Heebeejeebee

I've contaced Vanix about Aruba and left a 'call back' message - but surprise surprise no-one has called yet. I'm beginning to think I smell so bad they can't stand to pick up the phone. HBJB

Why do you ask Giles? HBJB

Nope - just about to though. HBJB

BTW - I rang Cisco direct and was told that they didn't have an education department so I went to a locally based company and guess what? They didn't ring back. ONI (www.oni.co.uk) have the slowest website in the world (!). It's a bit ironic considering their expertise (unless it's just slow here). HBJB

FFS: How difficult is it to get people to ring you back. Out of all the calls I made no-one was available so I left messages with machines or other people but not one has bothered to ring back yet. Money to spend + no call back = no order for those companies. Gaaaahhhh!! I guess I'll have to ring some more. HBJB

Yeah - that seems to work for me too. I can open my car from about 50 - 60 feet away under normal circumstances but if I put the fob on my head I can do it from about 100 odd feet away. Wierd. I think that was proved on Top Gear a couple of years back as well. HBJB

As a work around, just knock up a quick script which stops and starts the spooler service at a certain time. When I install drivers, I NEVER use the install prog, I just get the latest drivers from the net and dump then in a file - I then add the driver using the relevant .INF file. We have HP printers on site, on a 2003 SP2 server - never had a problem. All the printers are IP printers. I have knocked up a script and that's what I do - restart the spooler before school starts and again in the evening sometime but it still falls over sporadicly. All the drivers were installed from .inf files and all are the latest from the HP website. Our server is a recently purchased and installed one and is dedicated to the task. The funny thing is it used to happen on our old one as well. This does lead me to wonder if it's a driver issue and that should look in more depth in this area. Cheers HBJB

We do something similar in that we export the cover and use a php page to parse it and send a message via the intranet to the people who have the cover telling them who they're covering for, when and in what room. It work really well. It reports back to the cover admin that they've seen it (once it's been read) and those who consistently fail to read it get bollocked. Cover in .net sounds nice though and I'm looking forward to seeing it in action. HBJB

Hijack alert! Sorry. On a similar theme - we have a print server (2003 R2 SP2) on which the spooler randomly stops. No errors in the event log or anything untoward happening. All this machine does is printing and it has about a dozen printer on it - all HP. Once the spooler is restarted it's fine for a day or so, then it stops again. I can't get my head round it. Any ideas? HBJB

It may fall over if it can't find the files. Change them to wavs that have no sound instead. Does using the 'no sounds' setting not work? HBJB

I had a very similar problem with a HP Proliant server. Luckily it was under warrantee because both PSUs failed. The HP engineer said that it was entirely possible that a PSU had failed sending a spike down through the switching hardware that makes the redundant PSUs kick in and made it fubar. He replaced it and the backplane as well as the PSUs. HBJB

Sounds like you need to change the way you dish out home folders. Why are you doing it that way may I ask? HBJB

Ditto - appalling support for vast amounts of cash. Never had that one - they wouldn't dare! Absolutely! Ain't that the truth! Agreed - it's a shame the rest aren't as efficient. Well said that man. HBJB

...errrr not quite. You need to use bcdedit to edit the boot options and it has to be done at the command prompt. It's easy(ish) once you read about the options (bcdedit /?) but it's different to what you're used to. HBJB

Thanks for the info people. I'm going to ring a local Cisco partner tomorrow and also some of the other names to see if I can get moving on this. Ta HBJB

@DFS - re: Trapeze - have you go these units or something else?. >> They look like smoke alarms. @Linescanner & Mattx - are these the folks? >> Link Got any contacts I should be talking to? HBJB

Yeah - but the reply when I hand the quotes over will be "I though it would be under £500". lol We've been researching the Cisco kit and it seems nice - they even do an armoured outdoor unit that looks like a cross between a pig and a tank. HBJB

Hi, My Head has just told me to 'go out and get' a fully reliable wireless system to compliment our existing network and to replace or current crappy set of cheapo wireless APs. Money seems to be no object but I suspect that it will be when she finds out the prices . We ideally want a centrally managed system that does not fall over all the time because the surrounding houses with wireless units share the same channels (and there are a lot of them). Our laptops vary in age so some are b/g, some are b/g/a and the newer ones are b/g/a/n (draft). All of the houses around us seem to only use 'g' at the moment so we may be able to get ahead of the game for a short while by using 'a' on the laptops that support it. The trouble is we'd have to flood the school with both a & g since all the laptops could move around. Do any of you guys know or use any companies that can give us a free survey and supply and fit good kit or have any advise about the sort of things we're looking for? Cheers HBJB

Our tour of the school is done by a bunch of responsible students who then give feedback to the interview panel. Their opinion counts to about 20-25% of our 'points' system depending on the role. Make sure you come across as 'kid friendly' and talk with confidence. HBJB

Allow me to edit this to: 2. all the taxi drivers :x HBJB

Incremental = all changed/new files since the last backup (any type) Differential = All changed/new files since the last full backup. HBJB

Half the point of a backup is to be able to restore files that users have deleted accidentally. If you remove deleted files from the backup set there's little point in having it for user files. I'm not even sure any backup software will remove files from a backup set since it's simply not done. Full backup and incremental/differential is the way to go. Only changed and new files will be added to the backup set making it much smaller than the full backup. You'll want to keep old backups for a specified number of weeks/months as well. I assume you're using NTBackup? HBJB

I've got 5 of them on my desk at the moment. All working but not good enough for use in school any more. I think I'm a couple of chargers short though. HBJB

You can still be tuped from a foundation school via the BSF scheme. We had a bloke in the other week trying to tell us that nothing would change when it happpens but our reply was 'Yeah right - of course not'. Our says that we'll be tuped 'over my dead body' but the way I see it, if the the head wants the school rebuilt we'll have to be tuped out. It's all been agreed in the BSF contracts. HBJB

So it does :oops: Never noticed that before. HBJB