(no subject)

Warning, this is a rant. (A real entry is waiting on my Psion, but I can't transfer it at school.)

Just came out of an ICT prefect meeting. What's our IT department's solution to the way the network is going to hell in a handbasket? *Posters*. Lots of *posters*. No-one ever takes the slightest bit of notice of posters.

And what's the biggest issue? Is it that after reading the GNVQ IT syllabus, the IT department is afraid that bags are deadly to computers and hence should not be allowed in a 5-mile radius of them, hence causing untold misery for pupils and staff alike with an endless fight about where bags should be left? Is it that there's no storage for bags upstairs at all, and it takes about 5mins to get back to the nearest place to store bags from the computer room? No, it's people printing out slightly too much junk. Which apparently should be solved by locking up all the paper and making people collect it at certain times, and no simultaneous printing. At least we managed to talk her out of that for now - one issue on which I'm glad the fallback answer is just nice, harmless posters.

Anyone know any way of implementing a 'printer credits' system (one user can only print out a certain number of pages before having to ask for more credits) under a basic WinNT network without using a dedicated print server (which Dr Stallard is against because it provides a single point of faliure, whereas atm although about three-quarters of the printers are dead at any one time there's likely to be a working printer somewhere in school)?

And what's the money being spent on, as the network falls apart? Laptops. Laptops that we're not even going to be allowed to take on school trips, bought for a really *dumb* reason - Dr Stallard believes that they'll magically make Y13 more willing to print out their own UCAS forms, despite the fact it's the balky printers and general lack of computer literacy/confidence that's to blame, neither of which the laptops will help solve (in fact they'll make the first one worse, 'cos we won't be able to buy any new printers).

As Vicki and I exclaimed to each other about as we came away from the meeting, it doesn't look like we're going to be listened to. (She didn't even *mention* the virus checker issue (that none of our virus software has been updated *ever*) that I raised ages ago...)

(no subject)

This morning we had horses in our garden.

They were quite well-behaved horses- I mean, they left some pretty heavy hoofprints and ate some of the lawn and attacked the flower border, but we don't much care for it anyway, although some of the neighbours who were similarly treated may not be so philosophical. But they didn't trash the car, or knock down any trees, or cause a traffic accident (although they nearly managed that one, but not through impoliteness); they just wandered around carefully, eating grass. We called the local police, though, because the horses probably would have caused an accident sooner or later.

"Hello. I'm in Black Notley, and I have two horses in my garden."
"Ah, you'd be 11 Bulford Lane, then?"

It turns out someone had already reported the horses, and a patrol car was on the way. The horses wandered off up Brain Valley Avenue, so I just went to get the train 'cos they were out of line-of-sight. As I was walking up to the station, I saw a police car go by, closely followed by a small open-backed truck with two farmers in it, who asked me if I'd seen any horses. I directed them to Brain Valley Avenue. (As usual, I entirely missed the sarcastic comment that I'd have given to one of my characters in this situation, given there were horses in the field right next to us...)

Anyway, so much for today. Yesterday, I found out that I was a complete idiot, but only in the usual manner that I already knew about. Remember those maths questions that I moaned to a few of you about? I was doing the wrong exercise entirely... my teacher was quite surprised that I'd managed to do any of them. (And I did the first few on my own...) I'm quite glad this happened tho, 'cos now this whole topic I've been struggling with a little looks quite a bit easier...

Those white chocolate 'Dream' eggs are overrated. (I had one last night at college.) Then again, I don't like white chocolate as much as I once did.

Oh, and we had Parents' Evening at school. Everyone did say how good I was at the subjects, but Mr Fradley (Physics) had issues with my handwriting, Miss Bolton (Maths) told my parents about some, uh, spirited discussions we'd had over some maths, and I lost the bit of paper with appointments on, and Mrs Kerr had double-booked my appointment and refused to acknowledge I'd made one (even tho I could remember the details of the argument we had about it 'cos it was right next to another appointment, and my parents could see she'd remembered when I explained them to her).