beeswax

You might want to try this link

Glad to see that the response and you sharing your fears has helped. Seeing as you're the only one manning the fort, I feel you'll be at the mercy of any "emergency" which may arise. You can be getting on with something relatively important, but if the mail server goes down etc. Prioritise and try not to feel guilty about having to drop work to fix a bigger leak. Explain to people that you'll try to get things done in a certain time, but with just the one of you, you may well be taken away from the task in hand to do soemthing else.

Unfortunately, it seems that one of the reasons you suffer stress is that you seem to care about what you're doing (worrying about what you haven't done). Being rational (ok, I'm one bloke doing the job of three, I KNOW I CAN'T COPE) in situations like this doesn't always work. Do you get stopped in corridors by people with problems on the way from one job to the next? If you do, explain to them that you have so much work to cover, and can they please email you the problem as you can't be expected to keep all this information in your head. I've found that a proper massage, or going to the gym and beating the cr*p out of a piece of machinery helps. Avoid alcohol as a stress reliever. Take the time to reflect on what you're being asked to do and see if you can alter some work patterns. It can be difficult when you're in the thick of it to raise your eyes from what you're doing, step back and say, "No, I can't do that yet." When you're being bombarded from all sides all problems can appear crucial. Don't work from home unless it's in your job description.

to be fair to Zak (FN) he may not hold the purse strings in his house, and the decision to go with AOL is because it's very easy to set up. This is probably the reason a lot of teachers go with it. I used to have it myself.

like teachers' wireless laptops, the printers would be plugged into the mains. they'd only receive the signal wirelessly.

I meant to say that neither ISP in this case is BT.

you get your Migration Authorisation Code (MAC) from your current ISP and it should be in the form of "4letters7numbers/2letters2numbers1letter". you then pass this on to your new ISP who will tell you 10 days later they tried it and BT told them it was the wrong MAC, and that you don't need a MAC to change ISP, just call BT on this freephone number and get them to remove the tags. After 20 minutes on the line to BT you get to speak to a techie who will tell you that there are no tags on the line because it has broadband, and the MAC codes are there so that individual companies can negotiate this deal between them without going through BT. you then get back to your proposed ISP (via a third world callcentre) who say that's fine, just call the sales desk and they will sort you out. When you eventually get through to sales, after say, 10 minutes, they set up the job again and then try to charge you the one-off setup fee you've already paid for the original job, and, no, the router hasn't arrived yet. you then call them every 3 days to check the progress of your order. HTH

I knew someone would lower the tone

when we were there in '81 it still seemed to be a concrete strip in the desert, but then they thought they could make more money by making it "family friendly" I think the last time we were there was 2000. the girls enjoyed it, apart from the temperature at 48 deg C. I've always had good times in the States and found people friendly and helpful, for the most part (you always get exceptions). I wish you all the luck in the world for your future, the pair of you. It takes a lot of guts to do what you're doing. Keep in touch, Letter from America used to be a Sunday morning treat.

How did you end up being in Reno for 3 hours? Nevertheless, anywhere has to be better than where I currently live! on our way from Sacramento to Vegas

once you've got your feet under the table, and got used to the distances, try and get down to Yosemite. absolutely beautiful

this is quite neat

As I said, unforgetable.

I was there for 3 hours back in '81. Unforgetable.

Reno NV

it doesn't even work when logged in as admin.

must be a full moon. just spent a loooong day getting the new music suite ready for open day next monday, and we ahve a problem with dance ejay 7. for the time being we're keeping a copy of disc 2 in the dvd drive, and that'll change after monday. The problem we have, whether admin or not, is trying to save what you've done/created. It saves to a default folder on the C: drive, or so it says, but there's nothing there when you look. any ideas?

the difference between a good artist and a great one is that a great one knows when to stop. step up to the greats SYSMAN, so don't mess with it any more.

I'll second that.

during 2005/06 none of the 3 of us techies took our full allocation of holidays and ended up all booking roughly the same time at Easter 2006. We were told in no uncertain terms that we must not leave the school without any cover again. This was fair enough, but what we weren't told at the time was that as we were employed full time we could take our holidays during term time if there was cover in the IT office. I only found this out a couple of weeks ago when I realized I'd booked the wrong week for half term this October (the LEA website had given out the wrong dates for school holidays, and there's a stack of letters from parents who have also booked the "wrong" week). It may be worth asking SMT just what the regs are.

thanks for all the help chaps. I have emailed Northgate on this, but it would be interesting to gather information from those on the ground. Interestingly, when I did a Google on "MLE Northgate Bristol Schools?" on Thursday this page came top. The rest were all press releases from the day

^BUMP^ I still need more info on this if anyone has any to offer.

A lot of you may have read this already, but for those who haven't I feel it sheds an interesting light on SJobs.

I didn't get round to replying to your last pm Zak, but if you look in the left hand column, under CPD (Continuing Professional Development) you should see the "Conference" link. I think these pages are being updated as I write. This is the thread from last year's gig in Rochdale.

I hope sysman_mk doesn't mind me taking the design to the ying and yang stage just so that folk can see what it might look like. apologies. It's a damn fine design and I'm extremely jealous. you need to view it full size.