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What temperature the sprinkler activates at depends on the model of the head. It could be as low as 135 degrees F (57.2 C) or higher than 200 degrees F (93.3 C). The most common activation temperature is 155 degrees F (68.3 C). At the last school I worked at, they had a "wet" pipe system in the server room with a head almost directly over the rack. It would have been too costly to switch to a gas-based fire suppression system so we instead switched the head out to a "concealed" one where there is only a small cover plate exposed below the ceiling tiles (the head pops down if temperatures start to approach its activation temperature). This eliminated the risk of someone/something accidentally hitting the head and setting it off.

I managed a Ruckus implementation at the last school I worked at. I was really happy with the system and had no complaints from students, staff or SMT. Many users reported significant speed increases over the previous D-Link Wireless Network. The ability to create time-limited guest passes also significantly increased network security. How big is your ruckus install? 10 APs, one Zonedirector 1112 controller How reliable is it? Very. The only time we had any issues was when applying firmware updates, and even those were very minor How many devices you have on it? The network had relatively low concurrent use. I think the highest concurrent use was about 30-40 devices. Any problems you have had? Some firmware updates failed to apply successfully the first time or made the controller lockup momentarily. Each time, power cycling the controller and trying the update again resolved the issues. Did you self install or get a third party to install? We self installed. Our site team ran the network cabling to each AP location, I terminated & tested the jacks, and mounted the APs.

As long as the server is reasonably well powered, recording 30 cameras should be no issue. I've seen one school that was recording well over 80+ IP HD cameras to a single Dell PowerEdge server. Their server had 2 CPUs and 15k SAS hard drives, both of which should help with the performance of the system as the number of cameras increase. How fast is your network backbone? If it is 1GB or 10GB, I would not think 30 cameras would slow it down significantly. If it is 100MB, I would recommend upgrading that before attempting the camera upgrades. For both performance and security reasons, I would also recommend using a separate VLAN for the cameras. The DVR server that would capture all the video could then be placed on both your CCTV VLAN and your data VLANs as long as it has two network ports (if you place it just on the CCTV VLAN, there would be no way for SMT to view the footage over the network, which would probably be an issue). Alternatively, if you wanted to be even more secure, you could build an entirely separate physical network for just the cameras (separate switches and wiring that would be used just for the cameras). This would also eliminate any potential performance issues. I would recommend using POE for all cameras, both internal and external as this allows you to keep everything powered up during power outages by just putting your switches and the DVR server on a UPS. Otherwise, getting each camera on a battery backup becomes more complex and expensive. The other advantage of POE is that if a camera locks up or has a strange issue, you can simply login to the network switch and cycle power for that specific POE port (much and easier faster than having to get on a ladder at the camera itself to restart it). For the exterior cameras especially, check on the light requirements to make sure they would be usable after dark. If you have good external lighting, this would not be much of an issue though. Hope this helps.

You could probably do this with an AutoIT macro. With the AutoIT record app, you can record your clicks and the action of typing in the login credentials. It will probably require a few rounds of testing and editing to make it work right, but it is possible.

Take a look at Alertus Desktop: Alertus Desktop Alerting Software - Alertus Emergency Mass Notification Systems - Alert Beacons, Desktop Alert, Text-to-Speech Interfaces, Signage Override

Kantech is actually produced by Tyco, which is the parent company of ADT. My last company had a Kantech access control system installed by a small local security dealer (unaffiliated with ADT) and it worked very well overall. When issues came up, we generally called our security dealer but we were also able to call Kantech tech support directly if we ran into a software related issue. ADT will probably provide all of your hardware and nearly all of your software support for your new Kantech system. My last company did not have the WebStation or CardGateway, so I can't comment on those aspects directly unfortunately.

I've found that if you set the Volume Shadow Copies limit on the specific drive to a really low level (like 320MB, the minimum possible) and then set it back to whatever it was set to previously, it will clear all the old volume shadow copies from WSB. One one of my servers, this freed up over 20GB of space.

I had a great experience with Ruckus wireless. Setup was simple and performance was excellent.

I was able to reduce the first logon total time for a new user to about 25-35 seconds (on i3 4GB desktops, standard HDD) and the second logon for an existing user to about 5 seconds by doing a few things: >Cleaned up the default profile to include the minimum items (clear temporary files, delete Google/Adobe/Java cache folders, etc). The default profile was initially over 350MB. Once I reduced that to less than 50MB, it sped up the logon process extensively. >Cleaned up ActiveSetup keys in the registry I would have liked to have gotten the first logon time a bit faster than 25-35 seconds still, but I changed jobs before I had a chance to finish that up.

We just purchased an OSX Lion Mac Mini server and 4 iMac computers. I plan to create a base image on one of the iMacs and deploy to the other 3 using DeployStudio on the Mac Mini server. SMT wants the iMacs setup by early next week, but I'm fairly new to Macs so I have a few questions that I'm hoping one of you can help answer: 1. I need to install iLife on all 4 iMacs. iLife 2011 came bundled with these iMacs (they came with Lion from the factory) but it has to be downloaded from the App Store. My plan was to create one App Store account for the base image iMac, download and install iLife on the base image iMac, then upload the image to DeployStudio. Would this plan work ok, or is there a different way I need to setup the App Store account? 2. We purchased boxed copies of Logic Express & Aperature. Would there be any problems if I simply installed one copy of these to the base image iMac, then uploaded the image to DeployStudio? We have enough boxed copies to legally cover all iMacs. 3. Am I correct in that Apple Remote Desktop has to be purchased via the App Store and is not included in Lion Server for free? Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

We tried GPP when we first migrated to Windows 7. It worked but it added about 30-45 seconds to each fresh login (and since we use Deep Freeze, nearly every student login is fresh), so we ended up going back to a script. Here is a link to the script from the Edugeek wiki that we use (it works great for us and only adds about 1 second to logon): Printer Addition Based on Location - Wiki

We used to use Squirrelmail and found that on the newer word document format (.docx), users had to click the "Download" link rather than clicking the file name to be able to successfully open the attachment. Otherwise, it would download as a corrupt zip file due to a glitch in the way Squirrelmail handles .docx files.

@glennda: Thanks for pointing me to that checkbox to show the system files. Not sure how I kept missing it, but now I see it. @ScottLogan: I had noticed that GPO printer deployment seemed to add quite a bit of time to the logon process, so I switched to a VBScript similar to yours earlier in the month, which reduced logon time by about 40 seconds. I was not aware of the update needed to get IE9 extensions working though, so that is very helpful information. I'll dig down further into the Group Policy logs. Thanks!

Thanks Kogelkopper. I did some testing, but unfortunately for us, it does not matter if I logon immediately when Ctrl+Alt+Del appears or if I wait 30+ minutes. I did a bit more analysis and it appears like the delay is only on the 'Please wait for user profile service' part of the logon now. If this is the first user to logon since the last restart, it takes about 24 seconds for complete logon. If this is the second (or beyond) user to login since the last restart, it only takes 7-8 seconds. Almost all of the extra logon time seems to be spent on the Please wait for the user profile service part (everything else takes about the same amount of time regardless of if this is the first user to login or not). I dug down in the event log (the User Profile Service log) and found the following sequence of events on first user logon: >(0 seconds) Received user logon notification on session 1. >(12 seconds later) Registry key C:\Users\studentuser\ntuser.dat is loaded at HKU..... For the second user, obviously the path on step two updates to reflect correct username, but the duration between the two steps is only about 2 seconds. Now for my questions: 1. Even if I show all hidden files, I do not see a ntuser.dat file in either the user folders or the default user folder. Could this be part of the problem, or does Windows just always hide this file? 2. If I do a nslookup domainname.local, it shows all of our DNS servers for both our Data and VOIP vlans. The workstations only have access to the Data vlans. Could the fact that it displays the DNS server addresses for the VOIP vlans part of the problem? 3. Any other ideas on the difference in logon times? Thanks for the continued assistance.

For a virtual desktop environment, I'd recommend VMware View. The nice thing about VMware View is that if you use VMware for your other servers as well, management and licensing can be a bit simpler. While traditional VMware pricing is expensive, some great academic discounts can be negotiated for schools. I've seen a VMware implementation at another school and used it for a bit while I was there. It took this school several months to get all the bugs worked out, but now it works quite well. A few points: -Blade servers can work well for VMware View, because it makes adding capacity much simpler. That being said, traditional rackmount servers could also work. Either way, try to minimize the number of virtual machines on each server as much as possible to improve performance. -A high speed SAN (ideally 10GB iSCSI) connecting all the servers together is important and if the SAN is powerful enough, you could also run all your virtual servers on it as well. If you get the same brand SAN as servers (ie Dell for everything or HP for everything), then you have a single support contact, which is great if something goes very wrong. -While virtual desktops can use less bandwidth, a constant and reliable connection from clients to the VDI server is essential. You should try to plan for a 10GB backbone from each IDF closet switch back to your core switch, over fiber, for the best possible performance and future expansion possibilities. -If you are going to be using VMware View over wireless, a highly reliably wireless network is critical. If the signal drops out for more than a few seconds, the virtual desktops disconnect, which is very frustrating to users (and may cause them to lose data if they are using a non-persistent desktop pool). Ruckus or Xirrus wireless may be a great choice for this environment, but whatever vendor you choose, include plenty of access points. The school I know of that uses VMware View tried to run a classroom of about 200 laptops with the View client over wifi and did not have enough access points nearby (causing the few that they did have to get overloaded, which ended up crashing their Aruba wireless network). They are now having to go back and double the number of access points across their campus. -For laptops, pretty much any laptop could be used for thin clients (or even Android tablets/iPads). A small laptop would probably be more practical for most student use than tablets, though. -If you want to run thin client desktops from VMware, take a look at Samsung's PC over IP monitors, which integrate a VMware View client inside the monitor (NC240 - OVERVIEW | SAMSUNG). These are great for an internet kiosk and light classroom use. If you do implement VDI, you need to decide how much virtualization you want to do. Do you want to virtualize just the student lab machines to allow for mobile carts? Do you also want to virtualize the classroom and office computers? The great thing about VMware is that you can setup multiple desktop pools (ie Non-Persistent Lab pool for students that resets on each logoff; a Persistent Faculty pool that gives each faculty member a desktop that never resets; or special Pools for users like the Finance Office that might need special accounting software) and users can access any desktop pool they are entitled to use from any VMware client. Obviously, if you offer a lot of users Persistent desktops, your VM storage needs will increase.

Well, I've gotten closer to a solution on this. I applied the registry fix Archey linked and that sped up the logon time some. I then deleted the stubpath entries for some of the Active Setup items in the registry (Media Player, Internet Explorer) as these items are set through Group Policy anyways - this sped up the logon time significantly. I tried enabling the wait for network in gpo, but this did not speed up the logon time. I also removed the GPP printer mapping and used a vbscript instead, which sped up the logon time by about 15 seconds. So, before the logon times for a new user were averaging about 60-75 seconds, they are now averaging about 25-30 seconds. However, what is strange is that if after any user has logged in and then logged out, if any other user logs in after them (on the same workstation, without restarting), logon only takes 7-10 seconds, even if they have never used that computer before. Any ideas why the logon for the second user would be so much faster than the first? I'd like to get the logon time for the first user down a bit more. Thanks.

A few suggestions I have: 1) Wireless - reliable sitewide wireless will be very important if the students will be using personal devices or school owned laptops. If you get a managed system like Ruckus, overprovision the number of APs to ensure really solid coverage. Looking back, if I had to do our wifi implementation over, I would have at least 1 AP in every classroom, and 2-3 APs in the larger rooms. This will reduce the load on the APs and provide redundancy in case an AP fails. 2) Servers - unless you can get very fast (at least 100mb, ideally 1000mb) internet, on-site servers are probably a better solution than cloud servers. If you go with on-site servers, look into virtualizing as much as possible, using either VMware or Hyper-V. When you get your new servers, Dell (and probably HP as well) will help you spec the equipment and licenses for this. For any on-campus servers/SANs, get the premium support coverage from Dell (ProSupport) or HP, as this is invaluable when something goes wrong. 3) Desktops - standardize as much as possible on one model and configuration, and have at least 5-10% spare desktops and monitors in a closet for failure and future expansion. If you standardize, then replacing a failed system is simply a matter of swapping out the physical system with no major impact on the user. 4) VDI - starting fresh, it may be worthwhile to investigate Virtual Desktops. This could not only reduce maintenance time on desktops, but also provide anytime, anywhere access from student personal devices to a virtual lab computer. It may be difficult to use VDI for applications like the Adobe suite due to memory requirements. 5) Phone system - I suggest you look into a hosted VOIP phone system, like Onsip (as long as you have a reliable internet connection). 6) Classrooms - I recommend having a desktop (or VDI thin client) in each classroom rather than laptop. For us at least, this has been much simpler for the teachers. You should also look into an AV control system like Extron to make controlling the projector/monitor, speaker system, screen, etc much simpler for the teacher. Wireless mics for the teachers may also be beneficial in the larger rooms. Smartboards would be very useful, as long as the school makes investments in properly training the teachers on how to use them. 7) PA system - For the classrooms that will have a projector, you should look into integrating the projector speaker system with the schoolwide PA system. Not only does this reduce the number of speakers on the ceiling (making it look nicer), but then you can program it so that the projector audio mutes when a page comes though, ensuring that staff can always hear the announcements. We upgrades some of our classrooms to have this functionality recently and it was a fairly simple (and fairly economical) setup process. 8) Computer Labs - If you use VDI, rather than having a computer lab, you might look into having multiple carts of laptops running the VDI client. Otherwise, if I was setting up a new school, I would design a PC-based computer lab to be in a large room, with the room dividers like hotel convention centers have. This way, the room could be one really large lab, two medium sized ones, or four small labs. It provides a lot of flexibility for the future. It would also be ideal to have an IDF closet nearby and homerun a network port from each computer station in the lab to a switch that is connected to the core by fiber. As for Macs, I would suggest having a small graphics art lab setup with Mac computers to give students experience on both platforms. Ideally, each station would be setup with Wacom tablets and video editing hardware. You might also want to have a small lab for music composition, with MIDI keyboards. 9) CCTV - A reliable CCTV system is important, and IP is best for most new installations. Night vision dome cameras placed around the exterior of the campus buildings (especially focused on each exterior door) is a great start. Interior mini cameras (like iQEye Alliance Mini) are quite small and unobtrusive, and would be great for monitoring all the hallways (and classrooms, if your school is on-board with that). 10) Access Control - Since you are starting from scratch, an IP-Based access control system (like HID Edge) would be something beneficial to consider placing on exterior campus doors, and certain interior doors (like computer labs, IDF closets, server room, maybe even offices if there was enough budget).

Thanks. I looked at ShairPlay and it looks like it would work well for showing media files, but does not currently support mirroring the display. It looks like the only wireless option to mirror right now is Apple TV, so we'll probably go with that. Hopefully more vendors release software that can mirror the display in the future.

We use Ruckus. It really works great, although we purchased the single band "N" access points; if I had to do the install again, I would have gone with the dual band "N" access points to give a bit more speed and more capacity for the future.

No, I have not found anything yet, unfortunately.

SMT is wanting to wirelessly mirror the display of iPads (running ios5) to some of our Dell classroom computers, running Windows 7 (these computers are connected to projectors). Does anyone know of a Windows 7 application that can display content mirrored over Airplay, like AppleTV can? I've found a few applications that can display Airplay content, but none of them seem to support mirroring the display. Thanks.

Thanks Archey. I double checked and unfortunately all of our computers are set to use the default Windows 7 theme rather than a solid color background.

Thanks Arthur. I just tried both of those KB patches, but unfortunately, it did not improve our logon speeds.

Have you tried reinstalling the software on one of the student machines that is not connecting?

We have roaming profiles, where everything except app data and cookies are redirected to user folders on the server (app data and cookies are stored locally on each machine and cleared on each restart by Deep Freeze).