moriartythemundane

Did you ever get to take up on this Arbor MIS? We are actively looking at this in Wolverhampton now and I would love some feed back? Nick

Used google email and apps for nearly four years. It is very very good and an effective tool but it is not really a VLE. We are almost certainly moving to a sharepoint based VLE in September(New BSF School) we will miss our google alot. One thing I would say, you can set it up in a week and if you did it next week inside a month you would know if its for you. Also, consider making a simple intranet page that can have links to all the various elelments eg, blogger, youtube, sites etc so that it looks more cohesive than it is. New option of google drive is useful so all in all its a way forward for free. Moriarty

This is something we have looked at but the idea of the BSF contract is a rollover cycle of the contract AND hardware every five years! The problem is 3s and 5s don't fit until 15! So a 6 year rollover or 3 yr roll over would have been better I suspect? Who is your new provider? If its Capita have you any job descriptions yet? I cant get one for love nor money. The school want them so they can see just what they need to cover that we will no longer do and they cant get them. The LA HR says they cant get them and Capita say they have given them out! Draw your own conclusions but the terms "smoke and mirrors" or "divide and conquer" come into my mind along with "Mushroom Syndrome"!!! (Keep them in the Dark and feed them sh*te!) If anyone has Capita Job descriptions for NWM and Techies can they pm me with copies attached? Moriarty...

RTFM... We are allowed to enter competitive tender for kit/software/whatever, but there is an individual charge for eg putting a pc onto the network. There may be a legacy item we want to keep and have network enabled that may want a ram upgrade, re imaging whatever and they will ask us for a charge to do that. We have to factor that in to all our costs. Interestingly enough, Just before Xmas we tried to by some heavy duty RM laptops, the quote duly arrived and I had to run this by Capita. So far I have no laptops, the special offer of a "Free" trolley from RM has gone and I suspect that if I do end up buying them from Capita it will cost me more, but worse, if I end up buying them from RM that too will now cost me more!! This whole scenario is depressing/frustrating/costing us time and money. Capita(read ex Ramesys) should in truth be competitive. Does it bode well for the future? Only time will tell... Moriarty...

Well guys you have all come up trumps again and I have decided that in todays meeting I will, on balance, recommend we go down the ESS front. The maths for our establishment seems to add up in favour of ESS, I just need to convince SLT and Capita that that is what we need. I think Capita are on my wavelength!??! Thanks to all who responded... have a good week! Moriarty...

Hi all, Our school goes live under BSF in September 2012 and our outsourced ICT provider is Capita Systems. They have asked us yesterday what licensing system do we wish to use? Do we want to go the MS ESS route or buy the licenses outright as we have always done. The model appears simple enough if I have been told correctly. That, under ESS the licenses are yearly paid, in three year blocks, based on the number of staff in school...NOT the number of pcs/applications etc. On top of that, upgrades are free during the three years. Simple maths tells us this is a considerable saving for us, however, what happens in three years time? Yes we could roll over for another three years but what happens if Microsoft change the ESS to something else or do away with it altogether. What happens come five years and possibly Capita are no longer our provider? The worry here is that the school could be faced with a huge licensing bill when we come into work one Monday morning in three years time! Sadly, Capita can advise us but they won't push us in any direction as, presumably, they do not want us to moan at them if it all goes wrong!! So, my question is what have others done recently? Have you gone the ESS route, or bought outright? Any advice would be gratefully received as we only have till Feb 2nd to make a decision (allegedly) and it was dropped on me late yesterday... Have a great day... Moriarty...

Thanks must go to KenObi-D for a very pragmatic view of life for us in BSF under Capita. However, In many ways it makes my worries worse reading what you say! My eleven years in ICT have been on RM Networks where we use RM's control panel for everyday tasks. When/if I move to Capita I know it will be a vanilla Network and in all honesty, put me on a server and ask me to deploy an app I would be lost. Yes... I can learn, Yes, if training is available I will learn. However, at nearly 56 I wonder if I really want to?!!? Is it time for a career move...I dont know! Now, Synaesthesia....hmm! At first read of that post I would imagine most people would think "bitter and twisted"... "had a tough time"... "got out, hates the company"...but having been in a similar situation back in about 1995 I read that post in a sort of "between the lines" way. Frankly, I can well believe that a company that big see's you purely as a number and if your face does not fit, for no matter what reason, whether it's personality, ability, costs to the company...whatever... I could see it would/could be terrible! Many thanks for your "warts and all" approach! Obviously, the truth lies somewhere in between and only time will tell! Moriarty...

Hmmm... your thinking along the same lines as us. Our jobs are protected for three years we have been told but there are numerous reasons, I suspect, that that can change! As my techie says, if they downgrade him his job will be worthless! I suspect his job will remain though and mine as a Network Manager will get hammered!

Hi all, sorry for the long post but it will become clear... Wolverhampton is in the throws of BSF and the winning ICT supplier is Capita systems. Our school is one of the first to move over this coming September (2012) so we are all in preliminary talks re TUPE, New Hardware/Software etc. The school is a part refurb/ part new-build project and is probably 50% up and done. At first I was all for it, the thought of moving to a larger company, the possibilities of further training and job enhancement seemed good. However, best part of a year on and after recent talks with Capita personnel I am having second thoughts! I asked will we perform…. • Server work – No, to very limited • Updates – No automatic • Repairs to pcs – No - swap out and return to manf. • Repairs to laptops – No - swap out and return to manf. • Anti virus – automatic • Cabling if required – No - outside contractors • First line helpdesk with problems – staff to call helpline in Nottingham • Changing toner cartridges – Staff will perform their own • Second line helpdesk – Yes to change pc’s laptops via the swap out system • Third line support – No • Whiteboard repairs/moves – No - third party contractors • Specifiying equipment - No • Setting up equipment eg assembly – No – staff will do their own Exasperated, I asked just what will we be doing then? I was advised…. • Don’t worry, we will keep you busy! (With what?) • You will be asked to support the attached special school as they will have no techie. (With/doing what?) • You may/probably will, have to go to other schools in the borough (My techie will now need a car) When pushed for more info, their was none specific, however, it was stated that a few techies change jobs as they do not want to move to Capita and others moved within Capita to projects around the country… As you can imagine, call me naive or what, but, I was expecting more than that! So, my question is... If you work for a Capita BSF school as a Network Manager or Techie, just what do you do? Do you do what you did before BSF, do you do more/less/nothing like before or what!??! Thanks for reading, please reply and put our minds at rest...(hopefully) Moriarty...

Thanks for the reply I will look up this app and see what its like! We have numerous staff members with android phones so this could be good news...I will of course keep you posted on anything we come up with. Sadly, or should that be hopefully/thankfully, Sept 2012 we will have a new network under Bsf and hand held devices are very much catered for... Keep in touch!

We have bought around a hundred of these I pod touches and a few ipads over this last school year and they have been used predominately in Geography. They are about to start using them in English and Maths. Geog has had a massive success using them as the teachers involved are young and that way inclined. Syncing them with parasyncs is good but slow. My problem is getting work off the ipods into a students workspace on ourCC3 network. We have been advised to look at web dav but its not something I have used and I feel its akin to the same problems as usb sticks when it comes to viruses! What have you/others done to get around this problem? Cheers Moriarty...

The process is quite protracted and they do check out your school. You cannot rush through the system you have to do it in stages. These stages are notified to you at each point. It takes about 10 days overall to set up not ten minutes I am afraid. You always appear to be waiting for the next step to come along but trust me once its set up you wont look back. I gave you my number in a pm so why dont you call and we can chat? Moriarty...

We use, very successfully, Google apps. You apply for a Free education version and over a period of less than a week, following googles guides and timescale, you implement it in stages. We have used this successfully for nearly two years now. Every department has an email and a website (or more if needs be) every staff/student member has an email address allowing them to make personal websites, access the apps "in the cloud" chat if needs be plus other "stuff" like wave for collaboration and calendars. With the recent update to the control panel we can now extensivley control access/permissions to all tiers of school! We have coupled this up with google blogger, flickr and as was mentioned above Tasc Softwares cracking Pars/Pars Connect for e-registration/texting to parents and are looking to provide access with their portal addon. This is fully interactive with Sims and cheaper...for us any way! As a new trial we have just installed PHP BB (its free) to allow some form of discussion and interaction other than by email and if it takes off like google apps it will slot in beautifully. We have restricted membership to only allow the school domain email addresses for additional security. This took less than a day to implement...then as long as you want to make it look pretty. We are going through BSF at the moment and the school is a building site...we have just been assessed as to our ICT standard where we are/need to be etc and the result was truly encouraging. Apparently, we dont do anything excellently but we do everything well. But, we do more than any other school in the borough...by far! The bulk of this was free and easy to set up and works well. I can heartily reccomend it. Just as a caveat... we tried Moodle and tried to integrate it with our old CC3 network and it was not good. The uptake was poor in trials and it was deemed not needed as we would have a VLE for BSF. Then we tried Google apps and it took off, literally in a fortnight...changed the school completely! Try it, what have you got to lose? Moriarty...

Last year we implemented a whole school email system, free for education, from Google . Try that as a start...

Spot on! Had this conversation not an hour ago with a deputy...GIGO...garbage in.... garbage out... You need a strong leader to implement it. Staff that will follow it, training for those who need it and the hardest part in my opinion...the P45's for those that fight against it! Only then will it succeed at our school...sadly!

I can email it to you if you can give me an address... Shh...dont tell everyone!

You need to read: How to add a Microsoft® Windows® XP computer to Community Connect 3 network using RM SmartClient Published Date : 31 May 2006 Last Updated : 29 Apr 2008 Content Ref: TEC406091 Have you access to the RM Website and login details to read the above TEC 406091 article? Moriarty...

Same here....over a three day period it took about six hours to implement in total for upto 1200 users in our case. Csv 'd the users up year by year etc and it opens up a whole new world to the staff all for free! I cant say its better than exchange or zimbra but its hosted by google and that leaves me with less headaches for backups, server space, licencing. It just makes sense to try it before you start going down another route...

In our case they installed, two servers, and we built 200plus pcs in just over a fortnight during the summer. RM's prices are NOT expensive. I have run them down in the past but its negotiating a good price that does it! We got four tenders in for a hundred pc's the other year and they matched/beat prices and they equalled specs. Without exception, there kit passed yr9/10 "Neanderthal thug" tests for longevity and resilience as other sample workstations were just not designed for inner city vandalism. Sure the "F series" buttons all packed in, but, one phone call and they were all replaced. Ease of use....me, as the Network Manager, on my own ran three servers, 250 ish machines and 50 laptops. Sims is supported by the council so a bit of help there, all other back up from RM. We are NOT an RM managed school but we UTILISE an RM network. Log on times with roaming profiles, a gig back bone and 100 nic at the station is about 15 seconds. With a gig nic about 7 or 8! I have yet to see a vanilla station do that...you may know better, frankly I dont care. If BSF in our city allowed RM to manage it, and all the sla's were CORRECTLY setup then I for one would love to be tuped over to RM. Building machines....I have used ghost etc and frankly its not bad but as a whole network scenario if you have many different types of machine it is poor. RM's way of building, then adding the packages and then locally imaging to a hidden partition is superb. Keep it up to date and when it goes "pop" you can locally restore in about ten minutes depending on the ammount of applications on board. If it can be reached by the network ie runs but has problems, then local support tools will allow me to rebuild/restore whilst sat at my desk/at home/later over the weekend. As for can I do any alterations on my network...yes very definitely! Do I need to...not very often as it works right out of the box. Sure, building packages can be a nightmare....and yes very often the security is such that you cannot make a package run right at first. But, one quick phone call or support call over their website and usually someone puts you right. Downsides...well quite a few really, but not like you may imagine! Sometimes the associated apps that come with RM are not all they are cracked up to be. eg Symantec av. I use it and have had massive problems that took six months to sort and lost me two servers, one of which was economically beyond repair (read toooooo old). But we had paid for our support and they honoured the agreement and replaced the server with a newer one from training dept and slowly but surely over what seemed like an age but, in truth wasnt too long and it was in the peak summer period they got me up and running. They subsequently mopped up any problems as they arose over the following months. (It sounds worse than it was) So to recap... ease of use/builds etc not that much more if any more expensive better quality kit excellent support infrastructure impressive performance at the station good local support tools VERY well locked don security wise straight out of the box.... Sorry for the long post but I read all of the others and felt that a large amount of negativity about what is a good system was prevalent. Roll on CC4!

To try and avoid this type of problem I would love to set up on our RM CC3 network a streaming server that we can monitor and allow staff and pupils alike to post their own videos. Youtube is banned in our school so we have little trouble with it but, as an arts college it would be nice to "air" some of our own video footage, albeit locally. In man hours that alone that would be a "no go." So...what I am asking, I suppose, is does anyone know of a programme that will emulate youtube on an in house server? I have seen loads of php scripts for Linux boxes but sadly that goes to far for me, a simple install this and let them use/abuse it is what I am needing. Remember, you must be able to load up a video from a video/phone/whatever, have the files converted to say flv and move to some form of web based outlet all pretty well automated! Any idea's? Moriarty...