Any school IT support on here? I feel for you...
Discussion
Was speaking to a school IT support guy yesterday. He's been inundated with donated laptops, he now has around 30 unusable laptops and half a dozen desktops. Parents, grandparents and the local community have all 'rallied around' to dig out their old crap and dump it at he school office in some deluded hope that they will be used by those poor kids who only have a playstation.
He has only managed to get one up and running, the rest are too old, knackered, missing powers supplies, 4/3 screens running XP. CRT monitors. His next job is to try and find a suitable home for them all, may end up costing the school to get rid of them.
School has now had to put out a notice to say no more thank you.
He has only managed to get one up and running, the rest are too old, knackered, missing powers supplies, 4/3 screens running XP. CRT monitors. His next job is to try and find a suitable home for them all, may end up costing the school to get rid of them.
School has now had to put out a notice to say no more thank you.
Comacchio said:
The flip side of that coin... how about us IT folk on March 23rd last year? When all the Execs suddenly needed everyone working from home this instant....
Yup, imagine being a collaboration engineer for a large software company with big contact centres all around the globe.- checks C.V.*
Comacchio said:
The flip side of that coin... how about us IT folk on March 23rd last year? When all the Execs suddenly needed everyone working from home this instant....
I'll take this oppurtunity to gloat as we had spent the previous two years getting everyone onto laptops and a robust VPN setup inplace....As you can imagine this went down well with the top brass (the same ones who moaned about initial outlay previous)
Back to the OP - most good recycling companies will take the kit away for free. They might just have to do a little admin with serial numbers and asset stickers before collection.
Comacchio said:
The flip side of that coin... how about us IT folk on March 23rd last year? When all the Execs suddenly needed everyone working from home this instant....
My mate was ahead of the curve, back in January he said he wanted to improve home working capability, so new surface pro's for everyone, improved networks, more VPNs W@H packs, including desk/chairs etc.He has been billy big balls ever since march, when home working transitioned without issue.
megaphone said:
Was speaking to a school IT support guy yesterday. He's been inundated with donated laptops, he now has around 30 unusable laptops and half a dozen desktops. Parents, grandparents and the local community have all 'rallied around' to dig out their old crap and dump it at he school office in some deluded hope that they will be used by those poor kids who only have a playstation.
He has only managed to get one up and running, the rest are too old, knackered, missing powers supplies, 4/3 screens running XP. CRT monitors. His next job is to try and find a suitable home for them all, may end up costing the school to get rid of them.
School has now had to put out a notice to say no more thank you.
And yet, any laptop made in the last decade will run Teams. Hell, one of my machines dates from 2004 and runs Teams perfectly well. He has only managed to get one up and running, the rest are too old, knackered, missing powers supplies, 4/3 screens running XP. CRT monitors. His next job is to try and find a suitable home for them all, may end up costing the school to get rid of them.
School has now had to put out a notice to say no more thank you.
Should one guy be trying to do this? No. Should it be something of a project for some of the kids - sure.
AllyBassman said:
I'll take this oppurtunity to gloat as we had spent the previous two years getting everyone onto laptops and a robust VPN setup inplace....
As you can imagine this went down well with the top brass (the same ones who moaned about initial outlay previous)
Back to the OP - most good recycling companies will take the kit away for free. They might just have to do a little admin with serial numbers and asset stickers before collection.
We managed to get 90% of the organization working from home in 2 days. Thankfully we had invested in our infrastructure a few years prior so had the robust VPN etc already in place. Laptops used to be for 'important people' which was our only problem... This has now changed.As you can imagine this went down well with the top brass (the same ones who moaned about initial outlay previous)
Back to the OP - most good recycling companies will take the kit away for free. They might just have to do a little admin with serial numbers and asset stickers before collection.
CharlieCrocodile said:
I suppose if they've got an xbox one/ps4 then hook up a mouse & keyboard and use the built in web browser. Should be able to do most school tasks I imagine.
A school local to me were suggesting that. Good old Microsoft putting a decent web browser on the console, Sony too.Comacchio said:
The flip side of that coin... how about us IT folk on March 23rd last year? When all the Execs suddenly needed everyone working from home this instant....
A guy I know runs an IT company in Sheffield and he said it was utter carnage/mayhem last March when the world went remote.Comacchio said:
AllyBassman said:
I'll take this oppurtunity to gloat as we had spent the previous two years getting everyone onto laptops and a robust VPN setup inplace....
As you can imagine this went down well with the top brass (the same ones who moaned about initial outlay previous)
Back to the OP - most good recycling companies will take the kit away for free. They might just have to do a little admin with serial numbers and asset stickers before collection.
We managed to get 90% of the organization working from home in 2 days. Thankfully we had invested in our infrastructure a few years prior so had the robust VPN etc already in place. Laptops used to be for 'important people' which was our only problem... This has now changed.As you can imagine this went down well with the top brass (the same ones who moaned about initial outlay previous)
Back to the OP - most good recycling companies will take the kit away for free. They might just have to do a little admin with serial numbers and asset stickers before collection.
I was thinking about asking our directors about donating some of our training laptop we no longer use, but what use is a laptop for homeschooling without a decent internet connection? It seems all the telcos will agree to provide is free data access to two educational website.
Edited by Emeye on Friday 22 January 14:33
paulrockliffe said:
Has the chap tried installing Cloud Ready? It's ChomeOS and runs on pretty much anything, certainly every 10-15 year old laptop I've tried it on has run it no bother.
was just going to suggest the same, instantly fixes all legacy OS security issues and should run well on most hardwareVandenberg said:
Comacchio said:
The flip side of that coin... how about us IT folk on March 23rd last year? When all the Execs suddenly needed everyone working from home this instant....
My mate was ahead of the curve, back in January he said he wanted to improve home working capability, so new surface pro's for everyone, improved networks, more VPNs W@H packs, including desk/chairs etc.He has been billy big balls ever since march, when home working transitioned without issue.
The 2bn turnover company were so grateful I got a case of wine....
Current client was halfway through transitioning everyone to 'smarter working'... What should have been everyone working 2 days from home suddenly went to everyone, every day. Not too bad for around 5,000 Users!! To be fair the IT dept. managed it really well, but it must have been a nightmare for them my small part of the whole infrastructure was rock solid and fine throughout it all.
Most of our stuff is in the cloud now anyway, although access is secure via VPN or Citrix only.
Cisco and Citrix must be raking it in right now!
Most of our stuff is in the cloud now anyway, although access is secure via VPN or Citrix only.
Cisco and Citrix must be raking it in right now!
superpp said:
paulrockliffe said:
Has the chap tried installing Cloud Ready? It's ChomeOS and runs on pretty much anything, certainly every 10-15 year old laptop I've tried it on has run it no bother.
was just going to suggest the same, instantly fixes all legacy OS security issues and should run well on most hardwarecobra kid said:
Comacchio said:
The flip side of that coin... how about us IT folk on March 23rd last year? When all the Execs suddenly needed everyone working from home this instant....
A guy I know runs an IT company in Sheffield and he said it was utter carnage/mayhem last March when the world went remote.
king insaneeps said:
Cisco and Citrix must be raking it in right now!
It's not been without it's challenges. I have small insight into one of these companies.Suffice to say the whole "Cloud just means someone else's computer" became rapidly apparent. Keep making something bigger and bigger, and eventually you hit a limit. Much sleep was lost, downtime was caused, solutions were found (for a price).
megaphone said:
Was speaking to a school IT support guy yesterday. He's been inundated with donated laptops,...
I've got a bunch of old ThinkPads but the stuff I saw suggested they weren't interested in anything older than 5yrs.Makes sense really - if you know what you're doing you can work around a slow machine but for non-IT literate people it'd be very frustrating.
Daughter's school has got loads of Chromebooks that parents can't be arsed to collect.
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