Using wireless PDA's to register on ePortal

[tosca925]

Is any one using wireless PDA's to register on eoprtal? Our staff take a register for eportal for every lesson, we find this a good way on monitoring truancy levels.

 

All classrooms have a network point but our problem is the changing rooms. They also have 2 network points but its a right pain for PE staff to have these ready all the while. Also at anyone time their could be up to 3 register needing doing in one changing room.

 

We are looking at the possibility of using PDA with windows Mobile so that the y can log on wireless to IE and do their register with an handheld for speed and to keep the registers up to date. We tend to get PE staff missing certain registers and doing a paper copy to put on at the end of the day.

 

We would put Wireless access points in the boys and girls changing rooms and tie them to to mac adress of the PDA.

 

DOes any one do anything similar.

[plexer]

If you want to deploy wireless on your network you need to do it in a managed and secure way mac address filtering offers minimal security if any at all.

 

Ben

[Norphy]

Our PE department uses cheap iPaqs and Winfolder PK to take their registers. After a couple of hiccups to begin with, it seems to work well enough for them. Thats to say, I've had no complaints about them not working

 

As for security, Windows for PocketPC 2003 SE and Windows Mobile 5 both support WEP, WPA-RADIUS and WPA-PSK so there is no need to compromise your wireless security by using Mac filtering.

[webman]

You'd trust your teachers to look after a PDA? :?

[Midget]

I'm looking into this atm for the same reason (using Lisol Pathways reg system though) it seems ok, PE havent had a look at it yet, but i'm loathed to buy them laptops at £500 a pop just for registration and them looking at porn and spyware (no joke) when a £240 PDA will work better. We may do a mix of both, either way it saves some money on my budget

[danIT]

Wouldnt you say a laptop was better value though?

[woody]

We will be trying out the new SIMS Mobile solution as soon as it is officially released. We are just buying one license and setting it up for PE. Will be using WPA for security.

 

PE staff who want to register in the gymn or on the field do not want a laptop - it is too bulky and could get knocked.

[budgester]

Is any one using wireless PDA's to register on eoprtal? Our staff take a register for eportal for every lesson, we find this a good way on monitoring truancy levels.

 

We would put Wireless access points in the boys and girls changing rooms and tie them to to mac adress of the PDA.

 

DOes any one do anything similar.

 

We did exactly that, and for the same reasons, the only problem we found was then the they wanted a wireless network around the rest of the school.

 

It works well, as long as you have your classes split into gender, the problem we had was that we had two classes doing PE and the timetable had not split them so the female teacher could only register half a class etc, you see where I',m going with this.

[plexer]

We had a PE teacher doing some work on a laptop in a gym with the students playing football one miskicked ball later and it was a new screen for the laptop.

 

Ben

[dezt]

we use ipaq's in the PE dept. using pars. the problem we have is exactly the same as budgester, the classes are not split into gender, so registaring is a pain.

 

The Pda's connect via an ad-hoc network to laptops to upload the data, this is because the access point we have is one of those high speed ones that doesn't like b wireless devices too much.

[plexer]

High Speed ones? just configure it for b only or b & g but do not set it for turbo mode.

 

Or add another b only access point?

 

Ben

[dezt]

i'll have to get a cable into the access point, it's half way up a wall and i think laziness has got the better of me, that and i don't like belkin network kit, i feel it's tailored for the home user too much. Give me netgear or d-link any day.

[plexer]

No telnet or web interface to it?

If it doesn't have then that is truly shocking.

 

Ben

[dezt]

just tried a telnet session, it doesn't allow me to connect to it. Tried typing the ip address into internet explorer to open the web interface, it looks like i need to be connected locally, because it just says go away.

[Geoff]

Access points dont usually allow you to connect to their admin pages over their wireless. That might be the problem you're having?

[dezt]

I'm not trying to connect via wireless, i've just had a battle with it and realised when i removed the proxy settings from internet explorer it worked. I also found the manual on the belkin website, it is supposed to be for a home network, whoever was here before me bought it so i'm not taking the blame for that.

[Midget]

I'm currently trying to reuse a Buffalo router for the task, god its not easy, it just REALLY loves using 192.168.*.* and won't allow our DHCP server to give IPs to wireless clients (10.*.*.*) and as such you can't remotely connect to it, have to connect directly.

[plexer]

What model number?

 

I've got several buffalos running here WBR-G54's and WLA-G54's and a few of the compact ones too.

 

Configure them all via the web interface from a wired connection.

 

Ben

[Midget]

a WBR2-G54 funnily, I'm configuring it from the web GUI with a laptop connected to the buffalo, I would have just prefered for it to use our own IP range instead of the 192.168.*.* one and be remotely configurable.

 

It works when bridging two of them with no wireless clients, but when you want it as an access point, nah ah. If I had more time i'd probably figure it out, but i'm currently also battling with Nelson Thornes' awful software

[webman]

Hi Midget, I have a Buffalo at home and at work; on 172.16.8.x and 10.x networks respectively. They both allow wireless clients access to the network and get IPs from the primary DHCP server without problems.

 

PM me if you'd like a copy of the settings we use.

[plexer]

I can't believe that the WBR2 configuration would be any different to a WBR which I have here next to me.

 

Clicking on advanced setup takes me straight into wireless settings.

 

Lan Port allows me to setup a static ip adress we a 10. range dhcp function is set to do not use.

 

Wireless security settings for radius etc...

 

Make sure you're running latest firmware.

 

Ben

[Midget]

i'll try updating firmware, atm it wont let me have a 10.*.*.* address w/ a 255.255.0.0 subnet

 

webman: That would be very useful if you could saveout that bin file. thank you.

 

QQ: Why is network kit designed for "home" so bloody difficult to use?

 

*Goes searching for WiFi APs from AliedTelesyn*

[k-strider]

We have a couple of teacher using PDA access of Eportal for electronic registration and it seems to work ok.. (most use laptops) at least I don’t get that many can you fix my pda for eportal requests. We use HP HX4700’s and some HX2XXX cant remember the model now… they seem to work reasonably well.. our whole school has wifi since we have staff and students with laptops, we have Netgear WAG102 WAG302 and WG102s… these APs are slightly more than most but the do POE which is a must if your putting APs all over the place or hiding them in the false ceiling with no sockets up there… so they are out of site.. rather than in sight one day gone the next!!.. they also have autocell which means they chat to each other and keep there strength and channel optimal.. and the WAGs work on 2.4 and 5Ghz so you get twice the bandwidth usefull if you have lots of laptops on one AP… so long as tbe laptops are A/B/G too.. not really relevant to PDAs and eportal though!!