Pudding

We mainly use 8 or 9 year old PC's with Pentium Core 2 duo processors. The newest PC's in school are 4 years old and have i3's. We have no plans to replace anything this year, next year, the year after, or indeed ever....... This probably doesn't help you, but I will say that the i3's run pretty well.

Whilst I'm not in a position to recommend a career in cyber security, as I don't have experience of one, I can say that you might want to consider exactly what sort of cyber security career you might be interested in pursuing. I understand that the CREST stuff is well regarded but it is only concerned with penetration testing. Personally I am part way through a GCHQ certified master's degree in cyber security (when I started there were only four accredited universities but I understand that there are more now). It does include a module on penetration testing (covering similar ground to CREST) but also includes other topics such as: malware analysis, network security, cryptography, forensics, audit and compliance. A word of warning though, as if you are anything like me, you will find that trying to implement the knowledge gained on such a course within a school environment can be... ...challenging.

We have found that we can only deploy the client from the UI if the server service is enabled on the clients. As we don't have this service enabled on our PC's (and don't want to just for Solus) we install the client using a script.

Retro Chic, Noughties vintage, Dell Optiplex 360 Core 2 Duo 2.5Ghz 4Gb RAM 80Gb 5400rpm HD Single monitor Original Dell Keyboard + Mouse Windows Experience Index 3.2 Nice.

Overview - Redmine Free and does everything you require.

Redmine -- Does everthing you've listed (and more) and its free.

Anyone want to quote me for something similar (with options of 3 and 5 year NBD warranty)? Thanks

I've been trying to do the Summer updates for FMS, SIMS and Discover but I can't because despite having already downloaded them Solus insists on checking with Capita before installing. Genius. So, I have to try to schedule another time this week when I can try and keep everyone off SIMS without knowing when Capita will actually have this appalling software working (at least to some extent) again. Then we can see which PC's have randomly decided not to update, and then we can see which new bugs Capita have decide to bestow upon us. I love Solus3 so much that sometimes it almost hurts. I can definitely see why Capita chose to ignore all standard installers and foisted this upon us instead. It really does enliven my otherwise incredibly dull and tedious work. I think that I might suggest to Capita that they allow us to deploy other software with Solus3, as I can't imagine any other application deployment system working as well as this.

When I say re-image, we use WDS (with sysprep) and AV (currently Sophos as it is cheap) is not part of the image but reinstalled with a script. There are no duplicates in AD or Sophos or indeed any other problems with SID's. Just Solus3.

I've been thinking of ditching Solus3 for all clients (except those that use the Exam module) as it is, in my opinion, the biggest pile of horse excrement I've had to install in the 5 years of working in a school (and that's saying something given the standard of some educational software). I have no idea what Capita were\are thinking but the way they ignore customer opinions just seems to be to be an abuse of their market position. For us, we have to install the client via a script (as the client won't install centrally from the Solus3 console unless we enable the server service on our PC's, which I'm not going to do just for Solus3) then hope that when the server updates, the clients will follow at some point. After getting bored of waiting we usually end up with a script to copy an updated sims.net directory those machines which have decided not to update. This seems ridiculous so I think we might just use a script for all of them. Also, does anyone know what the official policy is regarding re-imaged PC's? Like many schools we like to maintain the ability to simply re-image any PC which is causing problems. We set it rebuilding and the relevant operating system, settings, applications and printers are all reinstalled as we want them, except of course the Solus Client which we have to remove from the its own separate database, re-install the client, add it to the relevant channels and wait for Solus to catch up and think about installing something. Genius. Personally I think that SIMS should be web based or, at the very least, come with some sort of standard client installer (msi or exe). Whilst people on this forum might be "Silo'd" I would suggest that Capita might like to poke their heads out their own Silo occasionally and realise that their model is actually pretty terrible for the majority of their customers.

We use Redmine Having looked at many of helpdesk systems (including all of those mentioned in this thread) we ended with something which isn't even really designed as a helpdesk system (it's a project management application which has issue tracking incorporated within it). We find that it is helpful to have all of our projects and support work in one system and this is something which, in my view at least, Spiceworks doesn't do particularly well. In terms of using it as a helpdesk it has everything we needed: Free LDAP integration (if you want it) Web portal and email ticketing support Prioritisation

Our problem was the "Do not save encrypted pages to disk". Although I don't know why it has only now become a problem as we hadn't changed the setting recently.

IT_Man_Dan did you find the cause of this issue? We have the same thing here. PDF's on other sites open fine just not those from edexcelonline. The Exams Officer is still using IE8 on XP (although the same thing happens on all our Windows7/IE9 machines). The site worked last term but not now and, and like most exams organisations (in my experience) Edexcel don't really want to know.

I've always been fond of Thinkpads, from the first one I purchased second hand off ebay 12 years ago (which still works perfectly), to the one I purchased 6 years ago (which still works perfectly), to all the ones the school bought 4 years ago (which all still work perfectly). I've always found them to be well built and good to use (especially as I don't like using laptops without a nipple:p). I've also found it reassuring to be able to buy spare parts, not that I've ever needed to. This summer we'd like to purchase 25 laptops which will be used at least part of the time for Art and Engineering. With this in mind we'd prefer something with, amongst other things, a little more grunt in the graphics department. Given my fondness for Thinkpads I looked at the Lenovo site and found that a low end Thinkpad can be customized to the specification we are looking for. Here's the catch, although Lenovo have a product I wish to purchase, they seem to have provide no means for me to purchase them. Here is what I've tried: Purchasing direct from Lenovo -- they have a customer limit of 5 units Contacted some of the resellers listed on the Lenovo site -- they only seem interested in supplying stock options Contacted Lenovo to ask how to purchase their products -- they suggested contacting one of their larger resellers Pointed out to Lenovo that their larger resellers don't seem to be interested -- Lenovo suggested contacting a couple of smaller (non listed) resellers who should be able to help Contacted the smaller resellers -- they say that Lenovo will only allow custom build options for over 50 units So, I could purchase 1 of the laptops, or 5, or 50, or 500, infact any number of them except anything between 6 and 49. This is not only annoying, as I'm after 25, but also (at least to my simple mind) completely baffling. Does anyone know of anyone who can supply 25 Lenovo Thinkpads with a few options? Otherwise I guess our money will be going elsewhere which is disappointing as I think that they have a great product. Why won't companies accept money?

I had this web chat with Adobe customer service yesterday, make of it what you will: Adobe : Hello! Welcome to Adobe Customer Service. Adobe : May I please have your email address registered with Adobe while I review your request? Adobe : Are we still connected? Me: [email protected] Adobe : Hi Ben. Adobe : As I understand you want to know about the educational version. Am I correct? Me: Yes Adobe : I will be glad to check and help you accordingly. Adobe : Ben, you need to send us the educational documents to retrieve the serial number. Me: Which documents are you referring to? I have the serial number. Adobe : Could you provide me with the serial number please? Me: xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx for windows xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx for macs Adobe : May I know what you want to know from me? Me: We are applying to become an Academy. What are the implications for licensing with regards to Adobe products? Adobe : I'll be right with you. Adobe : Let me check that for you. Adobe : Thanks for staying online, I appreciate your time and patience in this regard. Adobe : Ben, if you want apply the academic status for the whole organization and if you want to purchase multiple licenses then you can contact our volume licensing sales team. Adobe : I am going to provide you the contact information. Me: We don't want to purchase licenses as we already have a licence. Could you tell me what the situation is regarding the licence we already have? Adobe : I see that the serial number is for volume licensing software. Me: Yes it is for a volume licence. Adobe : Have you activated the software? Me: Yes Adobe : It's great to hear that. Adobe : Is there anything else I can help you with? Me: Yes, we are applying to become an Academy, what are the implications for our volume licence? Can it be transferred? (At this point I went home.) Adobe : You can purchase the latest version by applying academic status. Adobe : Are we still connected? Adobe : Since we have not heard from you for some time, we will now end this chat. Please click to chat with us again if we can be of further assistance. Adobe : Thank you for contacting Adobe. Goodbye

Hello, I need a copy of Leopard Server (not Snow Leopard). Does anyone have it in stock or are they able to source a copy? I need a copy rather urgently after being dumped in the brown stuff by a supplier:mad: Thanks

Hello, I need quotes for 5 iMac's. Each with 4Gb or RAM and 3 years warranty. Can anyone help?