One of the 8723875234 jobs I’m responsible for at work is the running and upkeep of the website. So, it came as no surprise to get a letter today about the renewal of the domain name. After all, it’s up for renewal soon. However, I was confused to get the letter from a company called UK Internet Register rather than 1&1 (the host), or Nominet. And here it is: Even more surprising, was the money they wanted for this renewal …
At work, we use WebMarshal to filter internet access so the kiddywinks don’t access porn and games and MySpace and other Internet Evils‚Äö?묢. As well as blocking access, all page requests are logged and anything that hits a filter triggers an email to me. Earlier this week, I’d stopped getting WebMarshal emails (although other emails were fine). Considering I get a fair few each day, I realised that something was wrong. Either that, or Die Kinderen had suddenly all gone …
This morning at work, we had a Year 9 SAT exam in ICT. This involved two classes logging on to some bespoke RM-powered piece of software, which I have spent the best part of a week setting up. We did it last year too, and it was a mess. The software was horribly flaky and slow, kids got confused that the word processor “emulator” wasn’t an exact replica of Word, and the 50 minute exam took almost two hours. This …
Would be a great name for a band. Sadly, it’s just something that happened at work: I like the Supermassive Black Hole and the Not-So-Massive Black Holes that are keeping it company. You can even see the black bits when the screen is off. Even though the screen is black. And the holes are black. Amazing scenes.
Well, now you can! We’ve got a Samsung VHS-to-DVD recorder at work, and on some of the on-screen menus you’re asked to press any key. Helpfully, the remote includes an Any Key for those people who wish to take the request literally.
I ordered two generic laptop PSUs from CPC last week. Staff at work have a tendency to misplace their own power supplies, so we keep a stock of multi-purpose ones. It seems that they didn’t have any of the model I ordered in stock, and on the packing sheet said they had replaced it for a direct equivalent. The direct equivalent for a laptop power supply being this:
Or so it says. We’ve just bought some small footprint keyboards at work for use where the current small footprint keyboards keep being broken. You know, keys snapped off, that sort of thing. So this is one of the keyboards we’re trialling. I mean, it even says “Virtually Indestructible” on it, so it must be pretty sturdy, yes? And it bends! Sadly, it’s crap. The rubber holding the “keys” on is about half a micron thick, and you can easily …
As part of my job as a systems manager, I’m often looking at long lists of names of people who are on the network. When I originally set the network up, I decided to put half the 1300+ users on one server, and half on the other, to reduce the load and stuff. My criteria on how the split was to be done was by surname. And so it came to pass that surnames A-M are on one server, and …