soveryapt

We use it quite regularly (Espresso that is not ClipBank though), but we are a specialist school for anything from mild learning difficulties to 1-2-1 care assistance, so it gets used in a variety of ways. I think certainly for the lower ability groups you may come across in high school it might be useful, but it could also be a bit too young looking for them at the same time, depending on the group it's being used with - in which case, it could be just as bad as not having something. It might be worth requesting a demo in school so that the head can see for themselves what they think - Espresso Education - Subscription & Pricing

Cheers @john Quick Update: Apparently, it's something to do with the SysVol settings or something, so I need to start investigating that now and see if I can't get to the bottom of it. Joys.

Afternoon All Right, as per another post of mine, I've been looking into timetabling software for the school. Having checked with OneConnect, it would appear that our current agreement with Capita includes NovaT6 timetabling software. Anyway, I've let our assistant head know about this and he's asking if there's anyone local using it that wouldn't mind him coming over to have a look at it to make sure it's suitable for us without engaging the costs of OneConnect to go through a theoretical setup. The school is in Oswaldtwistle, so anyone in the East Lancs area would probably be good. Thanks Andy T

Which is fair enough, but still, to cover your own back I'd probably have words with management. I know personally I'd always push for the bigger drives and run it in RAID1 as a minimum, but at least if they make the call, it stops you getting the "why have we lost this all again" Just my 2p worth

Is it truly non critical? If you're looking to do this, personally I'd approach the management team and put options to them. 1) to get bigger drives with a costing for this and 2) to do your option, but be sure to explain your option means whilst data is backed up, the backup doesn't have the redundancy element to it. This way, if they choose the "we don't have to spend any money" option, it's not on your head should suddenly the drives fail and all of a sudden the stuff being backed up is needed to be restored.

Afternoon all Right, sovled an issue I was having last week with our server BSODing, turns out the ArcServe Backup Software had decided to stop working properly and kept unloading drivers causing the server to panic and throw a hissy fit before BSOD. Anyway, I've removed ArcServer (v16) and the server is stable, the only issue I have now is that I'm running without backups (although System State and SIMS are backed up remotely as part of the county SLA). So, recommend me a solution please. We have an Ultrium LTO5 tape drive and ideally I want software that will back up to this, and not break every 18 months or so forcing you to purchase a new license for their latest version (yes folks, the way I solved the ArcServe thing is that we have v15 previously that started doing the same thing on our older server! Fun times .. NOT!). How do people backup these days? Is tape still a good option, should I be using a remotely located NAS instead or something like that? Etc, etc.. Thanks in advance Andy

There's a few threads on here about it. This seems to have a good answer in it .. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/scripts/34952-script-joining-wireless-networks.html and this has a few too .. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/17912-wireless-via-msi-registry.html Andy

I've not checked as yet, though I did have a chat with our office manager to see if she knew of anything we already have (could be the case that it's there and it doesn't get used). I'll check in with them though.

Found this (SIMS Curriculum Management | capita-independent.co.uk) for the time being (as we already work with SIMS here) so I'll put that forward, but any other options people have will still be welcome.

Right, so I seem to be in the How Do You Do It forum a lot today! lol .. I've been asked my SLT to see if I can find any software that will allow management of staff timetabling. Ideally the system needs to have a (surprise surprise) staff timetable capability, but also, if staff are off ill, it needs to be able to prompt where cover may be needed in the school. The preference for the software is also that it's free (not that they're asking too much here or anything). If anyone has any suggestions for such a piece of software I'd love to hear about it. Thanks Andy

Right, this issue seemed to resolve itself, but now it's back .. so logged a call with OneConnect who have now told me "it's because Macs keyboards function differently, whenever you remote into a system it won't work as they're configured slightly differently to PCs" to which I pointed out the issue had been resolved and if I RDP into a machine locally, it's all perfectly fine and dandy. They're going to raise it to second line support now to see what they say, but I've been told I should only remote in with a windows machine .. erm .. do you want to buy me one then .. lol ..

I've just used LanWay for some stuff. Julie Anderson (Senior Educational Account Manager) has been most useful in the procurement of some kit for a new network install I'm doing. [email protected] EDIT: Just spotted which Gary you are! hope you're ok mate!

Morning All I've been asked by our property manager to look into possible CCTV solutions for the school. Long story short, we've had a few issues with minibuses getting broken into, equipment used for taking various social substances being around site of a morning, etc, so we're looking to cover key areas with CCTV. So I just thought I'd see what people recommend. IP Cameras in the various locations feeding back to a central server or something else? Thanks Andy T

Hi All Just a quick note for those if you in the CLEO area that use Westfield/OneConnect for your licenses. If you have MAK keys for Office 2010 and Windows 7, you may need to contact OneConnect to get the new ones. I noticed all my machines going "ARGH, not that's not a license, you can't use that" - they ran out of activations basically, but a quick e-mail to them, they'll check your entitlement and e-mail you the relevant new ones out. Andy

Afternoon all.. Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions for this? Ta Andy

Hi Guys Ok, so I'm a WordPress guy mainly, just find it fits most of my clients needs better than Joomla and such, but I have got a couple of clients on Joomla still, from back in the day when WordPress was literally just a blogging platform. For my WordPress templates and such I use WooThemes as they have been brilliant and have some nice little features in them etc. So, I'm after some recommendations for a similar site for Joomla to get templates from. Ideally an active site that has a developers membership level to allow access to all themes they produce etc. Ta All Andy

Check out Rivendell. I'm just building an RSL studio with it at the moment that will be on air over Easter. Being Linux based it's 1) free 2) can be run on older hardware without worrying too much. Rivendell Project Home Page If you want a bit further information or anything, feel free to ask and I'll see if I can help out at all. If not, I'll ask my colleague who's been working on it too. EDIT: P.S. We chose Rivendell over Myriad V3 which we had licenses for as the kit we're using comes from a now deceased Community Station.. We felt it better suited the needs of our station.. P.P.S. The station is down in Manchester, so I'm sure (if you wanted to make the couple of hour drive / train ride) I could arrange sometime for you to see it. The nice thing about Rivendell is it has all the features of a station. The other option you do have is (if you either have Macs or don't mind buying one) is MegaSeg MegaSeg which is a really nice piece of kit with great little scheduling features. I use it for DJing or event music production when I'm doing that sort of thing and it's pretty much faultless, though for a studio complex setup so you can work on schedules remotely, Rivendell would be your better choice.

My tone and trace tool is usually quite good. Find cables over quite a distance very nicely. It's not a super expensive one, but neither is it a cheap and nasty one. I've managed to use it to trace cables through the ceiling at my own place (there are speaker cables running through the place as the previous owner was toying with putting in a home entertainment system with zones etc) so I wanted to know where they ran and this found them nicely in the walls and even helped me identify the other ends etc. As for the cable tester, I'll keep my eyes open ..

I use a company call Boundless Comms (Rural High Speed Broadband, Lancashire, North West - Boundless Communications) to get a Point to Point Radio Feed for my broadband. I was getting 0.5mb up and down, I now get 10mb down 5mb up, and all for the same price I was paying Sky. They are invovled in a lot of these rural initiatives and helping people get better broadband, but now I want 500mb! lol..

My suggestion would be to try upgrading the drivers (if there is an upgrade available) and seeing whether that helps at all. Failing that to try a complete reinstall of one of the non-green printing servers.

ARGH .. I'm still struggling here .. I thought I'd got it sorted as a couple of laptops were connecting, but turns out not.. ARGH.. So, I've set up a backup WiFi SSID with standard WPA2 (so I've been round putting the code in for everyone etc) but then this doesn't seem to like connecting all the time for different users, so a user has to log on who has logged on previously, which then activates the Wireless to connect and then they can log off and someone else can log on .. I'm having one of those "I really don't want to go into work" times at the moment just because of how stressful this is.. Need to get RADIUS back up and running, but hey, that's just not happening and I can't for the life of me see why it's not working! Does anyone know of any good how-to / step by step guides in case I'm missing something stupidly obvious?

For @Millgate anyway .. I think Luke's doing the rounds .. look busy! teehee! If only I had some money to spend.. lol..

*prioritises tools, de-prioritises food for the family .. lol* Though there is a 905 on eBay for not too much..

Ah yes .. maybe I'll re-prioritise my "I must buy one of those" lists and move that up a bit .. any recommendations for one?

Ok, so doing some work at a rather posh large house. Basically, there has been a network installed for a while but it wasn't working, which meant internet access was limited. Anyway, got most of it sorted as the network points that weren't working were just wired REALLY badly so there were no common pins. Anyway, resolved that and was able to trace this easily. I was also asked to trace back some other bare ended Cat5 as they were hopeful I could connect this in somewhere so they could plug in their Sky Box and their Apple TV when they get it. So, out comes my tone and trace to see if the thing comes anywhere close to their central distribution in the house, but no was the answer, so I spent my time wondering the house looking for any sign of any access panels where the cable might run through or any othe LAN points where it might come into etc, but to no avail. I tried speaking with one of the original contractors, but this has been run in by someone else. Now, my issue is that where these cables go from go out the back of this rather expensive hard wood cabinet that can't be moved and on the other side of the wall is a sauna / pool etc, so I can't even get to find out whether these cables go up the wall, across the wall or down, so, how would you do it? I'm thinking at the moment its probably going to be easier to just run through a new cable and I'm awaiting various drawings to be able to see the best way to do this, but if anyone has any rather splendid suggestions of how I might trace this some other way, I'm all ears! Thanks Andy