DrPopkorne

Oh my, we are about 85 rooms off this goal. Many few years left I'd say.

Found an amazing new Early Access game on Steam last night and got several of my mates interested too. Struggling with this Monday morning work now as I was up til 3am. Despite being an EA game there's enough content already for it to be a released game and I'm surprised it hasn't already with development continuing as is. It's called Deep Rock Galactic, which sounded pretty terrible to me however I later found this is the name of the mining corporation you work for. It has a sort of Left for Dead vibe with mining and resource collecting which you later use for upgrades and cosmetics. There's currently 4 classes and there are different game modes but the general gist is you deploy to a randomly-generated biome, travel deep into caves with your dwarf bros mining ores and minerals to deposit into your drone while fighting starship trooper like aliens and trying to survive the journey back to your drop pod so you can later cash in for upgrades. Occasionally swarms appear and you have to hunker down to survive the wave. The 4 classes are Gunner who has a big chaingun and heavy set of armour great for focusing on killing. He can also create ziplines for his team to use. Engineer has the ability to craft turrets and platforms for traversing, Digger has a flamethrower and a drill for quickly tunneling through rock/dirt and Scout can grappling hook himself to strategic positions, light up the way with flares and get to those harder to get ores. Definitely worth a look. 18.99 on Steam. Haven't encountered any bugs yet but have to say there are some complaints from players that if you are playing solo in some strangers team they have full power over kicking you at the moment rather than a preferred vote kick scenario.

Something very weird, I found half of a harry potter wand, it looked something like this. I thought it was some sort of smoking device at first until my girlfriend pointed it out.

We had 97 printers iirc before Summer but these have been replaced with 8 pay-as-you-go desktops and 14 MFDs. Things are going much smoother.

I've not been for 3 years but as I'm migrating to Aus I might have to pay a visit before I go. One last party with my mates. I think Sunday is most interesting for me.

[h=1]Google faces mass legal action in UK over data snooping in the UK[/h]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42166089

I happen to be very Google oriented. I grew up in the age where they took over Yahoo for page visits and became their own term 'Google it'. Then maps and Earth came out and eventually it became just the norm. I have been using an Android phone since I had a smartphone and most of my e-mails go to a Google account. Chrome is my go-to browser and my current phone is actually a Pixel. At work we are now checking out Chromebooks and who knows it might end up becoming the norm here too. It's not until recently I thought it sounded very distopian the idea that a business can have so much control and influence over people and business. I recently discovered the timeline feature of Google Maps and it sent a bit of a chill down my spine. What it does is give you a timelapse of your day pinned on the map. Because I've used Android (and maps) for the past 7 years or so you can literally see where I've been, what I've been doing every day of my life. Yes it was cool but knowing that Google has this data without me even knowing it would makes me sure there will be so much more unknown data like this. The timeline feature hasn't been out as long as the location data they've collected on me. I'm starting to get loads of notifications throughout the day asking if I'd like to make a review for places I've just been in and it honestly does feel like it's all for Google rather than myself. The once-intuitive Google screen on my phone used to send me useful news based on my browsing history but now I get spam due to the fact I walk past a sports shop every day to work and therefore must be interested in tennis shoes. It all seems like I've paid for a device / chosen to use a certain service just to be used for ad data. And sure, it is all nice to an extent but 2017 like most things it seems like the whole purpose was to tailor adverts for ourselves rather than make a feed based on interest. I am honestly not one of these privacy-conscious consumer however I do not like the direction Google has been going in this past year.

Thanks for the suggestion suiko. This worked! Display Port seems to use a bit of power. We sometimes get display issues on our Dell PCs at the school that use a hdmi adapter, and the display port monitors stop working. Maybe I should have seen it. Could I maybe buy you a coffee for your assistance?

It's about a 1.5m cable I believe. Sadly I'm using an MSI motherboard and couldn't locate a section in the BIOS for display of any kind. I will maybe see about borrowing a different display port cable from work though as both ones I tried were the same make, could possibly be cheaply made.

That link has an interesting suggestion, it's not too far off my issue. I must admit one of the things I skipped was unplugging the monitor and PC power. Sadly I'm at work now so I'll have to try later tonight. I feel quite dirty being an IT technician when I've failed to resolve a ticket for myself!

I thought I'd post here as it isn't education related but home use. I got a new HP OMEN 25 monitor last night for gaming and it was amazing, really nice clear display.. and used my old monitor as a second screen.. all excited for a long session of Destiny 2. After connecting everything together I made it my main display, set it to 144Hz 1920 x 1080 and played several hours with friends. I did install the HP driver directly from the website, but did not restart the PC afterward. This morning when I turned on my PC only the old monitor displayed and the infamous 'No signal from the PC - Entering sleep mode' message appeared on my new monitor. I could not see any reference to the HP OMEN in device manager, no related drivers appeared to be there to perform a rollback, and on the Screen Resolution page there appeared to be a generic pnp monitor at a tiny resolution locked at 50Hz. Here's some of the things I tried: Restarting the PC again Reinstalling the driver again, however unlike the first time it didn't say 'detected omen 25' - instead 'detected generic pnp monitor' Reconnected all the wires, tried another Display Port cable and tested both were working on another device Used a HDMI cable which produces a display to test the monitor wasn't broken Performed a factory reset on the monitors UI panel Performed a system restore however it doesn't look like everything reverted back, the monitor software is still present Tried loading the HP monitor software but it closes with a not responding error Checked the NVIDIA Control Panel and there is a second display but it is showing as a DVI-D instead of Display Port The monitor is plugged into my NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, same as my HDMI monitor. I am absolutely stumped at this, and gutted as I've gone through a chore to retrieve the parcel that was delivered to the wrong address only to get it as a lovely surprise last night and find out it looks amazing, only for it to go bust the next morning. Has anyone got any suggestions that might bring this to life?

It is very much hypocritical. His biggest argument for the flat-earth theory is that you shouldn't believe what is being said in the media without experiencing it yourself and as I haven't personally been into space (Maybe some of you guys have? ) I can't prove what they have said is right. However pretty much his entire life is based around something someone had said 2000 years ago. Completely OK with anyone's spirituality however it kind of defeats his big argument for flat earth theories (as some of you guys delved into earlier it's either they're right/you're wrong). He says that when you fly in an airplane and look out of the window, the proof is there because the horizon doesn't change and it's still at eye level. You don't see into space or see a drop down. To answer an often asked query, apparently you won't fall off the edge if you take a boat to the edges of the earth as each side is connected.. however you might do if you go to the north or south as these contain some sort of eye-opening proof that the earth is flat and this is why the US government controls it and don't want the mass public to know about it. He says that's why planes only fly east or west. Supposedly satellites are fake too and are actually just two big antennas in either the north or south in one of these secret bases and that's where our satellite data, 4G etc. come from.

There are only two of us working in IT at the school and my colleague is an avid Flat Earther. I share very different beliefs on almost everything but I enjoy listening to his views on several topics. He's a Pentacostal Christian who is big on the doomsday ideas and conspiracies, so he voted to leave the EU to slow the 'systems' control of the world, likes Donald Trump as he is opposed to Obama and the 'regime', the former he genuinely believes is the devil coming to start the end and can talk for hours on this. The moon landings, 9/11, Russia, the north and south pole and the UN are all made-up or scripted to change our morals and the end-game is that we will all have to wear the mark of the beast to survive. He spent £200 on tinned food to stock in an outside shed ready for when the economy blows and no one can source food any more. We often joke that I'll be eating hats when it all comes true Never a dull day in IT.

I've just been shown a new location feature on Snapchat that I thought could be of concern for some Education folk, you may want to have a look and see if your school is involved. So with the new stories feature, your location data can pin snaps to actual places nearby as a sort of 'social hub', and it would seem schools (I can see ours and two primary schools in my nearby list) are included as a 'place' so anyone in the area or who searches for the school can view everything anyone with the option checked has sent. Whether a student has set this up or Snapchat I'm not sure however it does list as an actual school in the app rather than a user-created geofilter. Strangely we also have the old name of the school from 8 years ago listed that no student or staff member would name it.. so it makes you think. I don't use snapchat so won't have any mutual friends with these snappers however my device instantly picked up my location as our Academy and there were hundreds of snaps sent by students going back to around exam results period that I could see. Some of them they probably aren't aware it's been shared this way and there appears to be snaps from locals living in the houses nearby under the same list that likely wouldn't have manually set to send snaps to the school unless it's done automatically by location. The worries around this are obvious, and unlike the worries around the Snap Map earlier in the year this will share it with anyone, not just 'Friend of a Friend'. Our SSO has advised we can lawfully get our school taken off the list of geofilter places by contacting snapchat at [email protected] or using their support twitter @snapchatsupport.

Ah I had an MSI before my girlfriend took it... she uses it now. GT780dxr.. not as flash as yours but I think MSI make really nice builds.

Maybe we've uncovered a whole ARG about the background of the PUBG universe. Perhaps they are all slaves pitted against each other with the sole prize being a bite to eat. He lives on to fight another day. Survival of the fittest.. to the extreme?

We're going to be having a whole chicken dinner before it's even lunchtime! Best get those gym memberships re-subbed guys...

I usually do solo while waiting for friends, but only because I have a lot on my list playing it right now. I still enjoy it, if anything it's more intense on your own... with all the silence.... and then suddenly TIP TAP TAP *creak* TAP on the stairs...

I've been incredibly obsessed with PUBG (Player Unknown's Battlegrounds) for the past month now. It's still in early access but has enough to keep me interested and the development so far has been excellent. (I know, I know.. don't get too excited as we've all seen it before devs dropping the game as soon as the $$$ is in but still) In it's current state patches are frequently every week and a monthly update comes around with new content. The future of the game shows new maps and modes, with some already teased in development. The multiplayer game starts with you and 99 other players parachuting from a plane onto a 8km2 map where you need to scavenge for weapons and equipment in order to fight to be the last one standing at the end of the game. It offers some intense moments of excitement, frustration, and fear as you climb to the top and with the ability to play in squads up to 4 I really see it sticking around for some time. It's currently #1 streamed on twitch and #1 in the steam sales. There are some player customization options but these are limited for the time being, and this may fund the games development after the release. With all that said, I had a shocking time on my driving test but came back to my 15th PUBG win last night in an exciting 11-kill game and wondered if anyone else had an interest this game?

Have you deployed anything recently? I came across an offline installer for VLC last year and it must have had some unofficial code in it that changed the home page to a tech site and some extension that luckily kept failing to run. In our case it was pushed via GPO and left once we'd reversed it the issue was gone. You should also be able to remove myway from the control panel.. but I'd check it's not being deployed by anything first before manually removing.

They are for that price!

Thanks Mic, the service desk I worked at previously before I got into Education implemented the same thing and it worked really well. There were some 'key or VIP' members (either client technicians or just members that needed direct support) that would be picked up by second line instead and our ratings and first-time-fixes went up along with speeding up ticket management for the first line as the extra involvement was essentially removed leaving more time to solve their own cases. Ours has gone well. The initial deployment of .NET was a pain and we haven't managed to get it to every PC yet due to some exam requirements but those that have had the upgrade (and it could just be me) feel faster than 5.4.38. However after we upgraded to the latest version the older clients all showed offline until they were updated, so that's one thing to consider when making the change - will it be easy enough to get the .net update and impero client out to all your PCs? If so I think its worth the jump.

Local IT bod 'eats strawberry, dies.' - BBC News (don't worry Joanne I do same)

I saw this pop up on my Pixel while on the bus to work... merely minutes after I grabbed a Costa-to-go! Mind you.... what's a little fecal matter if it tastes nice right? (I keep telling myself)

Fazza I have to agree. We had an issue affecting our Impero server for several months and after being fed up contacting support on several occasions every time the issue reoccurred I'd been escalated to a more senior technician and he was great. Knew the software like it was standard Office and showed me a few extra bits the software could do that really made things easier. He also identified a bug on the server software and forwarded it to the developers to sort, much more fluid resolution than I got from the first liners. Of course, I want to clarify I am genuinely enjoying the software however while the staff are friendly and eager to help... I do think the managers need to grab a coffee and hunker down on some of these issues!