Direct competition!

[Ric_]

I think that the fact we are willing to meet in person at the EduGeek Events and actually talk to each other (admittedly most of the time using Skype) als helps.

 

We don't have the time to edit everybody's posts though

[GrumbleDook]

Editting my posts?

 

Ok ... that is his prerogative. His board, he can do what he wants ... it is just a case of it will drive people away.

[ninjabeaver]

Heres a copy of the e-mail sent out if anyone is interested.

 

PLEASE FORWARD TO THE ICT TECHNICIAN/NETWORK MANAGER

 

 

 

Dear Colleague,

 

I am an ICT Systems Manager at a large secondary school in Kent. I have set up ICTtechnician.com, a brand new website where ICT Technicians and ICT Systems/Network Managers working in schools can share tips, tricks and get valuable free help and advice from like-minded ICT Professionals.

 

Nobody understands better the unique challenges of managing a school's ICT network than another ICT Professional in a school. We often find ourselves working to tight deadlines, with limited financial resources, so I'm sure you will appreciate the benefits of ICT Technician.com, where you will find forums dedicated to:

 

. SIMS & SIMS.NET

. Facility/CMIS/ePortal

. RM Connect

. General School ICT Topics

. Microsoft Active Directory networks

. ICT & media suite installations

. Very useful tips and tricks and jobs section and more.

 

I will be contacting thousands of ICT Professionals working in primary and secondary schools throughout the UK, so ICTtechnician.com will quickly become the fastest way to find solutions to all of your ICT problems.

 

For further information, visit http://www.icttechnician.com to join in today's discussions and be part of this unique brand new community.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Mark Hyatt,

ICT Systems Manager and ICTtechnician.com founder.

 

Mine arrived today.

 

The name Mark Hyatt seems familiar though.

 

Quite alot of adverts though.

[Geoff]

yay spam, my favorite.

[Guest]

I am sick of the email. Working at 4 schools i seem to have a copy of that thing left in my pigeon hole everyday

[Dos_Box]

That is why I wrote a letter to PC Pro. Spamming people is just not on.

[Dos_Box]

I hadn't noticed the corporate clip art on the home page (another one of my pet hates). I tought it was part of the ad.

[intrigue]

well personaslly i liek the design on schooltechnician.co.uk more then here and have never hided the fact that i think this place is too cluttered which is probably why i dont come on here as much as i could like some of you do haha.

 

This is not to say i dont think the forum works or i dont think the community feel is good.

 

Does this place have skins? maybe that would make me feel better haha.

Oh and i dont like phpBB as im an old school UBB/VBulletin user so that probably makes it less visually pleasing to me too.

[Dos_Box]

This place does have skins and themes, but they swallow server space and bandwidth as everyone needs to have different elements sent to them.

[intrigue]

well the server space is minimal as in 5mb max and as for the different elements, whether i use one of the other does't make much difference im still going to be pulling the same amount of data.

 

Are you really telling me that edugeek uses an amazing amount of bandwidth and server space?

having a forum with 100 users and 12 or so online at a time with 10,000 posts i still only used about 5or 6gb bandwidth a month and with a gallery of 7000 pics it went up to about 12gb a month and 4gb of server space.

minimal really.

.matt

[russdev]

Hi Matt

 

the clutter of the site is something I am going to look at next year (god that sound odd)

 

I think problem iwth themes and letter people select own was two fold you will be surpised how much bandwidth band space this site takes up on wiki alone last month we had 3704 hits.. But also the old themes had got so messed up also we have editted this theme a lot so as can imagine going around editting all other themes is time consuming at best.

 

what plan to do is next month look into getting one other theme up and sorted which basicly is less ;cluttered' feel to it.

 

So please do hold out I am working on it...

 

Russ

[GrumbleDook]

There is place for both sites.

 

Just like there is more than one Exchange mailing list, more than one Mac list, more than one joke list.

 

I have asked Mark to contact me because things like the work Russ and I are doing with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (what a mouthful) cannot be covered by this site alone.

 

I am still waiting ... and he is still editing out the link to this site ...

 

Perhaps if I stick a few more links for them in here to balance it out

 

http://icttechnician.com

http://icttechnician.com

http://icttechnician.com

http://icttechnician.com

http://icttechnician.com

http://icttechnician.com

 

That enought do you think?

[mrtechsystems]

oops spelling

[GrumbleDook]

Come on ... he has been removing the edugeek.net link ... you don't actually expect the link to have worked?

 

I am generous, but not that generous.

 

Once he has been in touch I can always edit it.

[tarquel]

Everyone getting the email should reply back saying "thank you for the interest in the school but we currently use a techie forum called ...."

 

Then, in a delicious irony, he'll get his spam back lol

 

N.

[alexknight]

I think content is king.

 

I have visited all the sites mentioned and I have to say that I appreciate all the ahrd work put in by those that have set this site up.

 

A web site like this is a community thing and it doesn;t matter how many school techie sites there are, as long as they have content.

 

Personally like this site as it has quite a few contributors and it has become a community.

 

As we are professionals we won't knock any other sites as we are all working towards the same goals??

 

I would say that this site is the leader and as long as it remains in the same format it will stay that way.

 

As they say you can please some of the people some of the time but not all the people all of the time.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

Alex

[GrumbleDook]

I always remember a friend describing online communites (in reference to alt.fan.pratchett actually)

 

You know when a group has hit the critical mass that means it will be around for a long time. It gets called a community.

 

Up until then it is just a herd ... usually a herd of cats.

 

I've always thought that this sums up so many places.

 

Still, spoken with Mark .. thoroughly nice chap.

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=11877#11877