crc-ict

Boot Camp?

No, haven't done. Trouble is, it's so random, I could spend three or four days watching and not see it happen! Ahhh, now we might be on to something. These laptops have McAfee 8.5 on them! Must check on the updates... Cheers for that

To answer some questions: - Drivers *should* be compatible - full set downloaded direct from Toshiba - Yes, they are on the domain - Haven't tried a USB mouse I must say - It's not power settings related as it happens while the machines are in use I'm at a loss where to start! @FN-Gm: if you could find out, I'd be eternally grateful! @Ryan: I couldn't possibly comment! Cheers, Chris.

I've got a problem with several Toshiba Satellite laptops. They have Pentium Dual Core CPUs, 1GB RAM, running XP Pro, although they came with Vista Basic. The problem is that occassionally lock-up, seemingly for no reason. I can't establish a cause for it, it seems random. When they lock up, Windows appears still to be working (turning off Wireless prompts a moan about no network, pressing Power once shuts down) but the keyboard and mouse don't respond to anything! Any ideas - my teachers are beginning to revolt! Cheers, Chris.

Cheers for that - looks ideal! They've even unbundled our local exchange! I'm not too worried about usage caps - it says 'fair use policy', but I'm on a fixed 2GB limit at the moment anyway, so anything extra is a bonus! Phoned Orange for a MAC code, just got to cross fingers that they actually send us one now! I've heard they're not to good at actually issuing them...

Hi all, Just wondering if any of you 'Geekers have had any experience with O2 Home Broadband? Had an offer of an 'upto' 8Meg connection with unlimited usage for £7.50 a month as part of my phone contract. Seems like a good deal, considering we're paying Orange (ex Wanadoo customers!) £17.99 for 1Meg, with a 2Gb cap. Any opinions? Cheers!

No need to faff with X11 - just download NeoOffice instead, which is a native OS X port of OpenOffice, and rather good it is too! As for transferring stuff, there is some help on these pages: http://www.apple.com/getamac/movetomac/ipod.html Don't be too daunted - Macs aren't the dark art a lot of people think! I was introduced to them about 18 months ago, and I now happily flit between PC and Mac with no worries.

For any action film fans, a quote from The Rock: "Hey Man, you just f***ed up your Ferrari!"

Hi all, Anyone got an neat ideas for transferring all the data from a Sony Ericsson k800i to a Samsung U600 - I'm changing phones at the weekend and don't relish the idea of manually copying over all my contacts etc! Was thinking of syncing with Outlook using the SE software, then crossing my fingers that the Samsung software also syncs with Outlook - but now my k800i seems not to want to connect with PC Suite using either the cable or bluetooth Any ideas? Cheers, Chris

I was an AMBCS until the end of last month when renewal came and I decided to jack it in - couldn't see the point of paying out £50 for another year of nothing! I just didn't find any benefits. No-one took the post-nominals seriously at work because they had no clue what they mean.

I've got some cheapo Toshibas and they are, frankly, crap!

I'm not really bothered by the ads as they are, so no, I wouldn't pay to be rid of them. However, if the ads morph in to those bl**dy awful pop-up in the middle of the screen over the top of the page content and make stupid noises, or worse still start playing video, I'd be out of here quicker than you can say ad-blocker. I would pay to be able to access EduGeek in school, though!

I would say the printer is running out of memory and isn't able to render the images, so it prints black. Used to happen a lot years ago, but not seen it for ages. Don't know what the solution is, though, other than get a printer with more memory, or upgrade the memory if you can.

What I want to know is why WITCH appears to have Jake, in his cage, there with her...

My hobbies... very techy I'm afraid! Computers, electronics and anything technical are my favourite pastimes! I'm also very much into Photography, which is something I'd like to take beyond a hobby at some point. I also enjoy listening to music, watching films and eating things that are bad for me!

On this note, don't get the cheap internal ones that CPC do - I've got one and it's crap! You can use it about three times before it somehow manages to overload its USB port and refuses to work again until you turn the computer off and back on at the mains! It particularly hates my pro-standard Sandisk Extreme III 2Gb CF cards - I can hardly ever manage to insert one of those without tripping it out!

Wow, sounds like you have some seriously talented kids at your school! I suppose I should have declared that I'm from the Primary camp - I've always held the thought that the Eee would be mostly of use in Primary, I suppose I thought the needs of Secondary would be too high. But I do see your point - never really imagined things like that going on in schools at all. What a sheltered life we lead in Primary! Chris

How much of a problem is this, really, in the school world, though? How many people in the average school (apart from the techies) actually have any notion of what 'root' is, let alone know how to make use of it, maliciously or otherwise? The fact remains that Linux is still very niche in the real world (whatever Linux fanboys, sorry, experts might like to think), and I find it hard to believe that it is a real problem. Yeah, sure, theoretically it's a terrible risk, but surely we're concerned with reality here. Chris

Personally, I would say forget trying to do this with the Linux, it's just going to be too complicated for most users, especially in primary. Bung XP on it, join it to the domain if you have one, or even if you don't it's a damn sight easier to do the printing and sharing with Windows. I find it runs XP just fine too!

What a load of rubbish - two points here. Firstly, not all three pigs in the story build rubbish houses anyway, and secondly, give a real pig a pile of bricks and a bag of mortar and see how good a house he builds... So at worst it's portraying a pig's building skills accurately! :-)

This is well worth learning. I finally managed to get this working yesterday with some 2Simple MSIs and a Viglen Classlink network. It's a revelation! No more installing each program separately on every laptop and desktop in sight!

If you ask at the Post Office, they will give you a separate receipt for money paid and a separate Certificate of Posting. Alternatively, use Online Postage and print off a copy of the e-mail confirmation and bung that in the box. Then take the package to the PO and get them to give you a Proof of Posting.

Can't we find a mysterious someone in a high place that could get us edugeek.ac.uk? I've certainly learned more about IT in EduGeek that I did at the genuine .ac.uk's I went to!! :-)

That's not 100% correct - you can downgrade from any version of Vista if you are prepared to pay for an XP licence, but only the versions of Vista that FN-Greatermanchester lists are eligible for a free downgrade licence. Indeed it does! Incidentally, for school use, does anyone know if buying the Schools Agreement Volume Licence for XP Pro Upgrade is a legal way to get XP onto such a machine? I've only ever seen a requirement stated for an OEM Windows licence, not specifically for an older or less capable version? Chris

How about leaving the CD plugged into the onboard IDE? If it's only a CD-ROM, the onboard IDE should be good enough. The BIOS is presumably having a hard time detecting the CD drive during POST. Does it work once you're into Windows?