On rare occasions I'll have a request from management or customers to "data mine" and appropriate the data into sorted criteria based on their needs. The majority of the time the process is tedious and obnoxious and I'm always trying to find quick solutions and answers to problems.
Today was one of those days. I work in a Logistics firm, and as such our Warehouse/Transport Management system is the whole back bone of our business, however getting data out of it in a nice view is an absolute PI
I have decided to write an IT pack for teachers, covering things like how to log onto various services such as email, vle, content cache etc. One of the things I want to include is their usernames for each service. So, I thought the easiest way was to take my spreadsheet of usernames (in Open Office) and insert usernames into the correct spaces in the document (also in OO) using mail merge. Simple yes?
No. However, by a series of arcane incantations, reading out of date OO manuals and shoutin
So, after all the hardwork over Summer I got called into the ICT Teachers Departmental Meeting to talk about what we done over the Summer and get their feedback after the first full week back.
Haven't posted for a while, been busy doing the following....
1. Implemented new XenServer which is now running four virtual machines. This has enabled us to switch off two old servers that needed replacing and split the roles on to these seperate virtual machines. Performance has been excellent wi
Ok we are done.
Engineer called in to finish up and we have our test network.
So some boot time stats:
New machines (2.8GHz Core 2 duo, 2GB RAM) take 2 mins to boot screen from cold start and 30 secs from login to workable desktop.
Old machine (3GHz P4, 2GB RAM) take 3mins 20 secs to login from cold boot to login screen and 1min 25 secs from login to workable desktop.
Oh dear. Things have got confusing now.
Got to speak to engineer who told me that he was not coming in. Straight after the project manager phoned to tell me the engineer was coming in today.
Thing is, I am not opposed to a remote install, in fact I requested it and was told it was not an option. I mean I can connect everything up and fire off workstation builds perfectly fine. What I am opposed to is paying full whack for an engineer to be on site for two days and ending up getting a remo
Well.
I came in this morning to find the engineer connected remotely to the server and still configuring it.
I find this worrying as this means he is still at home. 2 1/2 hours away. Will he come back today? We only have today scheduled to finish off. Also I can see that he is only 1/2 way through the server commissioning instructions.
Of course I can do some of the bits (connect up APS, commission stations etc) but the point is we have paid to have this done by an engineer. I guess if I
Well... the word I will use to sum up today is... uneventful. No issues, everything has gone by the book. I am much relieved.
Server setup is just about there and the engineer has setup PXE install as a favour which was nice. Been having a look and the RMMC is nice and snappy, much better than CC3's web based affair (although I haven't used it in anger yet).
Tomorrow I move on to building the test stations and taking those for a spin!
Ok, the engineer left a while ago and traveled home while the server downloaded updates. He is now on from home to do more config.
Just watching and I realise that the engineers have a set of instructions to follow - never really thought about that before, could have done that myself
Ok server is fine and its drop *phew*
Merrily doing its thing now. RM Engineer is reading a book. Apparently its a long wait.
Perhaps I can cajole him into helping me with some other issues I am having
Ok so my first task was to check the server.
As I posted here the courier dropped/threw the server in reception
RM asked me to turn it on and check that it booted. After realising that the redundant PSU needed to be plugged in it seems to have booted ok...except an error about some services not starting...I hope thats not a problem
So the day has arrived. CC4 install day. This schools first step away from peer to peer Schoolshare *does a little jig*
So why this blog? Well, there are lots of people still decided about CC4 so I thought I would share my experiences of a CC4 SR1 installation. This is not about the merits and demerits of CC4/RM, the decision has been made, the engineer is on his way and the nerve calming whiskey has been poured.*
So whats happening today and tomorrow? Well, rather than going for a site wi
As some of you may be aware i recently made an "Edugeek Search Federation Connector" so you can search Edugeek.net from your windows desktop enviroment.
Some of you may be wondering how this can be done, so you can maybe use it for your own website.
It's actually very straight forward, you can create 2 types of connectors "basic" or "advanced" the basic connector will just pull back webpages where as the advanced connector will allow you pull back images, videos, documents etc.
To cr
If it wasn't for the British and Irish Lions this Summer I would not have coped with my rugby withdrawals.
Tonight Cardiff play Edinburgh and my team - The Ospreys play Connaught away.
The Autumn internationals are looking and I am already starting to plan my weekly get togethers to watch the games.
Wales v England is always the one to watch in the six Nations (for me anyway) and the song "As long as we beat the English" rings around the Valleys.
Anyone else here as excited? This yea
So the first week started on Tuesday - no pupils. I haven't been in all Summer but results were delivered to me via email.
This is where we are... (split into job titles)
Head of ICT
Analyse results
GCSE - done
ALevel - done
AS Level - done
Year 9 Key Skills - done
Write my department self-eval for last year (not done)
Write my development plan for this year (not done)
Photocopy resources for the beginning of each year group module (all done except Year 13)
Met Year 12 pu
With the release of Windows 7 it is time to start grabbing your Windows 7 ISO's, furiously burn them to a disk and install a new copy of Windows 7. Any gaming rig will have Gigabytes of programs to copy over though if the file transfers fail. The Big Reinstall helps you transfer those programs to quickly get back to your online fragfests.
So let's start with the biggest player on the market at the moment, World of Warcraft.
Before starting it is recommended to backup files to an External H
So it seems to be coming more of a common thing now people using USB sticks to install Operating Systems, one thing people seem to have a problem is.. is making the USB Bootable.
Well say no more, it takes about 5 minutes and all you need is command prompt no need for 3rd party software.
~*This only works with Windows Vista/7*~
1) Open Command Prompt
2) cd \ {ENTER}
3) diskpart {ENTER}
4) list disk {ENTER}
5) select disk 1 {ENTER} (if that is your memory stick)
6) clean
After a hectic couple of weeks, I've finally started looking at the file management thing again. I think this should handle the actual moving and renaming of the file themselves (as yet untested, I plan to test it tonight when I get home). The updating of links in PowerPoint files is currently on hold until either I find a reliable fix for the PowerShell localization problem with Office, or I get around to using PowerShell 2 instead. I'm assuming its fixed there.
For anyone interested in the
OK - so I took over the blog a bit recently, what with my Sharepoint ramblings followed by my "Live from..." series.
Right... so whats been keeping me away from the blogging (no boos and hisses in the background thank you!!):
1. Replacing a load of switches:
Our core switches were all upgraded to Netgear GSM7212 - to provision our fibre. Next level out from this, we have just finished putting in GSM 7248/24 dependant on capacity. Why these? Well - we have a very good relationship with Ne
Someone I know has recently asked me if it's possible to create a tool for them.
What they want is something which'll iterate through several thousand PowerPoint files in a directory tree, renaming them and moving them to a new tree with different subfolders depending on name, and then go through the slides themselves in order to update any OLE links which they contain.
Originally I was hoping to do this in PowerShell and making progress. The problem came when I discovered that PowerShell
Some of the students in our school have discovered that if the unplug the network cable that they can avoid GPs and ultimately some security settings. Does anyone have a solution?
We are in the BSF process at the minute (can't specify which school/college or borough because there may be someone spying out there)
The given choices for us were:
Stay in the 'institution' and become an IT Technician/Teaching Assistant (obscure and dubious new role)
OR
Join RM and being tuped over and remain a TECHNICIAN, not something else which is a non-technical job.
So, if RM have any cons, which I'm sure they have, at least I won't end up being buggered/bullied (and possibl
Ok... picture the scene...
You have a nice existing RIS setup - which deals with all your machines quite nicely. If course - it has to run on Server 03. You then go and update your DCs to Server 2008.
Problem - you notice that some of your image builds stop joining the domain. Cue pulling your hair out time! Have you changed anything in the images etc....
No... the problem as I eventually found out is you Server 2008 DCs. So long as they are the only DCs (ie no Server 03 DCs) the new se
Hey All,
Just been reading Wyse's white paper on the benefits of Desktop virtualisation & it inspired some thoughts:
a) True energy savings, cost saving & environmental benefits should be within the building envelope, power & carbon. In a thin client environment the Wyse terminal box may consume 5-15 Watts but the data-centre or server farm at the other end of the LAN consumes much more. Data-centre models are vague but appear to omit, or unallocate, the massive C02 output &
