crc-ict

How about installing a (some?) big disk(s) into an old spare machine and running Linux and Samba on it, or failing that, with an even older machine run NASLite (http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php) I'm running an old laptop at home with a text-only Debian install and Samba as a NAS-a-like device for my home network and it serves us pretty well. I can play WMV files in Media Player directly from it over the network even though the laptop only has a 10Mbps CardBus Network Card. It's a cheap way of doing it of thats the main concern...

If you're having trouble getting to grips with Mac OS X, when I got my mini (as a complete Mac newbie) I was given a copy of Mac OS X Tiger - The Missing Manual which is a pretty good book. Explains most things quite clearly, even has a bit on how to use the iLife applications (but didn't help me figure out why iSync can't see my Sony Ericsson K750i ) All in all, its a good intro to the ways of Mac

Strange... I have Print Artist v3 (got free with an Epson Stylus 400 years ago!) running on XP Pro here absolutely no problem at all. Not even any need for compatibility mode. Have to concur with the difficulty of finding files with the 8.3 filenames though, although this version has a nice 'Descriptive Name' feature where it can see its own long filenames from within the application, so as long as you only look for files from File, Open... its OK.

I could be wrong, but I don't think that would be possible - I believe the Apple is simply a window through the lid to the screen backlight so it illuminates when the screen is on and not otherwise. As kingswood says, though, it's cool enough like that anyway

Unfortunately, it seems they've made a muck-up of coding the page, and the links to the podcasts are either a duplication of the first on on the page, or to a moving, migrating, fixing Windows one not mentioned on the page at all. Shame - it sounded really good :?

The IT Crowd microsite on Channel4.com claims that the episode 3 premiere is online for viewing now, but as of 10am, it ain't working here! Has anyone else got it to work yet?

From the Mac Finder, you want to Connect to Server on the Go menu, then enter \\windowsboxname\sharename and that should do what you want!

I'd have to agree with you there webman!

Dear All, I will be finishing my degree later on this year and the time is coming to look towards leaving my part-time primary school tech job and heading off into the big world of real work. All along I have been intending to continue with the educational tech route, but tutors at Uni seem to be very keen to discourage me from this, citing higher salaries and better prospects in commercial sectors. My heart is really still in educational IT though. I was hoping some of you good people might be able to offer some suggestions about the best way into get into educational IT, and some ideas about the potential for career development. I'm guessing there would be more, and better, openings in secondary or further education, and that there would presumably be potential to progress from school-based posts towards more supervisory roles with the LEA/LA as experience grows? Any advice, suggestions or tips anyone could provide would be very much appreciated, either here, by PM or e-mail via my profile. Thanks to all

@Geoff: Cheers for that. Actually have those SMART tools installed, but didn't know I could get it to auto shutdown! Following your link for the details now.

At home, I am running an old (PIII Celeron 600, 128Mb RAM) laptop as a Samba storage server on my home network, using Debian. Just a plain basic install, Debian base with Samba a few other extensions. No fancy GUI or anything. This morning, I was awoken at 0600 by a nasty, kind of squealing, grinding noise from the laptop HD. A quick look at the screen presented a long list of HD-related error messages (can't remember exactly, it was too early!!) saying something about Journal aborted or similar. I couldn't log on the machine, and CTRL-ALT-DELETE resulted in a message INIT: cannot execute shutdown. So I just turned it off. Now for the weird bit. When I got up about an hour later, I powered it back on to see what happened, and although the disk was noisier than normal, it booted up fine. Throughout the morning I have managed to take an image of the disk and restore it to a new one, but the old disk is still living. Anyone got any idea what could have happened? At six, I thought the disk was headed for nowhere but the giant computer room in the sky but now I'm not so sure. SMART checks out perfectly fine. The manufacturers diagnostics show no problem. Could this just be a peculiar linux-related occurance? And I know running a laptop as a server is a really bad idea, but space and logistics determine that a proper box is too noisy and too big!!

Great stuff! Actually, I should have realised it would be. There's not much you can grumble about with Edugeek! Cheers

Is it possible to make it so that non-staff members of Edugeek don't get Staff Area posts showing up on the homepage topics list? I always use this as my first port of call on the Edugeek site and find it a bit annoying when a lot of the posts on the list are staff-only - the titles seem tantalisingly interesting sometimes! Not really meaning to gripe - I love Edugeek, it's great - but this is just a little niggle that would be nice if it could be fixed! Keep up the good work, guys.

From my experience with these cameras, I think the low quality is because they have a pretty low capture resolution more than the file format (although SimpleSi is probably correct that it is a low quality format). I guess they do this to keep file sizes down?? As an aside, I had a certain amount of difficulty getting them to play nicely with Windows Me machines and wouldn't play at all with our Win 2k Pro oddity.

I was just thinking about BETT - couldn't someone put together a quick badge graphic with the EduGeek logo that we could then download, print out and wear at the show? It'd give the site a bit of publicity (as long as the wearers are happy to explain about it to curious people) and give us EduGeek members a chance to recognise and maybe meet each other. Just an idea...

We had some here last night in West Sussex. Very light covering, only snowed for about 45 minutes. And this morning it is raining Not happy!

@alan-d: Thanks for the advice. Just to clarify, this is not my primary research (this comes later!) I am just looking for some numbers which can then be combined and fiddled with to get a very rough average of problems in schools to use in my introductory comments. Any data that anyone is willing to provide will be of use - whether from primary or secondary - as I'm just trying to get a feel for the frequency of problems within an educational environment. Thanks, Chris.

First of all, may I apologise if this is the wrong area of the forum to post this on. I didn't think it really fitted in anywhere else. I am currently in the final year of my Education and ICT degree with the intention of working as an educational ICT tech when I finish, and am starting to work on my dissertation, which is looking at technical support requirements in primary schools. I was hoping that some of you good people here might be able to help me out with some statistics. What I'm looking for is some indication of the number of computer problems experienced, and time spent resolving them, in a typical week/month/term (whatever is easiest for you guys to estimate). If you could give me some estimates of this, together with the approximate number of computers in your school and whether it is a primary or secondary, I would be very, very grateful. I would have used a poll, but I need to know the size and type of school too. If you would rather not post replies on the forum, please feel free to PM me. Thank you in advance for your assistance. Chris.

It's brilliant - especially love the 'view posts since last visit' option. Pure genius. Thanks. Keep up the good work.

Nice one Dos_Box, very well put. You've captured and put across a good selection of problems that are seen in some schools. I especially sympathise about the printers!

Just to let you all know, you've convinced me it was a poor idea and I shall be participating no more in this scheme. I'll be deleting the mailbox I set up for my registration and telling no-one else about it! I had no idea that there was such bad feeling about these things - I stupidly didn't see through the testimonies of those people who say they got the free stuff and got carried away at the idea of a free way of getting a Mac to learn about OS X. Unfortunately, living on a student income does that to you - can't often afford the things you'd like to learn about everything you want! I guess I'll just have to get a book instead! Cheers.

Sorry, I don't find being told that I need my head looking at 'irony', I find it a personal insult. Maybe I'm being overly touchy? I will comment no further on this. I suggest you all do the same. Perhaps one of the moderators/admins could delete this thread altogether?

I don't think that sort of response is called for. Simply saying you were not interested, or indeed saying nothing at all is all that was needed. No need to launch a personal 'attack'. FYI, this scheme has been tried and tested by BBC Newsnight and found to work. With regard to spam, that's why I had enough sense to use a different mailbox which will be deleted when the scheme is over. I did ask moderators to delete the post if they didn't like it. It was obviously a mistake to post here. Of course I would have benefitted, but, I thought some of the other users might have appreciated the chance of a free computer too. I meant no offence. Now, shall we all try to play nicely again? This is a great forum, lets not let silly disagreements spoil it.

Post content removed due to early hostile response. Please accept my apologies for any offence my post caused.

Well, as it was, all the tips from you good people were not needed. By some miracle, it seems that the printers all survived the holidays - well, anyway, no problems were reported to me and had time to check out a couple and they were OK. I was lucky!