CS, PM please

Speakers? Speakers? Aunty Betty provides speakers? I demand a re-count; this is blatant discrimination against the Navy. This Silent Sevice thing can be taken too far, you know.

Incidentally, I can now get on here via the Firm's set up.

Speakers and a scanner..... Behave. The MOD doesn't issue speakers and scanners to the Armed Forces.... (do they?)......

....... You'll be telling me that DII comes with a colour printer as well.... ?

Well actually yes to both.

We were 'given' (no signing) 3 x Dell, plus speakers, plus scanners, plus printers plus bells and whistles for Dii/c but eventually Dii/c rolled up with 3 more but no scanners or sound cards.

When Dii/f rolled up, no scanner but you you should see the colour printer. Size of a beer cooler. Best bit is the consumables cost. Makes the monthly accounts bill look lik epocket money. On the net you can buy cartridges at about £150 or so each but through the catalogue you would see no change of £1000 for a set of 4.

I haven't done that much printing yet but I will be putting in a little test purchase to make sure I don't run out of toner :}

Well at least DII is good for a couple of things if it comes with Colour printers and scanners and speakers (not sure why we need speakers but hey)

Sorry, you miss read that. Scanners and speakers are not part of the Dii/F package but you might be able to get them from the catalogue.

Given the increasing use of CBT and other material that needs sound and colour printing then you could argue that you need it. You have Powerpoint but no means of getting imagery into it.

Is it right that you have to use your home computer and then email it to work?

As for colour printing, it is not one each. Plebs get the b&w laser and have to use the colour on a network basis. If you are lucky it is in the same building. For RAF CCIS we got one for the whole station. Naturally I had it installed near my desk. Very handy for colour posters :)

One of the other things to mention about the colour printers is that they are set to 2 pages per sheet, double sided as default - apparently as a cost saving measure.

To change it you need to alter the settings under the "printers and fax machines" option otherwise it resets between prints. ;)

bit-twidler,

There was no paper economy with mine. It would burst in to life and throw out an inch of so of paper at a time, except it would only print a proper sheet per minute.

Every time they tried to configure it as a proper network printer it would issue more scrap paper. Finally they admitted the printer was not capable of being installed on the network and they had to get the manufacturer to write new drivers.

Don't know if it is fixed yet.

Haha, terribly sad to admit but I actually know the chap that implemented that, and yes, he is a chisler.

Of course, under the DDA95, if I get anything printed in A5 rather than A4 that is too small to read then it is with file 13 or return to sender. No way am I straining my eyes. I demand big print.

The Annual report booklet came with a one or two page layout in minute grey scale script. They were unable to provide a readable copy so I filed it :}

Oh how I can see this one going on.........
My crystal ball ( ok it's a whisky glass) is a) empty and b) tells me that you are all royally screwed.

DO you remember how the RAF used to operate before this insidious coup by bad computing??

Guess what is coming over the hill.....

hey - blame it all on the computer system, they will never be able to prove you didn't do it (if you should have done it) and vise versa.

What email? I didn't get your email.

The madness continues. The new date for completion is now March next year, with more slippage expected. Gangs of contractors roam the camp turning off power and 'messing' with the network without any apparent direction or planning. Empty buildings get IT fitted, sections expecting at least a 'like for like' swap out are told not to hold their breath. Personnel posted in since the 'site freeze' are told they won't get accounts until the budget people order them in.

BOCS won't go DII, so we will have to cram the new machines in alongside the old. And to cap it all the CIS support section seems to have vanished.

And this is progress?

I've progressed. I've left.

Dare I say I saw this coming?

What is BOCS ?

Boeing Operational Control Suite. It's the air transport fleet tasking system. Introduced politically early, but not as disastrously as JPA, promised lots but it's been more of a live test than a saleable product. It creaked under Brize's existing network, but I guess that won't be a problem now...

Funny you should of mentioned printers Pontius, one of the more recent "whoops we didnt see that comming" moments. Many army and RAF establishments have discovered just how much their stationary budgets are being clobberd by the "agreed pricing" of tonner replacemnts for the F printers. One Sqd Ldr I met was looking at a potential 3 to 4 fold increase in his costs and Ive heard similar stories eleswhere, may not sound much on one base but believe me when you multiply the number of printers and toner cartriges accross all MOD sites in UK, Germany and else where.......well with that money MOD could pay more compensation to wounded servicmen, or bought more\better equipment etc etc. Remember its an on going cost every year!

God if I hear another Atlas bloke say "lessons have been learnt" ..... The lessons were learnt in DiiA (Pilot scheme) and C its just that EDS and Atlas thought they knew better and have taken best part of two and half years to re-invent the Dii wheel to get us roughly back where we were at the end of C.

Proplove, yes, I told you so. I have been watching the printer consumables issue for many years. Our ALFENS ink-jet used to eat £1000 of cartridges per year - yup, in B&W.

Before Dii/f we had 8 or 9 inkjets on the unit and only 2 pairs the same. stock holding was IRO £500. We now added a B&W laser and a colour laser and Atlas removed our one economical B&W laser, Stock holding is now £1700.

go to PC world and by a cheap one, lie on JPA about the expenses and get a good deal on toner etc from cartridge world. Submit a GEMS and get promoted.
If you just get a generic usb printer and find a helpful fairy, leckie or computer nerd on sqn (there is always one) and get them to patch it in if the atlas have hidden the usb ports.......

Then send me 15 thousand pounds as a consultancy fee....

jobsa good un

Ahhhhh if only! Think you'll find the adding of "non approved" printers may be more difficult than before.

You wouldnt belive how many inner pit lids and padlocks have had to be replaced due to a) existiting metal rings being cut through due to key missing for the padlock, b) lock being hot cut through so we could get into the pit and c) missing inner lids. These are not cheap relacements either especially as the new Approved Class 2 lock list came out! Hey guess what, someone has approved lock types with the hasp now being 14-15mm thick - many of the older pits only have 8-10mm holes!!! Also the body of the lock is of such a size now that often you cant physically position them between the two lids on older pits!! The cost of these locks is something else as well, by the time MOD get the bill I wouldnt be surprised at the figure being £160 a go.

Has anyone had an instance or heard of one where a person of dubious intent (outside of IT people :E) has tried to get into a pit to do no good?

No, but then we have the keys.

The real p1sser is that they take way your super 19 inch TFT VGA socket monitor and replace it with a 17 inch monitor with a different plug.

We keep hearing mention of this 'different' connector for the monitor... could someone describe it please? It must be carrying the same signal, such that a pin swapping device could be pretty easily knocked-up to sort it back to VGA (XGA if you want to be fussy)?

Unless there's a compelling reason to have unique monitor connections, that nobody else in the world has apparently needed until now, the person who agreed to - or overlooked - that aspect of the contract should be hauled over the coals. Non-standard parts are the sort of thing an O Level business studies student could spot from 100 miles away as being a trap for a lucrative support contract monopoly, where 'specialist spares' just happen to cost 10x the market rate and need an approved technician to fit them...who happens to be from the original company. It's bordering on organised crime.

Personally, I would write into the contract of the contracts officer that they will be held financially responsible for any contract traps they lead the MoD into, where it would have been reasonable to expect them to have avoided them. That would concentrate the mind.

I haven't looked recently but the male, VDU, connector has blades not pins. It might be a new industry standard, but when has Government IT been at the leading edge of technology?

If it has blades and pins, then this would be the answer... if not, who knows!
DVI to VGA Gender Changers > Maplin

Lancs

Could be but I would need to check the plug/socket.

So DVI is new standard? After we have had VGA for, ooh, 20 years or more. Clearly time to force peopel to change their long life monitors.

Just realised I inadvertently brought up gender benders... sorry!

Oooh, you old cynic , you! :E

I'll try to get a peep at the 'new' connector layout through the week and report back.

The graphics cards in the Optiplexes are Dell specials designed for CAD work IIRC - Quadro FXs - they have dual outputs from a single socket.

This cable then has two outputs from it (for the dual display) and then both these are DVI style connectors.

edit: Almost forgot, here's a top tip for the DII computers. Don't have the left hand shift key pressed down on switch on ;)

DVI is the new standard.

I guess what the Major really meant to say was:

"press the left hand shift key as you switch on."

If you ever switch off that is :}

"DVI is the new standard."

Not quite true. DVI may be a newer standard than VGA, but the new standard is actually DisplayPort.

I suppose pretty typical of the MoD though, to be upgrading to an already superceded standard.

Ah, that explains it. The very idea that the MOD would be at the bleedin
edge.

The system is truely wonderful. It throws up obscure warning messages telling you to do something but omits to tell you how. Installing a piece of new software was a revelation, not just to me but to the help desk too.

This is making me weep, DVI is not a new standard. It has been about for nearly 10 years now. I know there is a lot wrong with DII but having a monck on about the video connectors is a moan to far.

Odium, no it isn't. Atlas are removing perfectly good 19 inch and larger VGA VDU and replacing them with 17 inch DVI VDU. Then, if you want a 19 inch you have to make a business case to buy a new 19 inch display.

You can bet your bottom dollar that there will be no refund for the 17 inch DVI that they remove.

As for DVI being around for 10 years, is it not odd that every computer provided in the last 8 years has been VGA? That commercial computers have VGA and rarely DVI?

I know one is digital and the other is analogue but what is the technical advantage of change as there appears to be no economical advantage?

Your being "standardised" - then at a later date a certain company can then make more money by up-grading you to where you started off from!
I beleive that the 'Discovery' survey was supposed to identify larger screen users, the question was then asked if it was a requirement for you to have them, if nothing was forthcomming or it was deemed that you were not an essential user you were "standardised".
Watch out for a large number of 19" flat screens appearing on eBay!

You didn't finish your sentence:

...to the MoD.

Dear God what are you talking about...? Complete and utter gobbletheduke....

Why does DII need video cards and graphics cards and quadro FX's....? All it needs to provide is an function that will allow you to send Emails and some sort of Spreadsheet / Word programme....

If the digital analogue change was correct, the adaptor I pointed out would not work.... (DVI + gender bender = VGA or XGA etc.). It does.

Spheroid, we actually Dii/f is intended to 'deliver network enabled capabilty' in the words of those in Starship Enterprise and now selling ground heat pumps or double glazing.

I think the secret of all this goobledegook is that the stars don't understand what they are told. Rather than ask or try and re-write in plain English, thus proving they don't know, they simply reiterate what they have been told.

Emperor's clothes and all that.

As someone said earlier, the mistake is to equate seniority with the ability to understand detail. Remember Tony Blair and George Bush couldn't use computers.