Android/iOS App's that some teachers want to use and some are currently using their personal iPhones with AV cables they purchased themselves to hook them up to the projectors. Rather than buying a bunch of tablets which may well get forgotten about in a few months I thought of maybe setting up Android emulators on the teacher laptops. I haven't used an Android emulator for about 5 years ago when I used to work in mobile development but it looks like there are a lot of simple to use options available now. I'm looking at the emulators now to see how simple it would be but was curious if anyone else was doing this?

I 100% agree. The problem here is that the way I read it the IT team (i.e. the techs, not the management) are the ones taking the fall for this not happening when they did not have the training or resources to do any different. As you said decisions to skip backups etc should go through senior management and it is their responsibility to make sure the data is being handled correctly. The way I read this though is that it was all the tech's fault and they should know how the data is being used. Baring the guy that was lying about the tape backups I'm not sure what else most of these techs were supposed to do? If they are told by their superiors "we only back up X, Y and Z as we don't have capacity to do more" what else are they supposed to do? Without knowing exactly what the working conditions were like maybe I shouldn't comment but from the way I read the report it sounds like they had a lot of new hires, no decent hand over or training and a system that had been patched together over time with no real oversight (which are all management problems IMO). You are right though it shouldn't be down to the user to check what is backed up and it is fair that they assume it all is unless clearly told otherwise. Just the way some of it was worded got my back up a bit and I get the impression that a lot of the blame was being dumped on techs that were probably under trained and had no ability to change anything anyway.

Wow what a mess. I can't help but feel sorry for the IT team. Yes they made some mistakes but reading between the lines it sounds like they had a bunch of new guys in that were given very little training or hand over. Then they had to deal with a system that was bodged together over the course of a few years meaning that the people setting things up may not have even still been there. Also, what the hell HP! Your engineers will replace a part that you know will tank the system (a system that is sold as being super reliable) but it's not your fault because the customer only had "proactive support". Surely proactive support should include checking that firmware has been applied to fix a known issue with the part you are about to replace??? The thing that really bugged me is that the IT team is getting the blame for people storing vital data in non-backed up areas. Do you all think it is IT's job to check what data is or isn't important for every single person or is it the persons job to check with IT that the data they know is vital is being kept secure? I'm struggling to get just 24 staff members to go though our data here and tell me what is and isn't important, can't imagine how hard it would be at a much larger and diverse organisation such as that. Yes the data storage system should have been better explained to users so it was clear what was and wasn't backed up but honestly I doubt most of them would have paid attention anyway. Also these: I'm sure the majority of you have had to deal with trying to get information from users about what their requirements are and also have to deal with users who's "expectations" are completely impossible to work with due to budget or technical limitations. I think this is pretty unfair.

Close(ish) to Dover. Still windy here but just went to lunch wearing only a T-shirt so otherwise it's quite a nice day.

Was quite windy with a drizzly rain this morning down here in SE Kent. Has actually clear up to quite a bright day here now, even if it is still a little windy.

The words moving upwards when you get to the end of a line really messes me up. I can type faster than that but some mild dyslexia makes reading the moving words a nightmare.

They have been finding exoplanets like this for awhile though and I doubt it would be something they would hold a press conference over now. What I'm hoping is that they have found a planet with with oxygen in the atmosphere as that means something has to be there to sustain it which almost certainly* means at least photosynthesise. Even better if they have found a planet with oxygen and methane in the atmosphere. *almost certainly except for maybe a process we haven't come across yet..... Even better would be if they found the place all the lost socks go after they vanish from the washing machine..

It's not a reasonable study though. It's a single study with 17 people and the results are the complete opposite to pretty much every major study already done on it (including by the likes of the FDA). Not to mention their methodology was flawed as was their reporting. For a couple of much more methodical studies take a look at some of the links below (there have been a TON of studies done on it): https://www.andeal.org/worksheet.cfm?worksheet_id=251763 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14647086 and the FDA report, but if you can read your way through that without falling asleep your a better man than me https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1998-04-03/pdf/98-8750.pdf This probably bugs me more than it should because I have had massive arguments with my sister in law about it. My Mrs had gestational diabetes and the SIL basically accused her of poisoning the baby because she had foods with artificial sweeteners in and "they cause cancer and will mess with your blood sugar level, its been proven and your hurting the baby". I wont repeat exactly what I told her here but it included telling her not to base her life on BS clickbait she read on facebook which is what this study reads like (and the original link was based around what some BS merchant was passing off to sell a book). Edit: I agree it is really hard to get exercising as an adult. I started doing the couch to 5K which I was actually really enjoying but I had major breathing issues after about 3 weeks of it, the Doctors didn't care so I pretty much had to give it up. Going to start again in the summer as I think the cold/damp air was a problem. I'm also taking up learning blacksmithing alongside metal and woodworking. I always wanted to learn to do something practical and swinging a hammer for a few hours is surprisingly good exercise.

Sorry but that is complete BS. I didn't get past the second page where it states that artificial sweeteners trigger insulin production as this is just a down right lie. Some quack is trying to sell a book and that is all that link is about. (Sorry not a personal attack but this kind of carp annoys me).

Not one of the three options but I'm switching all our printers and copiers to Konica Minolta ones. The ones we already have have been pretty faultless. The colour lasers I'm replacing at the moment have been running for at least 5 years with very little maintenance or problems. There engineer support when I have needed it was fast and competent.

I actually REALLY want a female Doctor, if for no other reason than to see people on the internet completely lose their minds

lol the thing is one of the tv's was an old 15inch "tube" tv and didn't have a remote. Also more than once it happened when nobody was in the room. I have always thought maybe an electrical problem with the wiring in the room but to do the same thing to multiple tv's spread out over about 18 years is pretty odd.

Just as a little update to this. When I was talking to my Mum at Christmas she mentioned to me that she was going to have to get a new TV for her bedroom. I asked her what was wrong with hers (I have fixed quite a few TV'S) and she said that it keeps turning itself on and switching channels. She is sleeping in the room I used to sleep in. She got seriously freaked out when I told her that the TV is probably fine and it happened to me all the time when I lived there

Yep suspect that is most likely the case. I vaguely recall the database being encrypted in some way, shape or form though which made it difficult to get at the data yourself (though I could be imagining that).