sreiach

We've had good luck with the TuffCams from TTS. Tuff-Cam 2 Child Friendly Digital Camera and Movie Camera

Spiceworks. It's the all in one IT solution - inventory, monitoring, helpdesk etc. For free. Worth a look. Takes 5 minutes to get started. Free Network Monitoring Software | Spiceworks Free Network Management Software

Second that. Their site surveys are free.

You might want to try Amaya. Open Source and made by the W3C. Amaya Home Page

I really don't remember that being an issue. In fact it felt exactly the same as the E4300. It is a little tiny but they maximized the full width of the laptop for the keyboard. Also the Power and volume controls are big hard plastic lit buttons. The touchpad buttons are also made of the same hard plastic as the rest of the casing. I've found anything that's been shrunk naturally has a flimsy feel to it like most netbooks. This one is definitely one of the more rugged ones I've picked up. It was a little heavy with the extended battery installed. Which I didn't see as too much of a fault. We're not asking kids to walk and type. It's still better then them carrying a beastly D630 around.

I was lucky enough to play with a demo model. It is really nice. The biggest selling points are that its in their business line of laptops. Which means a complete care warranty next day repair and a Windows Business OS. These were huge selling points for me. Many schools are buying netbooks because they're cheap without thinking how they are going to support them in the long run. The colours are nice too.

Another idea would be to use Group Policy and block internet explorer all together. They would still be able to browse the network and print etc.

You could use GP to set their proxy settings to some bogus address or use and autorpoxy script pac file to identify the computer and block it's access. Im assuming you still want them to access network resources but not the internet correct?

We are in the middle of specing out a whole new wireless network. I've gone through all the site surveys etc and I'm down to evaluatating quotes. Last night I recieved a new one trying to sweeten there previous deal by including 802.11N for a discounted price. (But still makes their previous quote more.) We're a laptop school who right now doesn't have many laptops that use N. But are we at the point where 802.11n is a required feature for any new wireless network? Or are we still far enough away that we can save for the upgrade in the future when we can take full advantage of it?

:: I now realize this should be in the "Web Design Forum" but I don't see how to move it :: I had a board member cast a shot across the bow by sending an email saying, "We don't use technology. Our students don't even know how to make a website." This board member's 'real life' job is websites. However, we are also a laptop school with a focus on technology. Now, I read the email and thought about it for a moment. Then realized what a load of cow dung the statement was. Unless you can incorporate it into a class of 'Digital Publishing' where you can compare desktop publishing, online publishing; talk about audience, color schemes, graphic design etc. Whats the point? I don't see any point in teaching a bunch of 13 year olds that in order to make a web page they need to separate structure from design using HTML and CSS. I'm just going to end up with a bunch of poorly coded web pages full of tags. Black with purple writing and more animated GIF's then I can shake a stick at. When are 99% of them actually going to use it? What do your schools do? How/why does it incorporate web design? I know this is a curriculum question but my responsibilities include technology incorporation. I have moved the thread to the web development forum as you wanted Geoff - EduGeek Forum Moderator

I think that is because there is an Offline Address book. Outlook syncs the address book to a local copy. So while you deny the actual book they still have rights to read the local copy in the offline address book. I've tried to get rid of it too after a student decided it would be fun to email EVERYONE in her default global address book. But never got right.

I noticed that policy before, but here's a silly question.. if the person takes the laptop home where there is no network.. uhh how long does it wait? I know I could test this but if you have real experience with it.. Thanks.

Im having a problem mapping home drives properly. On the wireless laptops we have sometimes the home drive doesnt get mapped properly and it goes to the root share. Normally its just easy to tell them to logout/in and they get the drive. However, I've had some students where it even refuses to do that. So decided to do some testing. I went to the command prompt. Deleted the mapping using. net use h: /delete Then i tried to remap using net use h: /home Thats where it gets interesting. The response outputs that it has mapped drive H: to \\server\share AND that my home is the full proper home UNC \\server\share\year\username I don't get it. If it KNOWS the home UNC why doesnt it just map to it? I can manual map the drive without a problem. But when I use the HOME switch it maps to the root share. Any ideas?

Another advantage is security. For example: You can have all of administrations computers on one logical network, no matter where they are located on campus. Students computers, their own laptops or whatever, on another network. With no route between the given vlans you dont have to worry about viruses, P2P, broadcast storms, DOS attacks.. or even kids nosein about where they don't belong because there's litteraly no route for the packets to take. All you need is one smart kid. As long as you plan ahead and script the whole process I found vlans very easy to implement. I used all cisco equipment which I'm sure helped but cant imagine it being that different on other hardware.

In my last school I created a routed campus with several VLAN's using different subnets. There was also only one AD Domain. (300+ Desktops). I've just moved to a school that is one flat network with one subnet. One of the top things on my adgenda is creating a routed VLAN network. Having everyone in one big subnet makes me cringe. I like the idea of compartmentalizing. Also it makes the network more efficient when you get to larger size networks. I think one AD domain can easily run a school. You can wield it to even make it look like it's more then one domain. ie students can log into @students.school.edu and teachers to @teachers.school.edu yet its one domain.

I would have to agree with others.. Why would you want to do this? If you have an AD domain you can customize every start menu, desktop icons, IE links using GPO in one spot. Even customizing that based on the needs of the user. Seems like it would be making things a lot more complicated making that into intranet site. :: shrugs ::

Thats what I was begining to think. I've been looking at 'Classlink' which gives the student a TS session with a custom desktop where they can use the school software. It even includes a solution for the student to use that same desktop at home. If it works as advertised. Anyone using Classlink? http://www.classlink.com/ Not sure how well it would work over wireless.

Are there any other 'pure' laptop schools? I've started a new job at a 'laptop' school. Every student who enters grade 6 or above is required to either purchase a laptop from the school or bring their own. There are many problems with this type of model. But im tasked with charting the future of the program. The school board is under the impression that we can function like a college campus where anyone can bring any laptop they want. So is there anyone else who's in a pure laptop school that wants to share some info on how they do things?

I've just started in a new 'laptop' school. Right now every laptop has a fixed IP. (ugh). I was looking into switching to DHCP when I found the following. My IP is 192.168.1.33 with the subnet of 255.255.224.0. (Not even in the right class). Anyway, the current tech is issuing out IP's past 192.168.19.x which if im using my subnet calculator correctly it is going into ip range that 'in theory' don't exist for one subnet.. It should go from from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.15.254 for the first one. The second one is from 192.168.16.1 to 192.168.31.254 but considering we have no routers thats not going to fly. So how is it that these computers in 192.168.19.x work? What am I missing?

Well yes you could. However, you still have to go back and highlight each new user you created in AD. Which I guess wouldn't be a pain if all the new users start in the same OU. My AD has OU's for each grade based on YOG and the home folder structure matches it. With a script I can create all my new users no matter what year they're being placed in and automatically put them in the right OU with their matching Home Dir. All depends on the amount of kids coming in I guess. If it were only like 10 kids or so I probably wouldn't bother with a script. Misterbusy-2: IIRC, the script writes the batch file as it goes. One line for each new user. You just need a blank .bat file and make sure the values under 'set file values' is correct.

From all my testing that vb will only asign that user to that Homedir. But won't acutally create it. When I used a similar script I had to go to each user's Home Dir setting, remove and replace the last letter and click ok.. that created the folder I wanted. However, if it *should* create the homedir -- I'd be interested in finding out why in some cases it doesn't. Most scripts I've seen use a batch file to use 'cacls' that creates and sets the correct permissions on the folders. There are severall posts all ready about creating Mass Users as well as some software in the download section if you haven't looked all ready. Check out the attachment. It a script I found that reads excell, creates all the users and uses cacls to correct all the permissions on folders. Its in VB so you could customize it to your needs. new_5.txt

Another idea. If you find that there's no free channel. Remember channels overlap each other. See if your router has a setting to reduce the power output of the wireless. That way you can be using the same channel as a neighbour but your wireless isn't broadcasting far enough to interfere.

I had the same problem at work. After looking (and trying) several methods I've found the best is to white list method mentioned. All exe are blocked by default. I made sure to add all the recommended paths from MS and it seems to have worked as advertised. Just make sure you test out the policy first!

I though some edugeekers may find this interesing. techlearning has the awards for excellence in education technology here: http://www.techlearning.com/issues/2006AOE.php Some that I found interesting were: The safari montage a 2000$US server preloaded with videos. AMX-Meeting -- Online resource booking software for 1000$US! :: cough :: ePal -- safe blogging for students. NetSupport also made the list.

Thanks CyberNerd! Those Becta reports are exactly what I was looking for. Being in the Bahamas there simply aren't any schools where I can go see thin clients in action. Or even see a Demo without flying someone in. I was in fact looking at those Wyse S90's and V90's with XPe. It seems the majority of CPU cycles is being spent on web browsing -- so lets process that localy and free up the server side computing for other apps. Just seems like the best median between fat and true thin clients. Unfortunately, we have too many legacy windows apps to be able to switch to a pure linux solution. As much as I would love to do it. The Sun Ray 2 setup looks intriguing with their ability to run Windows, Linux and SunOS apps all at the same time. But I think its a bit much for an educational setup. Thanks again for the info.