soveryapt

Aye, very late in the year, they've just completed it the manual way, but I think they're looking forward for when they come around to it again next year.

Having never used it, but being asked to look at it, I thought I'd come here to find some pros and cons for NovaT6. Basically, currently, the SLT spend a week together in a room with a big piece of paper sorting the timetable for the following year, but I've been asked by a member of SLT to see if there is any timetabling software available. As we pay for the SIMS package and get NovaT6 with that, I thought it's as good a place as any to start, but I'm looking for pros and cons. Looking through the manual, it does look like it might take a bit of setting up in the first instance, but it's how easy is it to use after that? Can it be used by non technically minded folks, or will I regret pointing them in the direction and end up doing the timetabling job instead of looking after the shiny whizzy things? Thanks Andy

2p Worth .. XIBO FTW.. just updated to 1.4.x here and it's great, even more straight forward that it was previously, you can have many schedules displays around site, schedule in special days, just through up a PowerPoint that someone has prepped for you (you do need PowerPoint installed on the machine to do this), add videos, images, webpages, text, RSS Feeds, Twitter Feeds, etc, etc, etc.. And .. it's free .. Plus, I love the feature with the latest client where you can (without the need for reverse engineering or compiling from code) add your own splash screen on there.

Well, that was painless. All set up and working in tandem today. Lovely. I even decided to put back on the second DNS server. I feel good today and have redundancy back again.

What about Ubiquiti Unifi - plenty of people on here already using it, I've just started using it at one clients office, and you can do standard separation or VLAN, depending on your requirements, you can even break it down to a point where the Guest/BYOD WiFi uses a PayPal gateway to make it an income generator too, or just simply offer vouchers (like a cafe kind of thing) so that you still have an amount of control over peoples access.

And this post proves you learn something new everyday. I've always run a split scope, didn't even look into being able to do this! Ta @Michael for a hopefully very useful pointer.

Just a note from when I did a similar thing, if any of your devices point to a DNS name instead of an IP address (so \\servername not \\x.x.x.x etc) make sure you put a CNAME or A Record in your DNS to resolve these to the new servers. Eventually things should propagate through, but it's just one thing I hit that was resolved with that easy step. As for the rest, like others have said, yeah, seems the best way forward, and add as much redundancy as you can, but that goes for all IT deployments really.

Meh .. seem to be able to import in batches .. which I'll do for now .. but any help would still be appreciated

Ok, so I'm just updating the iPads and such, and moving them all over to using the Apple Configurator app on our Mac Mini Server (I will eventually convince SLT that we need to work out exactly which paid for apps we need and buy the relevant ones through VPP too, but that's another story). For now, I'm just wanting to manage to iPads by installing the free apps and also the profile and such (that has the WiFi and such on). This is all good, apart from the fact when I try to add Apps into the configurator, it crashes, which is kind of annoying. So I was just wondering if anyone has any suggestions: Mac Mini is running Lion Server iPads are all iPad 1 running latest version of iOS5 Apple Configurator is v 1.2.1 If you want any more info, do let me know. All updates have been applied to the server too. Thanks Andy

No worries. The only thing I've found with using the Active Directory Group Filtering is that the domains have to be to the second in time with the NED Boxes, else they don't like it (I've had a number of discussions with OCL about it) but when it works, it does work very well.

Could your schools (assuming most use either the CLEO Network or have their own filters in place) not get devolved filtering to allow the use of YouTube? It could even be done in conjunction with the NED Box (again, assuming your schools have it on the CLEO side) to then stop Pupils getting access to YouTube (or even certain members of staff, so it could be filtered down to just having one or two members of staff that update the site allowed access etc). Just a suggestion. I mean, if the website needs redoing anyway, there are plenty of available options for WordPress to self host videos, it's just never going to be as great as how YouTube/Vimeo etc do it. Just thinking of ways that might be possible and not cost your schools extra money for the time being. With regards to upload limits (only talking for my own experiences which aren't with CSNM), generally the limit will default to 2mb-10mb for uploads, to save abuse, many hosts will allow you to change this by popping a php.ini file in your public folder, but more and more I'm finding imposed upper limits on shared hosting (for instance, the datacentre I use has an upper limit of 200mb per file upload - either via script or FTP, but they do allow larger file hosting, you just have to know how to reconstruct files when uploaded). With dedicated servers and such though, it's not normally so much of an issue.

Can they not set up a YouTube account and have the videos linked inline? That's what I do for a lot of my clients. A case of "why reinvent the wheel" - I mean, if they want space with their WordPress account to host their own videos, I can easily do that and sort it out, but when there are plugins to allow for YouTube to display inline, or even YouTube's own embed code, it would make sense to go down that line of things if the rest of the site is working (in a if it's not broke don't fix it kind of approach)

Where in the country are you as Boundless Superfast Broadband do a great Point-to-Point Service, I have them at home and I get 10/5 as opposed to the 0.5/0.5 I got from Sky because of distance from the exchange. They can offer packages up to 100/100, though for the full whack, then it's costly (obviously). The other thing to do is talk to your local broadband consortium and see if they offer the wireless option. I have it from CLEO at one school which gives 10/10 as opposed to the 2/0.5).

They probably got it right by 2008, this is 2003 SBS ..

But then you don't get the advantages of the newer server functions, therefore negates your question about why not 2012 It would keep the network at 2003 Functional Level, and whilst having new hardware, that's about it, but the old server would still be running all the functions for the network, so it's a pointless exercise (unless you're adding member servers to a newer network for other non DC specific roles - in which case, it becomes a bit more sensible, but in this particular scenario, pointless

It's what I put together for them when we were initially talking about the quote last year, so everything has been ordered and what not, I know 2008R2 and it will certainly do them for the same life span and can look at something up to date when they come to replace this. I looked at the exchange plans, but that's with the whole thing of profiles moving around, so I'm not bothered about cloud solutions, this thread is for their own e-mail server in house as an alternative option. It's one of those "I'm slightly losing the will to live and wish I'd know it was going to be this sort of client at the start as I would have priced myself out of the market for them" scenarios at the moment. Re the member servers to an SBS network, have you ever done it without then having to break microsofts EULA? The thing shuts itself down after a certain number of days of adding the new server to it and then proceeds to do hourly shutdowns unless you disable the SBS service. It's not something I ever recommended for anyone to put in in the first place even when it was out.

Evening All Right, I'm working with a client at the moment to get them onto 2008R2 (from 2003SBS - or what I'm discovering to be Microsoft's Windows ME of the server world). Anywho, they currently make use of the exchange function within SBS, but obviously this needs phasing out as SBS is a 1 server beast, and as soon as you add another server to the domain it goes nuts. So, I'm looking at e-mail alternatives for them at the moment. They're only a small office and I had the foresight to set up a Free (now Legacy) Google App account for them, so they have enough e-mail addresses there, but this is where we hit issues. 1) they like hot desking, but don't want to wait an age for logging in/out so shoving the outlook profile data as a roaming thing I don't think will be an option 2) I suggested purely web mail function with Google Apps, but their office manager doesn't like the look of Google and she's too used to Outlook, so now they want to keep that 3) Exchange is just too darn expensive for the 4 or 5 users that have e-mail addresses (unless I'm missing some pricing scheme somewhere, but ideally, we need to keep this future proof to a certain extent too) So, my secondary suggestion, I look after their web hosting too and I'm able to provide hosted exchange boxes as well as their standard e-mail, so we're looking into that as an option, but I don't think they will be truly happy unless it's all running as it currently does, so I started looking at alternative mail servers that I could install on their new server. So far, I've come across hMailServer (Free) and Axigen Free Mail Server (free, but expandable with additional "premium" users, though the free version would probably do them for now) and MDaemon, but that seems to be getting into the Exchange price bracket. So, any other suggestions for mail servers or any thoughts on those mentioned above. The mail server needs to have the ability to connect in with Active Directory for provisioning, and have a webmail access for out of office e-mail checking and such. Thanks All Andy

In a word, no .. Learn more/General Questions - Spotify .. which states:

Also come across this (which is similar and a lot cheaper) .. Inclusive Tilt and Touch LCD | Inclusive Technology So any thoughts on that too? Andy T

Ok, so I've been asked to look into the TeachSmart Tap IT device (Touch Accessible Platform for Interactive Technology). My first impressions "I can think of better things to spend £8000 on" but I wanted to find out if anyone out there has any experience of these devices. The reasoning being that this particular school has a range of learning difficulties from mild learning difficulties through to full time care. They want to make sure they have devices in school that are suitable for all. We already have a Panasonic Touch Screen that is height adjustable, and a few SMART Boards which are the same, but it seems that the benefit of this TAP IT device is that it will go a lot lower that the other devices, is tilt-able and also has the ability to recognise touch vs learning on the device etc. Anywho, if anyone has had any experience, I'd be eager to hear, positive and negative, about it. The website I have (that I'm struggling to get in school) is http://www.teachsmart.org/tapit, but I have also found TAPit is the first interactive learning station designed to be accessible to all students. Thanks Andy

Will be interested to hear your thoughts on it, as if it is, I'll start putting them into the client quotes as well.

lol .. easy mistake to make ..

I take it as well as the drivers you've installed the SMART NoteBook and Essentials? (you should get a tool bar to - usually by default - the left of the screen with all the tools and such on). If that's not there, then you won't be able to do the whole writing thing as the Drives just make it operate as a big mouse, but the other bits and pieces (of which the drivers get installed with by default) allow the full interactive functionality.

2p Worth and a quick question: I've just installed a 3 Pack as part of an office upgrade (standard not pro) and they work brilliantly, well I have one left to cable in tomorrow, but they do work great. The feature set is quite amazing to say the least with the various guest portal options too in case you want to restrict guest access to "we've given you a code that will last for the term" kind of stuff. The spaghetti junction model is correct in terms of the number of wires you end up with in your cabinet, but for the 3 that's not too much of an issue. My question though (to those who might already use) is the ToughSwitch (UniFi | Ubiquiti Networks, Inc.) a good option for the whole Passive POE issue?

It's the fact they want the ability to send "offline" e-mails if their broadband is down, so I've suggested Google Mail Offline, but that's BETA and Chrome only.