brookesandrew

Hi, I have been asked by our RE subject lead to create a distribution list that can be used by the subject leads at the seven schools in the consortium to exchange information. Having created [email protected] as a distribution list and added all the external teachers email addresses as external contacts to our Office 365. Everyone can send and receive email sent to that address, however when someone hits reply, the reply to address is the sender of the email and not the distribution list. I've done a bit of Googling and searching through the O365 exchange admin centre I can't find a way to fix the "Reply to" address to the distribution list for internal and external users. I see Group Delegation would allow users to choose to send from the distribution list address if they wanted but it is a choice they have to make when replying (and we all know users won't), it also doesn't allow me to add the users who are external to our o365 environment, they are not even listed. There is "email options" within the distribution list settings which is set to "Type - SMTP, email address - [email protected]", if I try and add an option there is a tick box for "make this the default reply to address" but when add the address and click ok, get the error "The email address already exists in the list". Has anyone done this, and if so how? Thanks Andy

In the late 80's as an apprentice at GEC Telecommunications on placement in Contract Implementation dept. we used a CAD system (Pafec DOGS) running on Apollo DN3500 systems. These were networked on Apollo Token Ring, a couple of workstations had disk, the others booted diskless off those and ran a OS called Aegis. I remember getting into trouble once for shutting down a node one of the other apprentices was working on, if you created a remote process on a remote node then you could issue kill all processes command and that remote node would shut down, naughty and as I learnt shouldn't be done whilst a supervisor is talking to the operator. I believe Apollo were eventually bought out by HP.

Replace MS server 2003/2008/2012 with FreeBSD and Samba

3 little ones here: girl 9 boy 8 boy 2 (very almost 3) Mrs B keeps saying 4 would be a better number, but I keep reminding her how ill she was whilst pregnant with the last one.

I've not used them for a few years and if anyone asks I always tell people I wouldn't buy from them again. I've had issues returning faulty RAM and a couple of DOA hard drives in the past, many friends and colleagues from the Coventry area have had similar problems. They may have improved but I still wouldn't buy from them.

Thanks for suggestions will try them next week before a re-image.

Hair now totally torn out, found the keyboard driver is called something like Flash Card driver, have downloaded and re-installed it, no change. Have handed back laptop along with an external keyboard and asked for the teacher to leave it by my desk next Friday so I can re-image it on Monday when i'm next here and the holidays have started, should be nice and quiet to get on with, unless I find the answer before then.

Got a strange one here, we have a Toshiba Satellite Pro 660D running Windows 7 64 bit, in normal and safe mode the q,a and z keys don't work so difficult to log in unless your username or password doesn't have those letters. If I press and hold the "q" at logon screen it pops up the restart/shutdown menu If I press and hold the "a" it eventually gives "A¬" If I press and hold the "z" it eventually gives "\" If I plug a USB keyboard into the laptop then that works fine and intermittently for a short time after logging in the internal keyboard will work for these keys. If I boot in the laptop with Knoppix the internal keyboard works okay so its not a hardware fault. I can't see a keyboard driver in the device manager to uninstall, no keyboard drivers appears to be available on Toshiba's web site either. I'm running Malwarebytes on the machine at the moment to see if its caught something. But has anyone else seen this problem and know how to fix it? Thanks Andy

This one ages me, from Apollo Domain (AEGIS) in the mid/late 80's, something like doesn't fit through hatch, so I had to Google to get a reminder: error code 220009 (tape drive) decoded as: "Tape drive will not fit through 25 inch hatch." This refers to a large computer manufacturer (former employer of some of the Apollo OS folks) that once bid on a government contract to supply computing equipment for use on board submarines. They lost the contract when the government discovered that the tape drive would not fit through the 25 inch hatch used to load equipment onto a submarine. Anything that won't fit through the hatch has to be loaded by cutting a hole in the hull.

One of my primary schools in Coventry has a radio station which streams to the internet and also over their wifi network to wifi radio receivers. They use an Apple Mac and software I think called DeeJay (although I would have looked for FreeBSD/Linux/MS Windows based solution, but they had a grant and external help from creative partnerships) , they also needed a licence of some description I think to cover the music rights. I'm at that school again on Thursday so will find out the full spec and what licences were required and PM you the details at the end of the week if you are interested. Here is a link to their blog and podcasts Super Star Radio Andy

Hi All, I have a teachers Tosh A300 that the Synaptics touch pad has stopped working, the laptop went away to Toshiba to repair the keyboard, when it came back they had replaced XP Pro with Vista and the mousepad worked fine. I've used the NTBackup I made of the machine to get it back to XP Pro with all the teachers files as it was before it went away for repair. Once XP was restored the mouse pad stopped working, i've tried updating the Synaptic driver from Toshiba's site and Synaptics site but still not working, the Mouse Properties shows the Synaptic driver is being used and allegedly working properly but it not, an external usb mouse works fine. I've even just done an XP repair install to see if that would fix it but no, still a dead mouse pad, the pad works though if I boot pc-dos/ghost usb stick, so it appears to be an XP problem. I've also tried using devcon.exe to remove the synaptic driver before allowing XP to reinstall it. Has anyone seen this before, does anyone know if there is a generic PS/2 mouse driver that XP can be forced to use, or any other ideas on how I can get this mouse pad back into action under XP again? Thanks Andy

Don't know what its like these days but 5-8yrs ago when I was Chieft Technician in a university school of art and design my mac technicians used to swear by Hi Resolutions Mac Administrator (http://www.hi-resolution.com) for locking down and keeping control of early versions Mac OS-X. Since leaving the university i've not had reason to look at MacOS, but thats changing as one school has just bought a few MacBooks and i'm on a "Mac support for PC technicians course" at the end of this week, if i get the chance i'll ask about administration tools and post back any sensible reply. Andy

Thankfully still blocked in Coventry.

Just had a flurry in Coventry, lasted about 5 minutes but none settled, thank goodness. And the sun is now shining :-)

Thanks to all for comments. Lots to download before tomorrow 3.30pm so as not to use my capped broadband and then to decide which best fits my needs. Andy

I had thought about extra RAM and VM's but i'm being lazy and was hoping that a "home server" solution was out there that wouldn't require too much time to configure. Thanks for the replies so far guys.

Now that my kids at home are wanting to use the internet and email under my wife or my supervision, I feel the need for a home server again to help filter and monitor. Before having kids I used to run a FreeBSD server at home for email and web serving, a few years ago I was on an economy drive getting rid of all non-essential 24/7 electrical items, it had to go. What would people recommend as an "out of the box" *BSD or Linux solution to run on a AMD 1.5Ghz with 512MB RAM and 2x40GB HDD's, i'm at that age now where after network managing (M$ Server 2003) at work all day the last thing I want to do is get home and start "work" again, my days of being single and spending hours installing and configuring FreeBSD and server applications at home are long gone. I'm looking for an installation that installs the following: Firewall Internet Filtering (by user) Email server Web server + CMS Samba server Web based configuration Basically if it exists, a distribution that at point of install asks for my TCPIP settings, domain name and admin username and password then installs it all and tells me to access a web page to simply set up users, email aliases, shares, firewall and filtering. I don't particularly want something that installs a GUI after all this is a server (servers shouldn't have GUI's). I've just downloaded SME Server 7.4 to try, also looked at Karoshi but not sure it would suit home use, what else do you guys suggest that doesn’t need much work to install and configure? (Yes it seems I’ve been brainwashed into point, click, use mindset, or is it I value my time at home more these days?). Thanks Andy.

I've had a Dell in the past which the mouse shot across the screen to one of the corners, if you flexed the case you could get it behave until the mouse-pad/case came back into contact. Also had a Toshiba which did something similar, i eventually tracked that down to a dust build up between the mouse-pad and the case along one edge. I have a Toshiba optical mouse connected to my laptop at the moment and if the cable has been wound in a particular way in the bag when I first use it, the cable seems to lift the front of the mouse off the desk by a few microns and the mouse pointer meanders across the screen for a while. But I usually find disabling the mouse-pad and mouse-nipple and using a proper mouse is the best way to go when these problems occur... oh and for my last problem dont wind the cable around the mouse when its in your laptop bag.

You don't, but I believe you will find that your service provider has a license that covers the use of transmitting equipment by their customers. Its always surprised me as a radio ham that I could be prosecuted if I use foul language on the wireless, however the number of kids and adults you hear swearing at their mates on mobile phones (wireless transmitters) and nobody seems to bat an eyelid.... Sorry folks, i'm heading off topic.

The place to get the answers about what frequencies require a licence and what is free is: Ofcom These are the people who manage the airwaves for the government.

I used something called WinSetupFromUSB (google it to find a download) to install Windows Server 2003 on a server with no CD/DVD drive using a 2GB pen drive, it was reasonably easy and from what I read it suggested that creating a USB pen with XP to install was even easier.

Two of my primary schools have laptop trolleys, can't remember the makes, one school has a fully steel built one which is great (bought through Dell) has no problem plugged into a standard double 13amp socket in the ICT Suite, it also has lights to show when its on and charging and fans to keep it cool. The other however, i think its a Lapcaddy (but dont quote me on that, the badge fell off within a week of it arriving) made of chipboard, its about 18months old now, both locks unusable as the keys have been broken off in them. We had a seperate power feed installed which is only used by the trolley, the trolley is capable of having 16 laptops in it (8 each side), but only has 14 at present (all Toshiba) and the second I plug one the plugs into the mains the "trip" is tripped so I tend to plug both plugs in and then wander off to the cupboard with the fuse board and reset the "trip". The problem here is I am in one day a week and none of the teachers read the big sign above the power sockets asking them to check the fuse board so I often get complaints that the laptops are never charged. I am hoping the head will get an electrician in to check the sockets otherwise i'll be looking at buying a couple of surge arresting plugs and fitting them to the trolley over the summer. If I had my way none of my schools would have laptop trolleys, they seem to cause more trouble than they are worth, fixed ICT Suites are much less troublesome. Hope this helps.

That brings back memories not used that since I had an Amstrad PC1512 and a 32Mb RLL hard drive in the late 80's which I thought I would never fill. I didn't think you could low level format modern drives unless you have access to expensive test beds in hard drive factories, doesn't a modern drive remap any attempt to low level it into a standard format?

If its only file serving and print serving why go to the expense of Server 2003. Its been a few years since I did it but how about FreeBSD or Linux with Samba and CUPS serving your workgroup for free.