Andie

I've just opened the email from Teachers TV again to go to the DfE links (to see what has been done about hosting), and each link is returning a "Page not found" notice now! Nice of them to keep us all informed....

Thanks. I had checked the print queue, and it was clear, but hadn't thought to restart the spooler. Have done so now. Just a case of wait and see if that's cleared the issue.

Strange issue with a HP 2200dn (JetDirect card inside), running on a Windows 2003 server network The teachers say it is randomly printing old jobs. This is a classroom printer, so very few folks print to it and they know what they should be printing. We've just come back from holiday, and over that period an old job has been printed out on that printer with no one in those classrooms. Spooky! I am thinking it must be a memory issue - not getting flushed??? But how on earth do I wipe the old job out?

Not sure if these come out as far as your area (they've come to us in Cambridgeshire, but you may be too far west): Utilize Printer Repairs > London Essex & the South East Have only needed to call them out a couple of times over the last few years, but each time they were reliable and very polite. Not sure if this is one you've already picked up on from another post.

So are you an existing Uniservity customer, or are you migrating from another platform? If the former, did you get offered the demo login for Life by Uniservity or did you have to ask for it? Was it the company that told you the full version of Life is not available until September? Sorry to make this sound like an interrogation! Just that, as i said, the product seems to have been launched as ready to go. Also can't find any mention of the September bit on their website.

We are going through the procurement process for a platform too at the moment. Can I just check what you are saying here about the Uniservity Life offering - will it not be fully available until September? Or is that just a migration issue if you already use their old system? Only they seem to be selling at as a ready to go product, and if that's not true we need to know! As an existing customer of Uniservity, would you not get access to Life as part of your existing contract? What is happening to the product you are using now? If it is defunct, then surely Life is an upgrade and I would have thought that you would be entitled to upgrades within the period of your contract?

Quite! When I started my job here (junior school with one IT Suite and me as only IT support), I was employed as IT Teaching Assistant and IT Technician jointly. I was in every IT lesson, assisting with the teaching. I was then (still am) only part time, and was left with VERY little time to actually do IT Tech stuff. As soon as I got the chance, after struggling on for a few years, I dropped the Teaching Assistant bit. If there is a technical issue in an IT class, someone now sends a runner.

OK, thanks. Back to the drawing board then.

Is it possible to connect from an XP Prof machine to a Windows 2000 Prof machine? I've installed RDP client on the 2000 machine, and can connect from that to the servers on our network. But I can't seem to use an XP desktop to connect to the 2000 desktop. I've been round in circles on the web. There should be a way to enable/allow users to connect in 2000, but I can't find how to do it. I had a go at creating an incoming network connection, but that doesn't seem to have worked correctly or I'm missing something somewhere. Can anyone help please?

When my role was split as techie and TA, I used to know quite a lot of software from using it with the pupils in classes. But since I dropped the TA bit and the network has grown enormously, I don't have the time to learn all the new stuff that comes in. Doesn't mean I don't get asked though! Yes, and I even feel guilty when I have to say I'll go away and look something up because I don't know how to do it straight away. This despite the fact that I haven't had any training on anything for years!!!! It's like staff who expect you to know how to work every bit of electrically powered kit in the school instantly. And expect you to be a web designer, computer programmer, etc. as well. IT is a many-spendoured thing... Ask for some time to learn the stuff. Paid time. And possibly ask for a list of what folks actually want training on. Half of edu software (at least!) never gets used after it's installed, as I'm sure you know.

Our SMT really like this - thanks. Presumably it is copyright Kent Council? It would be great to be able to edit it to produce a local version.

Thanks. I've done some digging on the website before and found nothing. Ringing is obviously the better method. The project manager in charge of LP procurement was going to ring DfE, so if I get anything concrete from them by that route I'll post back.

Hello. Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but can you tell me where you got the info on the dropping of the MIS info for parents? We are going through the procurement process for VLP at moment, like others, and getting hold of definitive answers as to what we have to have (statutory wise) is really hard. Can you reference this? Thanks.

No email either. Registered at lunchtime today. Tried again at 3pm. Nothing.

Sir Harry Smith Community College, near Peterborough ICT TECHNICAL ASSISTANT Required to start as soon as possible To assist in supporting a busy school IT department, 35 hours per week, term time plus one week per year. Salary Scale 2, commencing within the range of £10,669 to £11,156 per annum (£15,039 to £15,725 full time equivalent). A thorough knowledge of Windows XP and Windows 7 is required and experience with Server 2008 and Active Directory would be highly beneficial. EPM - Educational Personnel Management

Found this short guide intended to help parents' understand risks of children using Twitter. Fairly basic e-safety info that probably applies to more than Twitter, but not bad. There is also a guide to Facebook linked from the page, but it's not as comprehensive as the other material already on here. A Parent's Guide to Twitter | Education.com

Yes, sorry. Rushing... Will do now.

Found this short guide intended to help parents' understand risks of children using Twitter. Fairly basic e-safety info that probably applies to more than Twitter, but not bad. There is also a guide to Facebook linked from the page, but it's not as comprehensive as the other material already on here. A Parent's Guide to Twitter | Education.com

Having problems with a Belkin Flip USB KVM (2 port, no audio). Works fine when first connected, but after shutdown and restart of either computer the keyboard and mouse aren't recognised. POST reports no keyboard. If I then pull out and reconnect the USB plug, the keyboard and mouse come back, but it happens after every shut down and don't think I can really ask user to unplug USB each time. Any ideas?

Looking at the news stories and the reponse to these (one in Leicestershire in particular) it seems the media are getting folks very confused, and possibly the ICO have just added to the confusion. From 2007: BBC NEWS | UK | England | Leicestershire | Man's shock at nativity photo ban And again this week: Parents are calling on a head teacher to abandon her school's long-running ban on photographing nativity plays. If you look closely at the first article (same parent), the child protection issue is mentioned and vulnerable children is mentioned in the second article. It also says parents can photograph children afterwards in costume. But the response is to repeat the guidance from the ICO, which takes no account of the issue of family albums being on the web now. Why are schools left to deal with this themselves and face this kind of pressure from parents and the media??? Surely it is a case again of needing some joined up thinking here, and some proper guidance to schools that will support them in their decisions.

Is there more than data protection to consider when dealing with the issue of parents taking photos in school? The BBC have widely reported that the Information Commissioner has issued new guidance for schools about parents taking photos in school. BBC News - Nativity photos not against law, says data watchdog As far as I can tell, this is a re-issuing of the old advice about personal use and data protection. Information and Advice on Taking Photos in Schools - ICO However, this just deals with the data protection aspect. And mentions photos for the family albums. I was going to contact the ICO to enquire about what the situation would be if the family album is actually Facebook or Flickr or similar, but I am wondering if this is not a data protection issue but a safeguarding issue??? Parents can quite innocently take photos of groups of friends, upload them to Facebook with no privacy settings and tag the children with names. What happens if there is a child there who is subject to some kind of child protection order to keep their identity safe? Would the school be responsible for policing who is photographed??? If a parent uploads photos to a website, is that still considered personal use??? Anyone know of any guidance on this?

Hi all. Thanks for your patience! The message finally got through, and I found a quiet corner to read the article referenced further up this thread (the article title is a little difficult to have on screen in a primary school!). In the end, removing the value in the persistence bit of the Run key worked. For those, like me, who like instructions: Open the registry editor with regedit Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Double click on the Persistence entry in the left pane Delete the value there Close the registry editor Reboot I've tested this with lots of different user logins, and all is fine. The Intel utility is still in the system tray, but the resolution and outputs now match the local admin settings. Interestingly, despite our Tecra A10s having an Intel graphics utility in the system tray, we didn't hit this issue with them. It only happens with the new Tecra A11s, which have a souped up Intel utility. Anyway:

Ok folks. Thanks for your help. But I can't see how this is an issue with a mandatory profile, as domain admin doesn't have anything other than a local profile and doesn't have any login scripts either. I have just hit the same issue with the second laptop and this time I know it isn't anything I'm doing. All I've done this time is install Sophos and then join the domain. I haven't fiddled with user accounts or installed any other software. I am wondering if this is a particular issue with the XP downgrade. Toshiba offer this on this model, and as these 48 are joining Tecra A10s already with XP in classrooms, I decided to go for the downgrade this time. This is the sequence of events: Start machine and logged on as local administrative user Intel graphics options is set already to Single Display Intel display properties is set to resolution of 1366 x 768, which is max possible Windows display properties has primary monitor as Plug and Play Monitor with Intel graphics driver Windows display properties has resolution set to 1366 x 768, which is max possible Installed AV software and joined the domain. Moved computer into correct OU. Logged in as domain administrator: After a few seconds of correct resolution, I get reset to 800 x 600 Check Intel graphic options and it is now set to output to dual clone display Check Intel graphic properties and it is now set to both monitors set to 800 x 600 Check Windows display properties and the primary monitor is no longer Plug and Play monitor, but is set to default monitor with Intel driver Windows display resolution is set to 800 x 600 When I look at available resolutions in Windows and Intel properties, there are now a lot more resolutions available, beyond the previous max of 1366 x 768 I downloaded and installed the latest Intel graphics driver from the Toshiba website. No change. I guess I am going to have to look at removing the Intel properties utility.

I haven't fixed this yet. No one seems to have a solution.

PRIMARY SCHOOL ICT NETWORK TECHNICIAN, Peterborough 20 hours per week (opportunities for overtime) Salary: Grade 6 Point 18 (£17161 pro rata) Closing date: Monday 1st November 2010 Interview date: Tuesday 9th November 2010 EPM - Educational Personnel Management