DavR

New phone system coming in from tomorrow, replacing an ailing Siemens HiPath, and 14 new extensions. 18 new PCs for the classrooms, and then cascade the old ones to lesser areas. New website hopefully going live for the start of the new term, not that there was anything wrong with the old one, but *shrug*, marketing. It is quite swish though. Minor jobs like move a printer, add some speakers, upgrade iOS on the iPads, clean projector filters, compile photocopier stats, upgrade switch firmware, etc.... Luckily the only people I've got to work around are the sports club, aka, holiday childcare. They make an awful racket but are only using a couple of PCs.

I run two on mains, two on UPS. That way either UPS or mains can fail, and the servers stay up.

We have two, both eight years old. They're in seldom used areas though, so they've not actually done much mileage. Potentially they may stop using these areas altogether, so I'm loathe to spend anything beyond repairs money on them right now.

I did see the eBay offer, but baulked at paying £25 for a nonstandard plastic cog. Do report back on your experience! I took delivery of a replacement motor assembly today, so that'll be a fun job in the holidays stripping the unit and changing that.

Still is if, like me, your body clock still only wakes you up in GMT. I have not been punctual this week

These are definitely end of life now.... our two units have only survived this long because they're in break out areas, so aren't used as often. I can stomach a few £75 repairs, then we'll have to see where we go if they fail again after that. I haven't budgeted for replacements this year.

Old thread I know, but just sharing an update. We've just had this fault on an 8 year old Hitachi ED-A111. I've read this thread with interest, and commend the efforts of those who have 3D printed replacement cogs! I emailed Hitachi tech services, who have said they're no longer handing out free motor assemblies. If we had more than a couple of these I might argue the toss, but I've found replacements for £75 from AV Partsmaster.

Just to confirm, the Any Connect client as we currently use it is staying, it's just a revamp of the Web experience.

You could be right on the branding, I'm not clear on which exact part of the new development is Freedom2Firewall. They do seem to have just put a lot of new names on things, I've lost track a bit. But you're spot on technically, yes, they are proposing an option that puts you on the Option 2 network, but with your Option 1 Webscreen services.

The RAv3 replacement isn't really a replacement tbh, more like RAv3.1 (Freedom2Roam). The big development there is supposedly going to be an HTML5 remote access client, so that you can do everything in a web page. Be interesting to see if it's any good, the Java one was/is appalling. There's an updated firewall page coming up (Freedom2Firewall) better showing your configs, and a streamlined process for change requests and more support, but for most people there won't be direct control. They are looking to provide direct control for those that really want it, but that will require some major configuration changes.

Ah, OK. I already knew from BETT more line speed upgrades were planned, so didn't miss much. Good news for many, but we already barely touch the sides on a 200MB connection.

Hope you guys are having a blast at the tech meet - make the most of the free beers! I had to bail before the end, what were the big announcements / reveals in John Jacksons closing speech? Pros of this year's event IMO? Good venue, good food, lots of user feedback related developments. Cons - Too much time allocated to passive speeches, and not enough time to allow discussion in the seminars.

It is and it isn't..... yes, there's an amount of trumpet blowing and sales, but a lot of it is an expo on the services that you've already paid for, and have available to you. I find the seminars quite good, as you get a chance to ask questions at the end, and put forward views. For all the intransigence that Atomwide have been famous for, I have seen senior people from the company there answering questions, taking feedback and trying to find solutions for people.

Have you been before? Previous events have been fully catered, coffee and pastries to start, tea break with biscuit, and then a hot lunch. If they're only allowing 45 minutes for lunch, you'd be pushed to go out for a meal and be back in time.

I'm going.... should be interesting to see how it turns out, being a standalone event rather than a strand in the main conference. Have you seen the timetable for the day? Pretty solidly packed, it starts with a solid hour and a half of speeches.....

O365 Home or Personal is 30% discount I can't find Office 2019 right at this moment, but it should be $14.99. The offline versions are only available until the end of June, after that it's O365 only.

Ducks. On the reservoir, in the river, the pond in the park.... just ducks

Update - I've just had two iPad screen replacements back from ipadrepairs.co.uk (Fix It Ltd). Very happy with their work, they've done a clean job on both devices, and they turned it around in something like three days from receiving the devices. They accepted a purchase order, and they came out at something like £40 per device before VAT and postage. Quick turnaround and no fuss, very refreshing!

Has anyone had any experience of deploying Appx or Appxbundle files as part of a Task Sequence in SCCM? I've got a couple of UWP apps that I've downloaded the offline files for and deployed successfully as Applications with SCCM via PowerShell scripts (never could get the native functions in SCCM to provision apps properly), these deploy to machines and provision for all users just fine. What I've recently realised though is that two out of three are not installing correctly in my install OS task sequence. One does just fine (OneNote), one installs OK then is removed at first login(!) citing sideloading policy (Minecraft EE), and one just crashes and burns in a way I can't quite figure out (XBox Apps). I've been installing my apps from PowerShell scripts using Add-AppxProvisionedPackage, although I've also tried DISM /Online /Add-ProvisionedAppxPackage with a similar lack of success. I've seen some talk of needing the registry entries HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Appx\AllowAllTrustedApps and AllowDeploymentInSpecialProfiles enabled, but I added a script to do that and it made no difference. Not sure whether to keep pursuing it, or give it up as a bad job at this point to be honest. Devices will get the apps in due course via software deployment, I'd just much rather things were ready to use from the off.

Don't talk that way around the kids, sounds like a challenge to me!

Ah, that much of a hostile environment huh.... don't suppose you've got any handy vent holes or similar to cable tie onto, another possibility.

Adhesive pads to the side of the case, then cable tie your speaker leads to those? https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/products/3592063/

Ah, I see.... sounds like those boards are kinda flawed by design then. So we can't mount a replacement socket inside the case, extension wires from the back sockets are just going to get yanked.... I'd say you're looking either at some kind of desk mounted plates as pictured above, or just buying USB headphones instead.

Ah, shame! If they were customs from Very PC, I'd be inclined to go back to them and discuss replacing the header boards. If they're out of warranty, they might still offer you a good discount to buy a batch in bulk. Unless they really are that prohibitively expensive?

Either that, or I would tend towards getting some USB headphones. A USB to 3.5mm adaptor sounds tempting, but you just know those will go missing in no time.