gwendes

This is my exact situation atm but multiplied by 30! 7 minutes becomes over a lesson... I can't change SSID on the access points because they are all managed by the switch on a single SSID... Another tech is going to learn about Aruba from Aruba soon - hopefully they will have a solution

Surely this doesn't apply to WMA files that the students produce. We have audio recorders that are used for the radio station here and they record to WMA. I have to strip this for Audacity to touch it- is that naughty?

Here too - we never get anything for long - too much salt about. All open and sunny

How have you done this?

I know that pain! I can do about twelve at a time overlapping them but it is not fun... I'm creating a new image atm and the plan is to image the entire disk with an image on the second partition so hopefully no more cat5!

Yes The access points are all over the school site - the switch can produce a site map showing perfect coverage. The signal strength is fine I just need something to point at where the problem is with a big red arrow! Everyone knows that wireless networking works by magic anyway...

Sort of - the Aruba is supposed to be intelligent. The building has 5 access points that are apparently capable of around 50 clients each. It is supposed to force traffic to others if it is busy. Each room has about 3-4 available but the houses across the road are starting to be picked up too. I really hate wireless.

Yes - I have exactly the same problems logging on 30 laptops in the same room at the beginning of a lesson using Aruba wireless hardware.. No solution just yet. New wireless cards, drivers etc and yesterday there were some kids that hadn't completed the login in 50 minutes!

Doesn't seem to trouble the kids too much!

I think that installing Squid is the plan ultimately. This will need to be done with the other techs in the school though as I work in a training centre on the school site. My rack only has a DC, switch and uplink to the main server room. We seem to be running out of space for beige boxes running linux!

Perfect example. Phonefox.com is banned - classed as 'WebChat' by Websense. So is eBuddy. If you search for 'resolve ip' in google.com then select the first hit http://www.webyield.net/domainquery.html and do a reverse lookup on http://www.phonefox.com you get the IP 193.238.162.21 This IP is not banned. What I have done is to block everything that begins with a number x.*.*.* so students on the network can no longer use IP addresses. Am I missing something really obvious? Do other people have this problem?

Doesn't that make for a very difficult to use web experience? For example if I searched for information on blocking meebo? It is already filtered as 'webchat' through the LEA. What about sites that don't use the name in a text format - maybe the logo is an image? Meebo is the first of many I fear... For now my way is working and staff can still use the internet...

They don't type in 'meebo' - they all use IP addresses. We've blocked a lot but they keep finding more. Blocking the majority this morning seems to have ruffled a few feathers so I think they'll find something else soon... got too much else to do atm

Unfortunately the teachers are not consistant- this can be use of mp3 players in lessons, mobile phones, IM or other websites, email - I just want a simple, effective all out ban...

The LEA already block meebo - the kids use IP addresses - loads of them...

Unfortunately the IP keeps changing. I have come up with a bodge though. Proxy exceptions for 1/220.*.*.* - seems to work a treat but I ran out of space in the little text box so 221/255.*.*.* is still ok - if they find a meebo.com mirror there...

Looks like decent software - going to investigate Thanks

Just using the LEA proxy and the exceptions list in IE7 for ease and speed.

Just looking for the simplest option - wanted to avoid software if possible. I'll keep looking a little bit longer, didn't want to introudce another proxy to our system!

We have a problem with meebo.com. The kids are very talented when it comes to finding a new IP address for this site - even blocking entire x.x.*.* ranges there are more. What we've decided is we would like to block the use of any IP address for the students. Has anyone done this? We have just been adding any new addresses to the proxy exceptions list - is there a wildcard to throw *.*.*.* into the ether?

and the lies... oh the lies... User gets virus then switches to Mac V User finds that he didn't understand how to use a computer in the first place - hence virus. V Mac goes back in box - another notch on Apple's bedpost - another clueless user does not call technical support... what am I complaining about?!? This is perfect. "Sorry sir, I cannot support MacOS" Damn, I work in a school now

The majority of people here are united in the opinion that Windows is better than MacOS. But then we are employed in IT and, I would hope, have an IQ over the average computer user. With experience, knowledge and intelligence - what do we know?

I was a bit lost as to where I should start looking! She needed a database or spreadsheet to do mailmerges from - so a csv online was perfect. I've made a list of Portsmouth only and she's sorted it - getting rid of the obscure nurseries and primary that we don't tend to deal with. Should be very labour-saving anyway.

Exactly. That's why I can't stand these Mac adverts. If Microsoft stopped selling to crappy OEMs that make bad budget computers and started manufacturing their own 'PC' to compete with the Mac there would be outrage. Microsoft make an operating system - that's it. And it does work. It's very good. If it wasn't good then people like us would be converting schools over to opensource alternatives, but we all know that would be even more of a headache. All software is flawed - no software is ever finished.

Thanks - perfect. I took the liberty of adding it to the wiki...