Teacher Laptops - Internet Settings when offline

[ajbritton]

What's the best way to configure teacher laptops so that when they take them home, they can still log on, do work, use their own Internet connection and generally mess about , but when they bring them back to school, the Internet connection still works and does not trash their home settings?

 

When XPs logon cacheing, teachers can go home and still use their network logon. Offline folders mean that their 'My Documents' folder will also be available to work on. The real hassle is Internet.

 

If I set up local logons, then we get into the issue of transferring files and file permissions (yucky). Also, if laptop needs rebuilding, it's more complex to automate the rebuild.

 

Any suggestions or experiences welcome

[Ric_]

Main problem tends to be proxies.

 

I found a plugin for Firefox, though its name escapes me now, that lets you choose whether or not to usse a proxy and which proxy to use.

 

If they say they 'can't use' Firefox - tell them where to stick the laptop!

[GrumbleDook]

We give them 2 accounts ... a domain account which is locked down ... and a local machine account which makes them a local admin, allowing them to break it by sticking on their own ISP, pronters, games etc ...

 

But we do check them regularily and just wipe it when it plays up too much.

 

Teachers have learnt to live with it, and the fact that we set up a c:/work folder for them to use to store thing in rather than always using their network kome area means that we don't have 90GB of rubbish on the server. Nearly all the laptops have CD-RW drives and so they have the responsibility for backing up their work. Anything that is really important can be on the server, and Schemes of Work, etc are meant to be stored in the departmenal shares anyway ... so the rubbish is usually movies, pictures and music.

 

The staff have learnt to live with it and it runs quite smoothly now.

[tarquel]

That was my plan GrumbleDook

 

Altho previously, I've had to set up their dialup connection for them (!!) but now i wont bother. If they cant shell out for a measly ammount of money for a home computer, then why should I do more than my share either eh?

 

Local Admin - big no no here. Limited User is all they are gonna get from me lol

 

Cheers

N.

[GrumbleDook]

 

Local Admin - big no no here. Limited User is all they are gonna get from me lol

 

Call it rope to hang themselves with ... if they follow our instructions things are fine ... if they don't then they bugger things up and have to come to us to get it fixed.

 

Other than one person (who seems to be jinxed with no matter what machine we give her ... just taking it from our office to hers it will go pear-shaped) we very rarely have people come back with a problem a second time ...

 

It must be our sparkling personalities

[kingswood]

We do the same as Tony. Tends to make things a little easier, and apart from the odd *oddball* everything is dandy. I think. But then they woudlb't admit to many problems, would they?

 

:-)

 

Paul

[tosca925]

We give them 2 accounts ... a domain account which is locked down ... and a local machine account which makes them a local admin, allowing them to break it by sticking on their own ISP, pronters, games etc ...

 

But we do check them regularily and just wipe it when it plays up too much.

 

Yes we also do the same as Grumbledook, We even set up a shared folder and put shortcuts on the all users desktop. Most of them back up but others.......well. One teacher had loads of personal holiday photos on the laptop. Thing corrupt, we asked if she had backed up her work and she replied yes..!we just re-imaged it. (she just meant school work)

 

She backs up all her work now........!

[Geoff]

I found a plugin for Firefox, though its name escapes me now, that lets you choose whether or not to usse a proxy and which proxy to use.

 

http://www.roundtwo.com/product/switchproxy

[tarquel]

lol @ Tony

 

I'd rather them not come to me if they mess it up because they were a local admin - dont need that extra work

 

Same goes for any machine tho - not just laptops. Haven't needed to give anyone a local admin yet, and i dont plan to change that anytime soon lol I have got a local user for the RM SecureNet program we use in the county. For another topic but the guy at RM said that only the user it was installed on can use it and if any other user uses it, it will mess up the installation (nice work RM, nice work *groans*). Any suggestions here PM me or make a new thread for me

 

@tosca:

 

Lucky she didnt kill you. I had evils from a teacher after the laptop him and his wife (both teachers at the school) messed up big time and lost the profiles (of course, that could have been me tinkering with the settings and forgetting not to allow laptops to remove local cached profiles hehe).

 

Had to run a recovery program to get the work back - not the easiest of things to use but managed to get alot of it back tho - tho some was inevitably lost He finished at the school this term but wasn't the happiest with me since it happened tho (wonder why? lol). I've explain to his wife today and made a full backup onto cd of the work on and off the laptop so she has a copy - they have no management of storing files - not making life easier.

 

I've promptly given her the local machine logon and told her to save her work in C:\Work\$Username$ - I redirected the My Docs folder manually to there too because these ppl always forget lol.

 

Lets hope it works for her

 

Regards

Nath

[GrumbleDook]

@tarquel

 

One thing we have noticed about giving local admin rights is that we have raised the level of expectation of the staff.

 

In other words, they are expected to be more confident with using IT, and more competent too ... We are showing a level of trust and they have to back that up by actually following instructions and being responsible.

 

And since this is the exact attitude that is taken with the students for a number of things we can get away with it.

 

However, prove to us that you are without clue and you get the 3rd degree about everything you do with IT ... basically abuse it and you lose it. We treat staff and students alike with that ... hence why we also only have one AUP for everyone.

[tosca925]

@tarquel

 

Lucky she didnt kill you.

 

Well she hardly talks to either of us now apart from the odd grunt.

[tarquel]

@tarquel

 

Lucky she didnt kill you.

 

Well she hardly talks to either of us now apart from the odd grunt.

 

Sounds familiar

 

@Tony:

 

Hey - I'm not knocking it It sounds a good idea - but each school is different that all.

 

The admin staff for example think that they can install whatever programs they like - regardless of licensing - so they now cannot see the C drive or access it. Same goes for the D drive. Currently have to leave the A drive available as some *still* use floppy for things - as stupid as that is when it comes to storing work on them. Of course, all standard locked-down users that cant install stuff - lovely

 

...as I dont care how much they *need* a program.

 

No license & no cash for it = no chance lol

 

Cheers

n.

[Frazer]

At Hodgson, ive written a small vbs script that disables internet explorers proxy settings when they login with a local account. This allows them to use whatever dial up/cable account they have at home since 99.9% of isps dont require a proxy to be entered.

When they log in to the network the GP applies our proxy settings.

For work stored on their laptop I give their network username full access to 'documents and settings\localusername\my documents\' and add a short cut to c:\documents and settings\%username%\my documents to the staffs network desktop.

This means they can acces their laptops harddisk for offline work they have saved and also their network files (my documents).

[british-wave]

I have found that not restricting access to the connections tab and the lan settings in GPO the teacher can access this area and just put the tick ni the box or remove it. Works for us here though teachers to winge a little about doing that.

[Geoff]

Slightly more complex solution is to use an autoconfiguration script.

 

http://nscsysop.hypermart.net/proxypac.html

[Norphy]

We've told them that they can use the net on them at home but if they do they will be completely unsupported in it. We've given them instructions on how to set them up (disable ISA firewall client, disable proxy etc) and told them that we'll rip their bowels out with a rusty spoon should they even think of installing AOL on them.

 

No major problems so far

[jonk]

I have a batch file that checks if the server exists in all users startup if so then runs a batch file from the server to map drives / fixes etc. If they are at home I have two batch files on their desktop to undo the proxy settings depending where they are. I have found this the easiest way. The laptops are not on domains.

[RoyG]

$16 buys a really great bit of software called MultiNetwork Manager 6.5 from Globesoft - don't bother with the all-singing, all-dancing MNM8.

 

With his you can set up network profiles for school & home. If any of our teachers want Internet access at home I simply reset all settings to default (DHCP, no proxy etc.), then send the teacher home to set up his/her laptop for home access. When he/she's happy it's working at home I install MNM 6.5, save these settings as the "home" profile, then add a new profile for the school settings. This takes about 3 minutes.

 

Whenever the machine fires up, they just choose "home" or "school". The program runs in trial mode for 20 days, before then they can register & pay their $16 on-line.

 

I use this on my own laptop, with loads of profiles - school LAN, school wireless, WAP setup direst, WAP setup over LAN, Wireless projector setup, home settings etc. etc.

 

Even the "technically challenged" teachers seem to cope - highly recommended!

 

RoyG

[OverWorked]

A couple of people here have mentioned scripts to change the proxy settings. Can anyone let me have a copy of such a script?

 

It seems the easiest way to go - a shortcut on their desktop saying "I'm at home" which they can click and it resets their proxy address to the blank default.

 

So far I've just told people how to clear the proxy address themselves, but it's not easy for them. Soon they'll be expected to access from home, so I have to remove as many obstacles as possible.

[OutToLunch]

I use Net Profiles myself but haven't started rolling it out to teachers yet - just been test driving it. Very very nice freebie. It can handle changing IP and proxy by the SSID it detects wireless is connected to or just providing a choice of "Home" "School" to click on, supports both Firefox and IE proxy. Liking it a lot!

 

Net Profiles

[john]

Looks a good little utility, is it free for educational use? as a few ones I've seen which are free are not free when used in a commercial or educational situation

[Hacksawbob]

Hey, Scripting Guy! How Can I Switch Between Using a Proxy Server and Not Using a Proxy Server?

[IrritableTech]

@Overworked

 

I just add a batch script which calls a reg file and silently edits the apropriate keys for the proxy.

 

Change the icon on the batch script to look like IE, and the teachers don't know the difference. Call one Internet Explorer (School) and the other Internet Explorer (Home), and the staff just click the right one!

 

Bat Script

regedit.exe /s c:\ProxyEnable.reg

@start "" /b "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" %*

 

Export the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings string when the proxy is enabled and call it ProxyEnable.reg and do the same when it is off (under a different name and edit the bat script obviously).

 

It works well for us.

[fiendishlyclever]

This is the one I use on my netbook - swaps the ip if needed, the proxy and even the default printer settings.

[OverWorked]

Thanks to the three above. I'll look into these.

 

I've tried the creating a wpad.dat file with DNS pointing to it, but just can't get it working. IE won't pick up the settings.

 

Anyway, as I think I mentioned earlier, I'll go for a shortcut to a script on the user's desktop, so they can do it themselves.