mr_wordshark

Thanks guys, We have seen this and based on the helpful observations from DaveAshworth and Mullet_Man above we have now modified the network installation instructions. These will be released within the next day or two. SCCM is mentioned in the main install instructions, with a note pointing SCCM users to the detailed SCCM appendix. We are really grateful for this feedback given we don't use SCCM ourselves. Please keep it coming! Sorry, Arthur, we don't have a custom action in the MSI that can readily be tweaked, and I suspect if we had then this could add complication for some techs. Rik (Support Manager, Wordshark & Numbershark) [email protected]

Thanks very much for this - we have noted this ready for any other techs with SCCM queries.

Hi Sadams I see you contacted us here in Wordshark Support soon after posting this, and we quickly sorted the issue (.Net 3.5 has to be enabled, as per instructions, or the management software is unable to function. Your server's .Net 3.5 was installed but disabled) Our general advice for anyone experiencing any issue installing Wordshark or Numbershark networks is - most techs who have read the network installation instructions have no issues. If you do, then the "troubleshooting" section (Appendix A) usually quickly points to the answers for common issues. Our contact details are at the end of Appendix A, and elsewhere on the documentation, and we would much rather you email/phone us before wasting precious time.

Hi, Bananas, With a declaration of interest in sig block! Hope you were successful - whether you were or not, I'd add that it is worth revisiting all of the above. Clicker has moved on, with latest "Clicker" offering much more than previous releases. Much the same for the newly released version 5 of Wordshark an Numbershark 5, where the new features make them even more useful for SEN than previous releases, but critically also make them much stronger for “inclusion” and “whole school” use.

Hi all - an update from Wordshark/Numbershark support: We have a CC4 package for Wordshark 5, and RM have just updated their info to say that they should have our CC4 package for Numbershark 5 approved and back with us around 7th November 2014. - Rik, support manager

Hi all Just to say - the email address on the mr_wordshark posting of 23 July 2012 has changed, and is now support @ wordshark. co. uk In other respects, inc tel number, the posting is still correct. As Miscbrah has found, we do indeed still support v3, even though it is now 13 years old - and sadly struggles with Win7 and 8, though happily, our current versions don't!

Hi Stuart_C With declaration of interest in sig block, and apologies that I have only just spotted your post - please do ring us here in Wordshark/Numbershark Support, 0208 748 1170. Even though v3 is now approx 12 years old so obsolete by most standards, we are still happy to support you (and yes, this is free, and no, we are not a premium rate number!). In general, to anyone reading this posting, rather than you spending ages trying to get software to run, if you ring the support dept for that software, you will usually save a fair bit of time...then you will have more time to bring home the bacon:rolleyes:

Hi all With declaration of interest in sig block. A site licence (one-off, NOT annual) for Wordshark or Numbershark is in the same ballpark price area as the SM annual support cost (and our support is FOC for a minimum of 5 years) Numbershark and Wordshark are indeed very different to SM in "look and feel" when "straight out of the box". Both, like SM, are indeed often used for learning support in English/Maths, though both are used across a wider age/ability range (I'm supporting a mature student through her Masters with the aid of Wordshark! I taught using Numbershark to GCSE grade C, so yes, both are useful for secondary school for more than 'just' learning support). Some teachers like the way that a child can be "put" on SM which then takes them through a program of work step by step so that the teacher can get on with other things - I can't comment on Dave.81's "enjoyed dumping", though can see the potential for that. Numbershark and Wordshark CAN be set to take children through a program of work step by step rather like SM, but to avoid the "dumping" we insist the teacher first sets up that program to give the child or children what the teacher professionally considers they need. This is available in v4 via: Admin / [add and]Manage Students / Set up detailed work programs. We have a "how to" document here in Support for any staff needing more comprehensive instructions, or can "Logmein" to demonstrate. A very powerful feature of both programs, but not one to use without good reason. More commonly, Numbershark and Wordshark are used in ways that allow students rather more autonomy. Support, 0208 748 1170, can help if needed.

Hi Undercover With apologies that I didn't spot this post before, and with declaration of interest. Briefly, there are several possible reasons. It can happen if someone changes the shortcut icon "Start-in" properties, so that the program can no longer find the data folder "[word][number]shark-shared" OR that folder has been moved OR deleted. It can also happen on certain releases IF there is a network overload resulting in a client machine not being able to exchange details with that same folder. Noted that it is CC3 (that often can make a difference!) Best bet for anyone who ends up with either program asking for the network registration code is to contact us, either by phone or send a phone number for us to contact you. Support number is 0208 748 1170 (UK weekdays 9-5), and we can usually sort out the issue pretty quickly.

With declaration of interest as Support Manager for Wordshark - Thanks Elsiegee40, I confirm that is the current pricelist. I have looked, and it is the same firm that is selling on both amazon.co.uk and .com. I doubt they have meant to give the Americans such a good deal. The list price for a single user CD, inc VAT and postage, for UK customers is £69 for Wordshark (unchanged for best part of a decade, despite the program hugely expanding in that time). In almost all cases, the single user CD is not the optimum product for school use - we have several other delivery mechanisms (activation, USB, network) that are usually more appropriate within a school.

With declaration of interest (sig. block) This may well be the .PDF files for all of the secondary school specialist vocab word lists, or the phonics word lists. Good to see these are being used! We have them here in Support so phone 0208 748 5927 or email [email protected] if you are not already sorted, and we will wing them across to you. A thanks to all of you for stepping in and helping (I was at BETT, so did not see this message as quickly as I might usually have done)

Hi Synaesthesia, Thanks for the kind words: We have been well pleased to see how popular Wordshark and Numbershark remain with the children (and interestingly with a growing number of adults with a wish to improve their literacy/numeracy). I'd like to hope that we eventually become equally popular amongst techs, by producing the full range of solutions & support that are needed by you folks. Whilst we can't promise to deliver everything that techs ask, we are doing all we can to move the right direction, as you may see from our increased product range. I do believe your earlier point about schools with large numbers of CDs, given you are mentioning v3. We know much larger numbers of v3 CDs will be in schools, as that was in an era when many schools did not have networks but did have loads of standalone computers with CD drives. Most of these CDs will be 5 - 12 years old (v4 Wordshark and Numbershark came out 4-5 years ago), and I would really advise the the schools for educational reasons to save a bit of cash next financial year, to trade these in and move to our latest releases, which have phonics and additional features that give even better value both in primary and secondary schools, for SEN and also for the rest of the ability range (now being used at the "other end", indeed I've been using it with a couple of folk at Masters degree level myself! My point still stands - I would really not be advising any school in these days of netbooks and networks to be buying a load of v4 CDs when we have other products for Wordshark and Numbershark which are designed to be better for school use. Regarding the very old v3 disks on CC3 networks - all I would say is that trading those 10 CDs in would go well towards the price of a site network licence of v4, with rather less messing about for the tech, and technically, practically and educationally better. As you have mentioned it, legally I have to say that the licence requires the physical presence of the CD in the local drive... legally speaking, VirtualCD use is not permitted by the licence, and can be (and sometimes is) picked up by anyone checking compliance. I can see from what you describe your schools are abiding by the spirit of the licence. Glad I'm not a lawyer as tech support is far more fun! Anyhow - ready to go off and celebrate the new year. Hope 2012 is better for all of us than many of the papers are saying.

Hi Synaesthesia (Declaration of interest) Our own sales figures and experience show that very few schools would have anything like as many as 15 CDs. The original poster was trying to run one single user CD on 15 machines, which is not at all the same thing. If any school did ring us up here in Support and ask about a bulk rate for purchasing 15 CDs, we would be looking very carefully at why: Even 15 CDs bought at a bulk rate would be more expensive than a network licence or 15 single user activations (that do not need the disk in the drive, and which would be the obvious choice for standalone netbooks). In the past year, we have come across some schools wanting to buy CDs in bulk on behalf of parents, as a service and fund-raising activity. I can't recall any school buying 15, or even 10, single user CDs. What would be the point, given most schools are moving to netbooks and/or have a perfectly decent network to run our network product on. If any Edugeek tech reading has bought 10+ CDs of Wordshark or Numbershark in the past year in preference to our other products, and can tell me why, I'd be interested. The only exception I can see is for schools in Northern Ireland who are on the C2K province-wide network, where their providers have contractual reasons for not installing our network product into individual schools. I totally agree with you that many computers do not have optical drives, and many do not need them. We have a product (the activated installable version) that has been designed for such use - and we accept trade-ins on disks, right back to our old DOS disks (how many other firms allow a trade-in for software sold in the previous century?). If you feel there is more we as a company could/should do, please say. We do our best to listen (one reason why I'm here now!)

Hi Richard (Declaration of interest again) It is possible that the link you have posted will be useful for some readers of this thread, and thanks for thinking to look. The link you have given provides instructions for people with our (now several years obsolete!) release 3.05 network product, and how to package this NETWORK version for use on a RM CC3 network. The original enquiry is about the Single User CD, and no mention was made of it being for a CC3 network, so I doubt it will be helpful for FredTed. That said, it may be useful for others with CC3 or CC4 and old network disks. For anyone with older or newer CC3/CC4 network disk, it will be worth looking at our instructions (written with RM Techs at their Abingdon/Didcot base) at: Community Connect In the same link, you will see that single user CDs for Wordshark and Numbershark are NOT the product to go for if you have CC3/CC4.

Hi FredTed With obvious declaration of interest below! We have several Wordshark licence forms, to suit most needs. 1. the CD product (needs to be in the drive as the portable licence, so can be installed on many computers but used on just one at any time) Try to avoid this - fine for domestic use but not educationally or technically the best for a school for many reasons! Given the CD is the licence, it is of course copy -protected, though sadly we have a few who try to rip us off. Some even ring up to ask how to do so! If the CD gets damaged, we do have a disk replacement service so not the end of the world. 2. the network product - given the program is increasingly used across the whole age/ability range by far the best value for money. Site licence for X concurrent computer users. Server based, so has no annual charges and no bandwidth requirements 3. the multiple activation product - install onto individual machines rather like the CD product, but do not need the CD. Activate on line (or via another computer that is) 4. the USB stick product - best for a teacher using at home and at school, takes data and program around on the stick. Also good for little Johnny who lives with Mum, goes to Dad at weekend, needs to take program and data to SENCO and home tutor.

Hi With obvious declaration of interest below! Try: fatal_exception If that does not help, please phone us. Even though it is a 6-10 year old, single user, obsolete version of Numbershark, we will still be willing to help

Hi Quietriot1983, (With declaration of interest as support manager for Wordshark) What release do you have? Our first Wordshark came out way back in DOS days. Our most recent releases have moved on educationally and technically, are Win7 x 64 compatible and are used in schools across most of the ability and age range. I know several folk doing Master's degrees that use it, so whilst it is useful for SEN (its original market), the "content free" bits and the KS3 banks have a wider application. We deliberately keep some of the old graphics, where we have found this works better for quite a few youngsters on the autistic spectrum than the more complex modern graphics, which do not appear to help anyone learn any faster! I am aware that there are still several hundred schools out there with the old v3 and 3s software. No problem, as the licences will still be good (we are still managing to avoid charging annual subscriptions!), but you may find it worth giving us a call at some stage to discuss what an upgrade would give you.

Not too strange: We have this symptom reported to us rarely these days, perhaps 3-4 times per year. Only a small number of XP machines ever were affected, so far as we can tell well under 1%. Whilst MS are "coy" about what causes the problem, I suspect it is only an issue with particular combinations of specific XP releases, XP settings, chipsets, CD drives and perhaps other factors. Given the chance of finding out what these are is so slight, I long ago gave up trying to make sense of it. The more important thing is that as soon as we have a customer reporting the symptom, we know from long experience what the answer is. This so far has worked fine. Sadly, a few techs then apply the patch to machines that then get reimaged back to the non-patched state but don't see that this will then cause the problem to reoccur! Occasionally techs try to apply the patch without appropriate rights and are then grumpy when it doesn't work. Thankfully, other techs are on this forum and seem (most of them!) rather more on the ball - as you clearly are! Rik Support Manager, Wordshark/Numbershark

Hi "Overworked" - Thanks for confirmation that the "XP Patch" fix still works! We haven't had to use it for a few months, given so few new XP machines are being commissioned. No wonder you are "Overworked" - we keep thinking that MS just might fix the "feature" in XP that causes this problem in a future service pack..... around 8 years after MS were first aware of the problem, so it must be getting close to the top of their "to be fixed" list! Best wishes Rik (Support Manager, Wordshark/Numbershark) Home & SEARCH

I think FFS are. Old disks - wise decision. If they want to we do trade ins (even for the original disks 15+ years old, at least for now), but no rush. Support is still available for the old discs should you need it, subject to your hardware coping with geriatric disks. If you are at BETT in Jan do pop in and see us if you are ready for a coffee.

Hi Witch - not chatted with you for a while, so assume all is well at FFS. I've a note that they are using quite elderly single user CDs, which I agree should be fine on your setup so long as you don't try to run them as if they were the network version. I agree that for what LeightonJames is after, "Rapid Writing" would be a more sensible option than Wordshark, which really is not intended to be a typing practice program.

Hi all - sadly, this is the case. The old DOS original Numbershark and Wordshark (inc 2L) are 10-20 years old and don't manage Win7. Wordshark3 and 4, Numbershark 3 and 4 work on most 32 bit Win7 machines. If you have a 64 bit machine you need our release 4.06 or later. Microsoft PC Operating systems

Yes, we do indeed hold our hands up and admit that our software does not always work properly, particularly on dodgy kit - very open, as your link shows, to holding our hands up to this. Many techs would rather we were open than not have a "known issues" link, though you are clearly an exception. However, when you look at the known issues, they have solutions. Agreed, if your soundcard does not work then our program will not have sound until you fix the problem. If you have forgotten your password, you will not get admin access until you get a bypass. If you have not registered your pupils, then they will not get results recorded until you do. Read the known issues, hold your hand up and agree that you are indeed aptly named on this one. If you have a problem with our software, try ringing or emailing us. You just might find we help even if your problem is to do with RTFM (as many of the known problems boil down to).

Hi David You said: "Ideally, of course, there would be a proper standard way to slot your content into schools' various VLE platforms, but this would probably take more development effort to get working across all platforms than it's currently worth." Just to indicate that we take feedback seriously: We wish there were a proper standard way - different VLEs all seem to do things that bit differently. We must also remember the rest of the world, who do not necessarily do the same thing! We are also looking at SCORM and other "standards", which are some way from settling down. You may have seen the work done in this area by SALTIS, which we are following with interest (& are now members of). A few months on, we have looked again at the world schools market: Quite a number of overseas and UK schools are moving (and have moved) to virtual desktops, terminal services & Citrix/Zen solutions, rather than web-based VLEs (which seem to be more in vogue in the UK than elsewhere). Critically (for us) these are providing good home/school links for staff and students, including full access to Wordshark and Numbershark from "where-ever". Given each programs' size, bi-directional traffic, and so on, this seems to be (according to those schools) a good solution. These schools have Wordshark/Numbershark on their student/staff desktops, accessed through terminal services or Citrix/Zen technology rather than over the web. To the child or teacher, it feels the same, but with the ability to retain the more complex features of both that frankly would be a challenging process to re-engineer for web running. Quote: The program sits on the server, the start-in icon sits on the "desktop-all users" (or selected groups) and propagates to the client machines on logging on It just runs from a network share, you mean? I thought WS / NS tracked user progress and scores - does this mean there has to be a world-writeable file or folder somewhere? Sorry, David, to clarify: Yes to all of this, it can/does run from a network share (or from client HDDs if wireless). All student data is stored in a (hidden) world-writeable folder "[word]shark-shared", each user having their own userfile within that. Thus, any teacher has potential access to progress and scores of any child's records from their own desktop. Quote: Slow / intermittent connections over wireless are (unfortunatly) increasingly common - lots of schools seem convinced that wireless laptops will be great and are a tad surprised to find their wireless infrastructure can't cope. It's a problem solveable by spending decent money on a decent managed wireless system, of course, but that's the kind of thing that many schools don't have quite yet. Agreed, David. We have evolved the programs to be able to run from the local wireless HDDs, with just the user data on the server, mainly for this reason. We then use very little bandwidth for the program data - often Kb rather than Mb per user. Doesn't help, however, when the wireless access falls out completely. I understand that BECTA are not pushing wireless as the great solution - do you get that feeling? Cheers Rik (Support Manager, Wordshark/Numbershark)

Hi David Thanks for this. Yes, we worked with many SEN children first, found solutions that worked, then wrote the software - the development/programming team are experienced teachers, and the Ed director is still a teacher. I'm in support, but even so was a deputy head of large SEN school, as the co. want staff with real school experience. We are very much into the "what works" mode, one reason why I'm researching dyslexia at M Ed level, and others in the dev team have also huge experience/quals in literacy/SpLD We later found that the software was also proving popular with more able, so further added and tweaked and tested and re-tweaked... and that continues. There probably would be a gap in the market for the whole program to be "web delivered" - though we are finding so many more schools are going to a thin client / terminal services type solution and hence having remote access across the web that we are keeping this under review. Web based = annual subscription or similar, which with servers etc makes it more expensive than our current one - off price. I've looked at several web based products, and all are rather more expensive that we charge for what they offer: Looking into price of hosted servers with the bandwidth and secure backup needed, I can see why. I'm also conscious that for every school that wants a web server solution, there is currently another that wants "in house" at least until the internet & bandwidth are faster/cheaper/more reliable. "Sorry no school today, the internet is down....."! Regarding the MSI - most schools using the network version have nothing to install onto the client machine. The program sits on the server, the start-in icon sits on the "desktop-all users" (or selected groups) and propagates to the client machines on logging on, so there is no software to install on the client machines. Also, many more schools are going down the thin client route, so no reinstalling of workstations as such. When we had an MSI, people were using it - instead of reading the instructions that suggested you only used it for very slow / wireless situations - hence several of those techs suggesting we got rid of it! Removing the MSI was not a lightly taken decision, and one we keep under review: I'm open to persuasion on this one. I do fully agree that if our program had to be installed onto the local client machines, then we would keep the MSI by default. Having been ICT coordinator + n/w manager + de facto tech in a special school, I've considerable sympathy for where you are coming from, even though I was dealing with tens rather than hundreds (that also declares my vintage:) ) I popped into a 800-client comp school last week to observe an install - they installed both WS and NS onto servers and deployed both across the whole n/w in under 30 mins, and commented that they couldn't see how it could possibly be any easier. One of the really useful things about this forum is listening to you guys and working out what people find difficult (usually, installing the obsolete versions and/or the domestic single user CD version, OR the real rare tecchy funnies that crop up once in a blue moon) Hope this lot is useful. Do give me a buzz if it makes more sense to discuss than email. Cheers, Rik