SteveR

I wouldn't be happy and would feel like I am being taken for a ride if I'm honest. You would be taking on more of a workload and have nothing to show for it. Join a union and seek their advice (anyone that works in a school should be in a union.)

Cheers TopBanana they look to be quite rugged. Looks like I will need to purchase separate Win7 Pro licenses as all the netbooks I have seen only come supplied with XP Home or Win7 Starter.

We are looking to purchase 15 netbooks running Windows 7 Professional. I have my eye on the Samsung NC10 but am aware that it is quite an old model now. Any recommendations? Many thanks!

Thanks all for the replies. I have been running papercut NG on a trial basis and have to say it works amazingly well, our printer use has fallen like a stone and staff members are now more careful what they print. Great stuff!

I already have the mono set to default.. to be fair it is the staff doing the colour printing more than the pupils. Interesting.. A couple of months ago I rang dell to order toner for our 3130cn and when I got to the printer consumables phone system I was greeted by a recorded telephone message redirecting me to a company called Leco Computer Supplies LTD and told me I can place orders from there. We have been approached by a company looking to sell us multi functional printers but to be honest I am not sure where we would put them if we decided on going down that route. How do you enforce the 20 page limit to staff?

I work in a large primary school with 600 pupils and like most primary schools we love printing in colour. We were on a lease contract with a company a few years back that supplied us with a colour Konica printer and toner at a reduced price, but they increased their toner costs after a year or so and we looked else where. At the moment we have a Dell 3130cn which is 8 months old and worryingly the cost of printing from this printer is starting to rise and now is standing at £500 to replace all toner with 9k capacity cartridges. This seems like an alarming cost because in 2 months time I will have to reorder the toner all over again. Working it out is probably around £4000 a year we spend just on supplying toner to this one printer. Would like some feedback on what you are using in your school for high usage colour printing with sensible running costs. Thanks

Never mind done it now! What a hassle to get this going it needed three registry changes Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Screen Saver.Slideshow] "PaintInterval"=dword:00000000 "ChangeInterval"=dword:000088b8 "DisplayFilename"=dword:00000000 "MaxScreenPercent"=dword:00000064 "DisableTransitions"=dword:00000000 "AllowStretching"=dword:00000000 "AllowKeyboardControl"=dword:00000001 "MaxFailedFiles"=dword:000003e8 "MaxSuccessfulFiles"=dword:00010000 "MaxDirectories"=dword:000000c8 "ImageDirectory"="LOCATION OF PHOTOS FOLDER" [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Screen Saver.Slideshow] "PaintInterval"=dword:00000000 "ChangeInterval"=dword:00007530 "DisplayFilename"=dword:00000000 "MaxScreenPercent"=dword:00000064 "DisableTransitions"=dword:00000000 "AllowStretching"=dword:00000000 "AllowKeyboardControl"=dword:00000001 "MaxFailedFiles"=dword:000003e8 "MaxSuccessfulFiles"=dword:00010000 "MaxDirectories"=dword:000000c8 "ImageDirectory"="LOCATION OF PHOTOS FOLDER" [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop] "ScreenSaverIsSecure"="0" "ScreenSaveTimeOut"="300" "ScreenSaveActive"="1" "SCRNSAVE.EXE"="LOCATION OF PHOTOS FOLDER"

Back again This is driving me mad. I discovered that XP uses a different screen saver for the logon, named logon.scr I have tracked down the reg entry for logon.scr from this page How to change the Windows Logon screen saver in Windows XP and made the changes to point the logon screen saver to ssmypics.scr After doing this the slide show screensaver does activate on the logon screen however I am faced with an error of "No pictures found in C:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile\my documents. This is confusing because I have already configured ssmypics.scr in HKEY_CURRENT_USER/ to point to the network share. Any help would be appreciated

Care to fill me in with a bit more info? I am in regedit and checking the settings in HKEY_CURRENT_USER/control panel/ I can see the other screen saver entries but not slideshow saver, not sure how to go about this if I can't find the entry. Thanks EDIT: Nevermind I got it now!

I want to setup all our workstations with the photo slide show screen saver and have the screen saver load the photos from a central location on the network. We have XP boxes and server 2003. I have came across this: How to create a domain-wide slideshow screensaver GPO by using pictures on each local machine ? : gpo, screensaver, pictures But it doesn't make too much sense to me Thanks for any help

I came across this surprising article stating that the first look of the ion2 has revealed it slower than the current ion! Nvidia Ion 2 GPU Benchmarked As Slower Than Its Predecessor - ion 2 - Gizmodo I've had my R3610 for a few days now and loving it! I still need to install Windows 7 but having too much fun with XBMC Live.

Looks like a great setup! I bet you don't need to have the AC on so high aswell! How well do they handle flash video? - Have you needed to upgrade or tweak flash player?

Let us know how you get on with the evaluation unit, may I ask where you are getting one from?

The atom CPU is comparable to a Pentium M - a processor from 2003. Any Pentium 4 will smash an atom! So those that are looking to replacing there P4 machines in the hope that they will be as fast will be disappointed. That aside the appealing thing about these Revo's are their size and tiny power consumption. What helps the Revo is the Nvidia ION graphics which is able to do [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA]CUDA[/ame] a technology that uses the graphics processor to take the pressure off the atom CPU. Because of this the Revo is able to do full HD 1080p playback, something which the Atom CPU alone would never be able to handle. Flash also now supports the ION chipset meaning the Revo will be able to handle flash content better. I would avoid the Veriton N260G it does not have the ION graphics, something which I think is a must. I am eying up a Revo to be used at home for a media PC running XBMC. I keep swaying between the dual core and single core versions of the Revo. Just can't make up my mind! I would want to dual boot into Windows 7, which I think could do with having dual core. It is said that there is a 20% increase in performance with the R3610 dual core but is about £60 more.. having 2GB of the instead of 1GB would also be handy. How is the performance of the single core R3600 in windows 7 drewp? When you say it runs OK is it a tad sluggish?

It appears they are using portable versions of limewire and other p2p software. I agree with you that disciplinary action is needed, shall leave that for the head to deal with though.

Me again After a bit of reading it seems that blocking p2p traffic totally is very difficult, as many different ports can get used. I have basically been asked to lock down the internet at certain times: I have set up a new policy in the synetrix url filtering page and named it 'denyinternet' I then have ticked every category to be blocked including general sites. Also added in the deny list http://*.* and set the policy to be active over the time we want. Will see how it goes.. obviously this will not stop connections still being made by p2p programs. But blocking access to the torrent sites is probably the best I can do without spending any money. Will disallow running of exes too.

We also looking to block P2P traffic at specific times and even block all access to the internet at specific times. I logged on to the synetrix URL filtering site looked at the category definitions section and rubbed my hands together because I saw 'file sharing' - p2p as a category. However The option is no where to be seen on the page where you choose what category to block! I phoned up synetrix and they told me they no longer support this option along with many other of the options listed on the definitions page. How lame, considering how much we pay them. So what to do now? Having an ISA server looks costly. Can anyone recommend a free proxy server that allows for timed blocks + that is easy to setup? ...or any other solution? Thanks!

Wouldn't really thought this would be a problem but I am trying to hunt down a rechargeable battery supplier who also sell semi decent chargers and accepts purchase orders. Google is being a bit useless to be honest. We have recently bought 20 Flip Video cameras and on the way are 12 still digital cameras to add to our list of current cameras, all of which use AA batteries. Worked out we need something like 20 x 4 pack rechargeables and then about 8 chargers. Thanks for any pointers! Seems like I couldn't spell rechargeable in the topic name

Hi all, We are looking at getting a QNAP TS-209 Pro II NAS Enclosure that we want to use for active storage. We want to map 2 drive letters to it via our logon script that we use. Our mapped drive logon script works like this net use s: "\\servername\sharedfoldername" I assume it would work just like any other network share by replacing the servername for the IP of the QNap and the shared folder name on the QNap in the logon.bat script? Can the Qnaps make a share which does not require a username and password? Obviously I can add users onto the QNap via the web control panel but this is no good really as we have 600 pupils + 60 staff! I think maybe we would need it to work with active directory.. but can Qnap shares be assigned access to a group of users in the active directory? Like this on our current windows server 2k3 box selecting 'users' includes every user account access to the S Drive because they all fall under the group 'users' http://i34.tinypic.com/2lmnymw.jpg There is talk on the QNap forums about the lack of ACL support.. to be honest I'm not sure what that is or if it will cause problems with what we want to do. Thanks for any help! Steve

Thanks all for the replies Hi Chr1s. Yes I do enjoy taking the lessons (I am not being big headed) but I feel like I can do a better job than most the classroom teachers can, purely because of the amount of time and experience I've gained by being in and around ICT lessons for nearly 5 years. My problem is I do not get paid to do the teaching, teachers get paid a hell of a lot more than us techies and it is unfair for the job to be dumped on us. Lately it has became so bad that I now refuse to go up to the front of the class and give inputs/teaching. I was thinking about the HLTA the time taken to get to become an NQT is just too long and not the route I'd like to go down. Another wall in my way is that my GSCE grades in english and maths aren't up to scratch, this will also be a problem for most courses. Like all/most techies working in primary I get paid peanuts! So money is an issue and it is one of the driving issues that is making me look at my options to progress. There are times where I ask myself if I should cut loose from primary because as beeswax says ICT in primary is normally covered by classroom teachers. After a chat with the deputy head I can see there might be ways of me moving up within the school. So shall see what pans out over the following months. Anyone heard or been on an EDI course? Linky

Hey all I wonder if anyone has been in a similar situation as me. I am a ICT Technician in a primary school and have been so for nearly 5 years, and I am looking at my options to progress. During my time here I have been dumped into giving ICT lessons countless times due to teachers being ill or not confident enough to each a particular lesson. So I have been looking at what it would take to become an ICT teacher. I have been told I would need to go through all the same hoops as a person looking to become a newly qualified classroom teacher, which means 4 years training and studying including getting a degree. The thing is I don't want to become a classroom teacher, I will not be teaching anything apart from ICT. Has anyone else done things differently or gone down another route?

edit: IPS? Christ I must be more tired than I thought, ISP! If a mod could please correct thanks We are currently with synetrix and pay 4K a year for a 20Mbit leased line. In the view of saving money I am wondering what are the alternatives to synetrix at about the same speed. I am not too impressed for what we get with synetrix; speeds vary quite a lot during the day and the filtering system is just plain annoying. Slow to classify new pages and the web access to configure the filters isn't very flexible. Were you with synetrix and broke away from them?

I think i'm going to go with a the Dell 3130CN it is getting very good reviews on print quality and working out the cost per print out it comes in as the cheapest to run at £469 to replace all toner 9k yield. The Hp CP3505 does seem good however the fact it is end of life puts me off quite a bit, it is also still selling for quite a high price considering it is such an old printer. The LnL offer is tempting but after weighing things up I feel uneasy about binding ourselves to another 3 year contract with them, our borough also do not like the idea. I have had a phone call or two from LnL in the past where they have been pressuring us into buying more toner from them even when the contract stated we only had to do that for the first 4 times. Buying a new colour laser printer is a total minefield, it really is!

Hmm yes you are right they are 12k thought they were more like 9k, so it does slightly work out cheaper to run the 5440. We also have our 5440 with LnL who haven't been too bad with toner prices, however now it is just become insane from LnL and other suppliers. To be spending this kind of money every 2-3 months we simply can't afford anymore, we are only a primary school so shouldn't really be needing to spend this amount of money so often on printer running costs. I too have been looking at LnL's Konica 5650EN offer seems good but what is strange (and probably a typo?) is their toner yield figures they have carts that do 30k. Konica Minolta Magicolor 46xx Print Unit Kit (CYM) A0310NH £322.75 "Yield up to 30,000 pages each @ 5% coverage" 30,000 pages?! They can't be serious.. surely? Edit: Print Unit Kit? Are these just the fuser/drum for each colour then? lol Thought it was too good to be true!

Hey all We have just had to stop using our Konica Magicolor 5440 due to the toner costs becoming waaay out of control, it now stands at £620 to replace with Konica toner.. Crazy. Our mono printer has just packed up aswell (great timing ) So we are in the market for a new colour laser and a mono laser. They need to have quite a high duty cycle per month (~5000 sheets) as we love to send things to the printer and not collect them . Any suggests? Anyone have a Dell 3130cn? I have my eyes on it as it is getting some very good reviews, comes in at about £410 to replace all toner and black at high capacity (9000 sheets) £359 for the printer. I have been looking at that Hp cp3505n which is mentioned a few times in this thread. Noticed that it is quite an old printer (2007?) is toner widely available? Have seen mentioned that 3rd party toner can be bought for it, who is the best supplier for this? For the mono we had a HP 4050N which was good until it died, I was looking at getting another HP but now seems like the new range of mono HPs many people aren't overly impressed with. I was looking at the Xerox Phaser 3435, quite a new printer but good reviews and duplex about £110 to replace hicap toner. £215 for the printer. Thanks for any suggests.