gsk

Thanks for that. WRT firmware looks like a bit of a rabbit-hole, but should be exactly what I need. How easy is openVPN to setup on Server 2012R2?

Thanks, I'll look into the routers. I want something at the network layer rather than Direct Access so that it can be used across platforms.

Hi All, What I would like to achieve is to be able to issue a low cost WiFi access point or router that people could plug into their normal router at home and with zero configuration for them, appear to be directly connected to the school network, with school filtering and IP address etc. What do I need to do to go about it? Thanks,

Brill, thanks

Hi All, I was wondering if any of you had a survey that you would be willing to share or if we could come up with some relevant questions between us here. My school would like to audit how teachers feel they are at a) delivering the computing curriculum, but also b) assessing how well teachers integrate ICT into their every day teaching. My first thought was to use the computing curriculum objectives with a heading 'how confident are you in delivering the curriculum to achieve the following objectives:' but I'm completely stumped about questions to ask around general cross-curricular use of ICT.

Hi All, I wasn't sure which forum it would be best to put this in, so thought I'd pop it here to catch a few views. I need the exact wording of the Computing 'I Can' statements from essex tracker/ EES Target tracker. Does anyone know an easy way to get these without typing them out again? Thanks

They didn't exist, but do now and still nothing on the start layout.

Hi All, I've gone down the route of specifying a start layout. I've exported this through powershell and copied to a share on SYSVOL. The template applies but only one icon out of the 20-odd is shown. Where might I be going wrong? This is all on the same PC. Start Layout is generated as local admin, then delete profile of test student login. Then login as test student to test. Thanks,

Just to try and bring this back round to some kind of normality. Can anyone recommend a laptop that meets the follow criteria: Metal Body, Chiclet Keys, 1080p or better screen 7 hours or better battery life 8gb 1866mhz RAM PCI-e not SATA storage 128gb or more Windows 10 Pro For less than £765 I'm looking at veryPCs ultrabook but want to see and try one before buying. I'm looking at the MacbookPro Retina 13 which is where the £765 comes from including the windows licence Any other suggestions?

Worth noting that the head isn't even aware that a macbook is on the cards. That possibility only exists here on edugeek as an idea (which wasn't even suggested by me!) at the moment. I doubt that they are the exception. Out of the 11 heads I've worked with in the past and the 6 I currently work with, there are only a couple that would benefit significantly from the higher res screen and 5 years that number may well have been 0, but they are catching on and in the next 3 years I'd be surprised if they don't all have higher res screens and benefit from it significantly. I imagine that in your 20 years experience the equipment a head needs and even the job a head does has changed an absolute shed load. He has a HP Folio 13 which I feel is a very good machine. This will be given to the deputy who currently doesn't have a laptop. The issues with it are that the non-removable battery is getting a bit rubbish, the screen is only 1366x768 and its out of warranty. None of these are insurmountable issues but as these are things that won't affect the deputy, the sensible choice would be for the head to get a new one. By his own admission, the deputy will take a laptop, hook up to a charger and plow through some planning or paperwork, typically one thing at a time. So the reason for the detailed spec is to get a laptop that will last for 5 years that will get the best productivity out of the headteacher. The more productivity we (the taxpayer) can eek out of the (expensive) headteacher the better. So if I can spend an extra £200 on a laptop so that the headteacher can: *Have everything open and flit between them quickly, easily and without hassle (Fast RAM, fast Storage, rather than huge powerful CPUs) *Have a hi-res screen so that documents/windows can be worked on side-by-side *have a good battery so that it can be used for a day's work wherever needed *be made of durable material so that it survives the 5 years needed and go everywhere *be light so that it is easy to take everywhere *Be good to use because of all the above that the head uses it more, and ultimately spends more time working then I will completely disagree with you, spend the extra and hope/assume that the head and the business manager have got far more pressing things to do with their time than quibble for the extra £40 per year of the upgraded hardware. The question is, which particular set of hardware to get. Good to know, thank you for the extra information. I misread the bit on the link about no operating system being preinstalled

He nor I have mentioned a MacBook - that has come from suggestions on here. Compromises so far are as I listed in my earlier post, which is the whole reason for the thread. I am very open to suggestions but none that fit the bill have been suggested apart from (potentially) the MacBook and VeryPC's offering which I've never heard of or seen before, let alone used and would be happy to recommend. He hasn't specified that resolution but given that I hate using a monitor with anything less than 1920x1080 because you can comfortably have two windows side-by-side, it seems ridiculous to expect someone to do their job with sub-par tools and a screen which displays a reasonable amount of information is a reasonably big part of that. It's not about looking the 'shiz' its about finding the right tool for the job and hopefully only having to do the research once a year to find a 'standard' model. I have Probook 450s for student use, HP 350s for 'floating' or ad-hoc staff laptops, NUCs for fixed student or admin PCs and silent/quiet SFF PCs with optical drives for whiteboards. The gap here is teacher/headteacher laptops. Hence thread.

But in this case it is a £716 macbook pro retina and I am trying to find something comparable without a massive compromise.

Thank you for that. Unfortunately though - It doesn't have an OS, it is thick enough to double as a raft, only has a 2 year RTB warranty which would cost a fair whack to use and is already 3 years old.

I do agree with some of the sentiments in this thread but to each I think there is a counter argument: "Get a macbook" - Pro's: £ for £ I think they are pretty good value for money. For £716 you get an excellent 2560x1600 display, 8 hour battery life, fantastic build quality, and PCIe storage rather than SATA. Cons: Has a 'flashy' image. Have to use OSX which may cause issues for some staff or install Windows (don't see a massive problem with this tbh?) "Get a refurb" Pro's: Bang for buck. Con's:Old hardware, has been used for some time unlike certified refurb. Battery life. Parts availability/Warranty. Fast storage, RAM would be more useful than Uber CPU power. "Get the same as the staff" Pro's: Image of equality, prudence etc. Cons: HT do a different job to class teachers and need different tools. Not preferential treatment, just different. "Get a Dell XPS, HP Probook, HP Elitebook etc." Pro's: Better image. More restrained and professional looking. Fingerprint readers. Con's: Massive variation in spec and quality. Can be very difficult to know what you're going to get. Even things like touchpad seem to vary massively (HP Prebook 450 G1, G2, G3 are a case in point. So overall I'm still stuck! Going to have a look at this XPS13 with 4k display and see what the display scaling is like with windows but not a lot further forward! Does the VeryPC ultrabook have a fingerprint reader? What is the quality like compared to a ProBook or a MacBook? Is there anyone in Leics that would let me have a nosey at one?

Thanks All, I've been offered an open-box Dell XPS13 with 4k display, 16gb RAM and 256SSD for £650. 2 things are holding me back from going for it: 1)a 4k display on a 13" screen sounds pretty insane 2)it doesn't have a fingerprint reader, which I would ideally like. Do the very pc thinbooks have fp readers?

Hi All, I'm looking at a laptop for a headteacher. Their requirements are: Portable, good battery life, fast, good quality, preferably metal body, clicky chiclet keys. Budget £750? What would you recommend? How much do you spend on teacher/head laptops?

I've used these guys before. Think they offered two options, one was having them printed in the UK with a 1-2 week lead time or they could source them from china for a lot less with an 8-10 week lead time. It's been a while though so don't hold me to it! I'm sure the long lead time option was well under £1 per unit. Printed Lanyards - Lanyards - Essentra Security

Chew the fat on some recent techno hot topic. Clouds, iPads, Virtualised servers, WiFi, Data protection. Put an opinion across that seems different to theirs, whether you agree with them or not and see what they say. Ask them what they think a reasonable amount to spend on a project would be - IT room, WiFi, set of laptops. Give them half an hour to look into it. See what they come back with, or forget about. I wouldn't get too bogged down with specific technical questions - I would think that you'd want them to be technically able but more important to be able to go and find new information and fit it into your organisation.

I'm just starting with Win10 and haven't come into this problem but this possible solution has come up while I've been researching the start menu... Source: https://deploymentpros.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/management-and-customization-of-the-windows-8-1-start-screen/

Just going to quietly put this thread into my favourites folder titled 'gems for win10 image'. Thanks.

Just checked and page 16 of the detailed specs HP 1920 Switch Series (QuickSpecs/c04394247.pdf) say that the PoE+ switch has a fan, and a pretty noisy one at that! Even the 8-port PoE switch has a fan

That's brilliant, I'll check it out. I'm looking for 24 port switches. I had looked at the HP 1820 which are fanless but not if you have PoE.

Hi All, I'm looking to upgrade our edge switches which are currently Edimax 10/100 and are very noisy and located in classrooms or working spaces. Can anyone reccommend any decent PoE Gigabit switches which are silent? Thanks,

Hi All, I can't think of how to word this so here's a scenario: You already have a word document open that you want to keep open but you want to work on something else. You minimize it, open an explorer window with a folder of other word docs, open a document from there and then when you close it, the previous document has unminimized itself therefore hiding the explorer window you were working with. Can you stop this from happening, if so how!?!? Thanks,

Cool. Sacking that off then. Anything else around that will do the job? Thanks,