amacken

Exchange CAL's are very confusing. I phoned 3 (supposedly trained)resellers and got 3 different answers. I even phoned MS Licensing helpline and got a completely different answer. The way I now look at it is that I have got Office with Outlook, therefore I have a CAL. There is also a letter or two somewhere on this site which is supposedly from MS saying that OWA is free, even though a certain very large company tried to charge me 9 grand for them (yes, 9 grand just for OWA x 100 staff) MS Licensing is ridiculously confusing

Apologies for my above post...the 5 year warranty is on PC's, not laptops as I found out today :oops:

I'm using one right now at home, and it is superb. We have a couple of hundred of Stone machines which are very reliable. Support is second to none. Also, I was at the VIP open day of their new facility this week, simply stunning. They announced that they have just bought their very own recycling facility, and as of July are offering a free 5 year warranty 8O on all purchases....stunning to say the least. Therefore they may be a little more expensive, but total cost of ownership wins hands down.

Scruff, notice you're in Lincs. I am the Service Manager/Business Manager at a school in Lincs. We have the MD of Securus up here quite often, he's a top bloke, enough in fact that we've just gone into formal partnership with the company. Happy to put you in touch with him directly, you won't regret it. Cheers

Thanks Craig, I'll have a look at that

Some eejit has created a yearbook in Powerpoint 2003 which is nearly 80Mb in size (!!!!!) which somehow I need to put on our website for download (it's about 50-60 pages). I reckon I should be able to reduce the size by a huge amount by converting to Word then undoing a load of the formatting/pictures etc, but I'm having problems converting. I saw somewhere that within Powerpoint select "send to - " then "word", but all I get is a single blank page. Does anyone know of another way to accomplish this ? Thanks

Thanks oscarod, I'll bear that in mind

It is bordering on the worst software I've ever seen. The main file to be used by the students for simple multiple choice type questions is an 80Mb excel file 8O Great fun over wireless

Jason, I think your views are very short sighted. The very fact that a company (whoever) is willing to come on here and publicly acknowledge there are faults with their product to all and sundry should raise an applause all by itself. I don't see any sales-speak in any of Donna's posts, she has replied in order to help others. The fact that a company is willing to come out of its own box and make a concerted effort to assist others gets my vote every time.

There may be another route to consider here. I was in much the same position as you last year and was not happy to take on a system that was flawed. My first piece of advice is to steer very clear of FAST. They are well documented as being nothing but money grabbers and will aggressively pursue you and the Head of Establishment. Second piece of advice is to make an approach to BSA; compared to FAST, BSA are are well documented for assisting you through your troubles. It may seem a bit radical, but once you have owned up you have got time to come up with a suitable plan to make things right. The bottom line is BSA are there to help you, FAST are there to screw you. Have a look at their website which gives some very good tips and advice.

Just to add to my post above, Ramesys quoted a couple of weeks ago for 100 users (teachers and staff) around 12 grand. They are not aware of these letters....it would be interesting to know how many other schools have paid this extortionate amount for OWA if it really is free..... 8O

Another member of this forum pointed those out to me a few weeks ago when I asked about OWA. I sent them to Ramesys to ask for clarification as they wanted to charge me a huge amount of money for OWA. They said they'd never seen them but would get onto MS to ask.....weeks have passed with no reply, and you've just reminded me to chase them up. Thanks

We use CSE ( http://www.cse-net.co.uk/ ). It's not brilliant, it's okay, but it does what it says on the box.

Let them know that all it takes is one disgruntled member of staff to make an anonymous phone call, and potentially the school will have all its hardware removed and the Head will face a possible prison sentence.

I would strongly suggest you get a rep from the E-Learning foundation to talk to yourself and the SLT. There are multiple schemes out there which can be funded, and it "usually" costs the school very little in terms of finance and manpower. The costs I have seen are reasonably good, and include 3 year next day on site warranty, worldwide insurance cover etc etc. All setup etc is done by the company, not the school tecchies.....to be honest there's too much to mention. A lot of companies have jumped on the bandwagon as they see easy money, and to be honest it is, but your first stop must be the E-Learning foundation. They can advise on good companies who they have had good relations and service with. In a nutshell, you apply to them for a percentage of funding, and it is very rarely turned down.

I haven't got an exact answer yet, but food for thought.... I've just been looking at this problem myself...currently in our school as a whole there is no way of statistically showing costs per dept etc. In order to run it properly, it needs a way of centrally managing as a whole. I have spoken to a printer company a couple of days ago who have gone away to look for software solutions for us, and apparently have just the thing (although I've yet to see it). Using this software, every single print job will require an access code (either on the printer or the teachers PC), so in other words, come the end of the lesson all the printouts can be done in one go if necessary. The access code is unique to the department, therefore at the end of each month I will be able to see who is using what. By doing it this way, it doesn't matter if it is a history class in IT, it is just the code that I am interested in which will give the statistical reports that I need. Worth a look I think, especially in a larger school

As a side line, and something that has just occurred to me.....isn't there a danger of relying too much on digital solutions ? What I'm trying to say is that if there is a fire/flood/whatever, it's possible that the digital solution would be rendered useless. Should it be a part of the risk management policy that there is always a backup plan, especially when we are talking potential danger to life ?

It might be worth a quick word with your LA. Ours have recently run a 1 day seminar for CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) which uses the ThinkUKnow website and others. At the end of that day, you are then qualified to instruct this very valuable lesson. We have just adopted it, I did the first few lessons, and another lad has now taken on all the rest....we do it currently during the Citizenship lesson and it is going down a storm with the Y9's. This is a trial to see if we roll it out with the other year groups, and perhaps the junior schools that we also support. The lesson is very interactive (you're given all the materials) and is based mostly on the kids talking back to you to share their experiences online. Very very good IMHO. Give me a shout if you'd like any further info

Hmm....interesting links there. It seems to suggest that we get access for free if1. We are an educational establishment, and 2. We are in school/campus agreement.....and I can answer yes to both. I'll post to Ramesys as well to get their take

You've never done a SIMS course then....or even worse, had them come out to you 8O

Hmm, now i'm really confuzzled, but that's not difficult 8O According to Ramesys, there is no need to purchase CALs as that is part of our schools agreement, but OWA is an extra module which must be purchased. Any MS licensing experts on here ? MS Licensing confuses the beejeezus out of me, and going by some of the posts on here it looks like i'm not the only ne :?

Ref the prices, I double checked (Ramesys) and was told that was the price (for up to 100 users, don't want it for the students), which seems huge....I might ring someone else tomorrow and ask them as well. I've already managed to buy Exchange enterprise as part of our select agreement, but I was under the impression that OWA is a completely separate module ?

Having finally convinced the school they need Outlook and Exchange, and do away with the old clunky webmail system (for staff, not students), the next stepping stone is to let them have a look at OWA. I was shocked at the price of this (for us it would be 2,500 under the current schools agreement, or 9,000 outright purchase). Does anyone know if there is an OWA trial that can be downloaded (i've had a look on the MS site and can't find anything), or does anybody use something similar (and cheaper?) Thanks

Thanks for the info John, that gives me substance for a severe grilling when I talk to them next, and I can guarantee that we won't be signing up to anything unless 110% satisfied

I'll take your comments onboard John, thankyou. But may I ask, if you are having so many problems with it why have you still got it ? You have grounds whether it's in the contract or not, and the quotation I have includes the clause that should I be dissatisfied in any way, at any time, the contract can be cancelled without penalty. Not very often you see that, and certainly shows confidence in the product. Is it a HC5500 you have ? We all know well and good that different companies have good and bad printers, even the big companies like HP and Canons. The quality on this printer is good, even if it is an elephant sized inkjet. You don't need nor want superior quality for everyday school stuff as that is a waste. We have a reprographics unit for that. I would argue about the cheaper to run bit. This huge unit uses the equivalent of 7 x 100 watt bulbs, so is therefore environmentally sound, and doesn't need to heat half of England to work.