Tricky_Dicky

When we bought the Casio LED projectors we bough some specific RM cases that go with them that fit the promethean poles perfectly. IDN supplied them for us, can dig out the contact if you would like? Rich

I was planning on running hosts for the DC, Print, Moodle, Exchange, Apps so over the two hosts maybe 12Gb? The San has 4Gb already I think (will double check) so hopefully that will be enough. I'm pretty sure it's a proper NAS box because it's listed on the Intel website as such and when I was looking around the openfiller site it actually has a picture of it Products. So the basic plan is get another NEC machine, 12GB+ of RAM to spread between the hosts, OpenFiller on the Intel Box and then link it via iSCSI, VMWare ESXi on the main machines. Is there anything I need to bear in mind when running a P2V on the main DC? Thanks again for everyones input. Rich

Cracking. I was also thinking of trying OpenFiler, it looks really good and it I bonded the NICs together or put some extra cards in it I think it will do the job well. Good thing about this server is that it hasn't been used a lot and as such it's relatively easy to just move the data from it on to a backup box for the time being. How much RAM would you recommend in each of the servers and the SAN itself? Rich

Thanks guys, that great info. Glad the chips support virtualization, makes things cheaper. I was looking at ESXi as it seems to be very popular and I don't need automatic failover. If a server dies it would only take a few minutes to get it up and running again which is no worse than now.Do you know if you can upgrade later on? The biggy is the iSCSI and I just don't know.ggrrrr. I've been having a look around the Intel site and can't seem to find any information about it and the supplier hasn't got back to me yet about it either. Is there anyway of telling from the machine its self? Like I said it's running Server 2003R2 at the moment. Thanks again Rich

But isn't that just going to split one signal to 16 screens and treat them as 16 individual screens?

No you don't need 9 computers, in fact I think that would make it really hard to do. Is it something like this :Wall Solutions you are looking for? If so, then a specialist graphics card in a reasonably powerful machine will do the job nicely. Rich

Hi all, I'm looking at trying to split some of the workload from the main server into virtual machines and some additional roles so that when I need to do some maintenance it only affects a small area and doesn't involve taking down the whole server. I currently have an NEC Expression 5800 with dual Xeon E5504 and a separate storage server which is just acting as a NAS at the moment which is an Intel SSR212MC2RBR. I was wondering if I added a second Expression 5800 could I use the Intel storage server as a SAN and virtualize my machines? If I was going to do this, what software would I be best to use? The servers are both currently running Server 2003 but I would really like to get them onto 2008R2. I was looking at the free XENserver as it can do a P2V during install which will save a lot of work. Thanks in advance Rich

We got an email from a Darren Laxton regarding our details, might be worth giving him a shout

It also seems to be blocking access to "What's new"...

That's what I would do. Most of the cheap and simple MPS players will let you just drag songs onto it and then you can just plug a normal 3.5mm cable in and away you go. Rich

Buy an APC rack. I tried to save money and buy a slightly cheaper Mayflex one and it's just rubbish. Poorly made, doesn't fit together well, had a right game installing servers etc. With the APC racks I used in a previous life they were so much better and so much easier to find accessories for. Rich

We set up a system with the help of Psquared. They do a school radio kit for about £6500 which is all set up, installed and trained. It is then sent around the school on the network so everyone can listen to it on their PCs and also streamed to some outdoor speakers. Well worth the money in my opinion as the children get a huge amount of enjoyment out of it and I could just let them do the work otherwise it is just another piece of equipment that I have to support.

If I recall correctly Windows Media Encoder won't recognise any TV tuners, what you need is a normal composite input device and run an analogue signal in through that. So a basic capture card and an external Freeview box will do the job nicely. Have you managed to get the media bit working with an audio stream yet just to check it's all working? Rich

That's great, thanks guys

Hi, This might be a really stupid question but, if we have 5 servers in school which have all been purchased with their own Windows Server 2008 licence how many CALS do I need? We have 220 machines and 750ish users, so do I need 220 client licences or 220 * 5 = 1100 licences because all users would access all machines? Sub question, does the same licensing apply if the machines are virtual? Thanks Rich

Hi, I know what you mean, the iPhones work fine for the streaming here as well. I suppose it's just a new piece of software and they have overlooked the problem. Don't know how you log a service request with Apple but it would be worth doing. How are you getting on with the iPads in school otherwise though? Are the children/teachers liking them and actually finding them useful instead of just a gimic? Rich

We trialled an iPad in school behind the BGFL firewall and think the problem is down to Proxys. You can specify which proxy to use on the iPad for port 80, however many things use other ports and there fore it can't negotiate around the proxy. Have you tried it at home to see if it works on a "normal" internet connection? Hopefully this will be fixed in a software update because it wouldn't even let us stream videos of any kind...

Is it worth setting up an SCCM server for deploying Windows 7 and then further updates or will WDS and MDT do the job for less money? What are people using for deploying updates in windows 7? Rich

We had ours demonstrated on site by IDNS, they then supplied 6 of them for a very good price.

We are having the company who are supplying it come in and do the install and some training with staff. Doing it that way for a couple of reasons, firstly if it doesn't work they don't get paid so it will work before they leave and having the training by the same people means we get consistency and hopefully the best use out of them. Rich

Hi Alan, We are in the same boat. We are getting 31 education edition iMacs along with a macmini server at the moment and the machines will be part of our normal AD network so the children and teachers can log on with their normal usernames/passwords. Have a word with some of the mac specialists who will be able to help. KRCS and AT are two of the bigger ones. Rich

Does anyone know how to download a list of contacts from with Zimbra to a CSV? We have quite a few office staff who want a new list and have far too many emails to move over to using everything on Zimbra and so would like to download the contacts of staff.

Just wondering, why do you need iTunes on laptops around the school? If it's for synching iPods/pad/touches then surelly a desktop machine would be better due to space?

We have the entire tray disabled for exactly the same reason but Papercut still runs fine. If they minimize the main windows it just dissapears which is no bad thing. Don't forget to disable the bit that allows people to transfer balances to each other (some clever kids figured that one out quick sharp) Rich

Hi, Why do you need to re-enable it for Papercut? The information for papercut is in a window in the top corner of the screen by default and if the kids minimize it without checking they have enough to print it won't do any harm to yourself. Rich