OverWorked

Happy Birthday John. See you next week!

Thank you! I'd also add that things like hard drive recovery can be lucrative. Half an hour well spent with something like UBCD or Knoppix to recover someone's precious work or family photos will produce a very grateful (and generous) customer. Don't overdo the charging or they'll know you're taking advantage. On the other hand I've spent several hours on jobs that, with hindsight, probably just weren't worth it to them. A few times (too often, probably) I've asked for a fee and they've said "Is that all?". Then I'm left wondering how much it should have been. You just have to play it by ear. Other tips while I'm here:- 1) Give out free advice relevant to the problem on how they can prevent it reoccurring. Some people think that they won't come back if customers start fixing their own problems, but they will. 2) Before you return a computer (especially a laptop) to a customer, give it a good clean. Only takes a couple of minutes and leaves a good impression.

I've been working self-employed, in evenings after my main employed school job, for about four years now. I started at £10 per hours, and gradually increased it to £30. That figure is only in my head though, I don't publish it. No one can tell you what to charge. Just do what you and what you think your customers feel would be reasonable. I was just naive thinking that £10 or even £15 was adequate. Doing the accounts for tax at the ends of the first two years, showed I'd made virtually nothing for all that hard work. I was a bit embarrassed to show it to my accountant. I price each job on what I think it's worth to the customer, how much I think they can afford, how long it took, or how long it should have taken. There have been jobs (it happens to everyone) that because you're seeing a piece of software for the first time, say, you have to learn on the job. It's not reasonable to charge the customer for that learning time, so I estimate how long I actually spent doing the task once I'd worked it out, and charge for that.

Belinda Bliss - That's the sort of name you find in a certain kind of video. Couldn't help that.

Ben Collins. Among other sources. It's also likely that there are severla stig players, for various reasons. It was someone else until he outed himself in his biography a few years ago. Not that I'd even heard of Ben Collins until this week. I don't know why I'm replying th this thread... I don't even watch the show.

It's funny how schools have their own student cultures. Where I am the girls are free to choose, and they all wear tight trousers. It's a particular type of tight trouser that's been 'in' here for years. Last week I visited a school near Blackpool (I won't say which, but those I visited will know where I mean), and every girl wore a very short tight skirt. By short, I mean way too short. I assumed that it wasn't uniform, it was just that the staff were unable to change the student culture there. I'll PM the person concerned and ask.

I know ict-direct has a load of Dell cabs + servers in stock. I've just been speaking to him this week about the same. Give him a ring. Don't all rush at once. I haven't had chance to place my order yet.

Thanks everyone. £2.5k was what I had in mind, but with the consultants being involved, it'll probably come to more than that.

Can anyone give me a budget figure for air con for a server room? Vague, I know! I've asked the company who have the maintenance contract for our LA. They tell me that due to new environmental laws and our LA's new policy regarding air con, it's going to be a long bureaucratic process to get them to consult before we get anywhere near a quote. We're not allowed to just get a contractor out of the yellow pages either (some schools have been forced to rip out air con installed by third parties in the past). It's a 4m x 2m windowless room about 4m from an external wall. Equipment is currently 6 servers and 6 switches. Anyone prepared to give a stab in the dark?

I'd add that using RDP to access the VMs is also quicker than using the webclient console. The performance is much better. If you do want to use the web client console, install the VMWare tools - this will also improve the experience, like using the same mouse cursor for the console and the VM.

The host ('base server' as you called it) doesn't need to have anyone logged on. It runs all the time as a service. The VMWare Server 2 service will start automatically with the host server it runs on, so you don't need to restart it manually. The virtual machines can be configured (via the web interface) to also start and stop automatically with the host server. Have a go! Assuming your host has sufficient memory and disk space (a serarate disk array is better for speed) you won't break anything or slow your server down. You'll soon get the hang of it. Just install XP as a VM on it to begin with. I've used VMWare Server for over a year and have never read any instructions - it's that easy!

I'd second that. Security is easier to manage with separate shares.

I used to read it avidly in the early 80's, because that's just about all there was then. The teenage mags like ZZap 64 hadn't come along yet. This is when 'personal' computers (IBM PCs) were only owned by businesses, because few individuals could afford them. PCW was my education, through it I learned a lot about how computers were used by grown-ups for business. Sitting for hours typing in and debugging BASIC code into whatever 8-bit machine I had at the time. Anyone remember that? It was the size of a small phone book and full of ads for business IT, photocopiers and the like. Having said that, I haven't touched a copy for about 10 years, which is why it's gone the way it has. Like Top of the Pops, it was great in it's time, but that time has come and gone.

See this thread on a the same topic I use Wininstall LE to create the package initially, then Orca to tweak it if necessary. Wininstall isn't too bad, but Orca is harder to learn.

I've had a frought day. Yesterday my EduGeek mug went missing. Suspected the art teacher but she denied it when I asked her. She's just brought it back with paint all over it. Someone in Art has been using it as a brush pot all day. She was very apologetic and washed all the paint off, so I'm just glad to have it back.

There probably is some truth to it. I was looking to move three years ago and registered with a few agencies. One person at an agency just said "Oh... with that you'll probably just end up in another school or a council or something like that". I did get put forward to a few businesses, but none of them asked me to interview. The only luck I had was with a local school who already knew me, and a charity. After that my situation changed and I decided to stay put.

When I introduced Smoothwall SG to our school I would get abuse from whole classes on kids. The expressions of anger on their faces... I didn't have to say anything, I'd just stand at the front grinning and revelling in the abuse.

That sums me up. We should meet for a drink sometime! LD: 77% Lab: 73% Con: 65% Green: 60% UKIP: 46% BNP: 40% For anyone who (like me until 20 mins ago) is wondering what the elections are for, see the direct.go.uk website. It's for European (MEPs), County Council, and Mayors in some places.

It was great, as was last year's. Always worth going and meeting people. Didn't win anything this time, but got loads of freebies. Forgot to see Ozan for the EduMove - is it available for download? Thanks John and Smoothwall for the tips with the VPN. I think I've found the right section.

Vista & Server 2008 SP2 is on WSUS now (synched 5 AM this morning), but none of my Vista or Server 2008 machines are showing as needing it. EDIT:- Oops spoke too soon. They are now. Downloading...

Following the links through to this, indicates that it's not available yet (or was, briefly, and was pulled). Interestingly, it's a combined Server 2008 & Vista SP2 - one download does both.

Does this mean that SW Express can be used as a free web filter? I haven't looked at SW Express - is the interface similar to Guardian? This is what I need. I often go on the internet with my children at home and still come across unsuitable content.

I was recently in a similar situation, but using a private class C (192.168.0.0/24) which had become full. I just moved over to a private class B (172.16.0.0/16). It was a lot easier than I expected. GrumbleDook's right in that anything over about 1000 addresses and you should start segmenting, but less than that you'll be OK. I carefully planned out the changes with a spreadsheet. Classify your equipment into three basic types: static addresses, DHCP reservations, and normal DHCP dynamic leases. In the DHCP server, create a new scope for the new subnet. You can disable this scope until ready. In it manually create the DHCP reservation using the mac addresses from the existing scope. (I think there's a way of exporting, assuming Windows Server, the mac addresses from the old scope; but you'll have to manually paste the mac addresses into the new reservations). The majority of machines using dynamic addresses will sort themselves out when the new range becomes active. For the machines with static addresses, make sure you can log on to them with a local account, if anything goes wrong and they get cut off from the network. Temporarily give them second IP addresses on the new subnet. I found that servers had a few problems at this 'changeover' stage and that they wouldn't work properly until the old IP addresses were deleted, but it wasn't anything serious. When you're ready, in the DHCP server, enable the new scope and disable the old. After that it's just tidying up. Watch for any software that needs to be reconfigured for the new subnet, like apps (like IE) accessing the proxy server on a new IP.

Ben's right. PDFCreator will merge any printable docs (MS Office, Open Office, PDF etc...) into one pdf.

@Bearer, Do you mean getting ePortal working on IIS7 on Server 2008? It works well, if you know how. Serco publish a guide but there's a crucial point they've missed. You have to give the ISAPI-DLL execute permission on each of the virtual directories. Also, it won't run on 64-bit. Serco spent a couple of hours trying on my server too. Let me know.