USB Drives

They've got loads of names: USB sticks, memory sticks, flash drives, pen drives and the dodgy (but probably often true) "porn stick". But whatever you call them, Templars may soon be getting some of their very own.

Some IT students today got letters about the USB drives - the plan is to give GCSE students sticks with 1Gb of memory for just £3. This is actually quite impressively cheap, even by the low cost of many similar devices. This will allow students to take their work home with them - IT homework was always tricky to get to your home PC without waiting half the lesson for it to upload as an email attachment.

"Wait! Where has my overly-critical blog gone?" I hear you cry. Well we think this is a step in the right direction by the IT department (especially compared to previous IT woes). As far as we know - feel free to correct us if we're wrong, here - the letters have so far only been given to Year 11 students. Soon they'll be on study leave, and will then have an exam - the need for flash drive suddenly drops considerably. Unless you haven't finished your coursework by then, perhaps.

If this works - and it probably will - why don't Temple Moor give every Templar a pen drive? Actually, it's likely to be very expensive and at £3 each, they can't be making much profit on their porn sticks.

UPDATE:
That's what it looks like.

Handily, it's got a strap thing so you can hang it round your neck (if you like to think it's jewellery). It's got no "lid", either, like some USB sticks do - so you don't have to worry about losing that. It's also small and looks like can withstand a reasonable amount of daily wear and tear.

But there's one truly awful thing about it. That logo. Bordering on levels of Olympics logo idiocy, they've ditched any sensible ideas - the school's logo, the Latin motto, Templar Truths sponsorship deals - and gone with a whole new, fugly design. With a rounded font you've got "TMHS" in blue (good idea) and "ICT" in red (not so obvious colour choice) - and it's all set against the backdrop of a turquoise splat. Are they trying to be funky and cool? Because it's really not working. However, apply a bit of nail varnish and it might come off, with a bit of luck.

IT will be wireless

We at Templar Truths have heard that the new school building will have a wireless system of computers set up. This is a fundamentally awful idea.

Wi-fi, which stands for "wireless fidelity", allows Internet signals to be thrown around the air. Clever and reduces clutter, right? Well...sort of. The main problems with wi-fi are:

1. It's unreliable, with lots of wi-fi systems disconnecting every now and then.
2. Wi-fi dramatically reduces connection speed, and the current connection speed is painfully slow at times, anyway. Imagine being thrust into the early days of dial-up.
3. Lousy security could mean the school's system is open to hackers

This will make IT lessons that require Internet access truly a hellish task.

But the school's already got a wi-fi system going on, apparently. It's secure though - with WEP security. Both types of WEP, say the people who regulate this sort of stuff, "fail to meet their security goals". Essentially, it's a system that could be hacked. What do you care? Lots - it could contain your private data, and do you really want everything about you to be open to the public?

We probably can't stop wi-fi being implemented, but remember: you've been warned.

Nick makes some good points in his comment. We could respond by saying "but will Temple Moor even bother to do it correctly?", but that's a bit unsophisticated. While we don't know exactly the details of the wireless plan, what we do know is that wi-fi is being planned to be implemented, possibly to aid with the latest plan of using PSPs in classrooms, although the technology block (with its high demand on stuff) will keep wired connections to peripherals. Hopefully mice and keyboards will be wired, otherwise I can imagine hardware being thrown about. I also know WPA is secure, but we've heard that the school is currently using WEP.

SNAFU With Computers

In T5, Temple Moor's braindead ideasmen decided that all the computer CPUs should be housed in two corners of the classroom, behind a wooden board. Clever, huh? This restricts pupils' control over their computers. Sure, the "power" button on the keyboard can turn it off - but you must get back up to turn it on. USB ports are available, too. But what if you needed to plug in headphones or something like that? Well, tough. But Temple Moor's stuck with this mad method, and now it's cost them and pupils.

Half of T5's computers today were inactive and not working. Why? We weren't told (if you know, stick it in the comments, please) - but we suspect there was a roof leak and all the CPUs are now internally fried and won't run. Either that or something overheated, causing them all to break. Way to go TMHS!

It just goes to show that the only original ideas at Temple Moor are the ones that fail.