Lee_K_81

Thanks Ric_ you've been a big help!

But i want blades. :supz: They're so geekish. I understand what you are saying about the storage, but they probably wouldnt be used for too much storage anyway. Lots more to consider.

I'm thinking Rack mounted is definately the way to go. Just so many different options. No fancy VM setup here yet . I can prob find funding immediately for 2 servers: 1 webserver, 1 for CMIS, in 6 months time depending on plans/costings/suitability we might be going the route of thin clients, especially in rooms where the most they will do is word process / internet / etc. so we would be looking at 1-2 [2x3GHz dual core, 4GB RAM] servers in there for that (figuring 1 of those for 30 thin clients, that about right ric_ or is it overkill?) So we're looking at 4 servers in the next 12 months. All our cabling \switch racks are full so we would need a new cabinet installed. I'm figuring why not go the whole way and get something like a HP BladeSystem c class. Something to REALLY kick a$$.

I prefered "theDailyWTF" name myself...... Actually on a side note webman, i showed SMT your website today as a good example of website layout, and content.... just thought you might like to know... Back to thread: I'm looking at HP Blade servers, but am i right in thinking you must have the blade system housing as this works out a bit dear....

£2????? i want that deal! i'll have 50 of them!

Any issues with heat generated by the servers? Should a gap for ventilation be left between them or are the ok stacked as tightly as possible?

Not for servers, no. The network & infrastructure i inherited wasnt that good. In my time here, in current post, i've only managed to pursuade SMT to let me buy one new server, although with everything i've done in the last year i think they will back up anything i say as long as i provide sound reasoning for it.

Just doing some forward thinking. when new budgets come out, I will be upgrading / purchasing some servers. Our server room is starting to look a *little* crowded now, making rack mountable servers seem very tempting. If anybody has any experience of these your thoughts/experiences are greatly appreciated.......

OWA seems best option in honesty. Atlest that way you can stop external email, but still allow kids to access it out of school, and email homework (lol, like that ever happens) to teachers.

Do the kids have any school email set-up? Licensing is around £1 for the CALS so depending on your budget / number of kids you want it for might be worth a shot. Even if it's only just for using an address book, sending an email, adding attachments, task lists, calendar etc.

Your should be able to download the Office 2003 GPO's off M$ to restrict them, BUT passing all the POP settings etc to the machines will be a bit of a pain. If the head is serious about this and wants to push email as a tool, now might be the time to suggest exchange server. All the kids could use Outlook Web Access (OWA), and you can set the accounts to only send/recieve internally effectievly letting them play in a sandbox. The OWA offers the basic functionallity of outlook, but wont let them bugger up the rest of the settings. Depends if you are anti M$ and dont want your email via exchange though.

Only with CRTs. The situation is reversed for TFT monitors. The backlight is permanently on for LCDs. Makes no difference as to whether it's black, white or pink with yellow spots. 25% of the planet is still using CRT, and it also applies for plasma.

We use CMIs/ePortal (tries not to whinge). used for: attendance, all assessment/progress tracking (termly for Ks3, half termly for ks4), interim reporting, parent eve reports, target setting, coursework monitoring.... only things we dont really use it for is behaviour (we use "sleuth") and SEN (use SENCo Manager). I have the "pleasure" of designing all assessment templates and reports. Printing seems to fall to me also at the moment as the reports are new and i like to check them first few print runs, but i'll be looking to off-load that at some point. edit: all teachers enter their registration via e-portal and assessment data (pushed as online mark-book) themselves. if anyone kicks up a fuss we ask for handwritten info and we get someone in to do it (member os SMT's daughter)

Are you trying to be environmentally friendly? I read somewhere, that viewing google's webpage in white used x% more power than if it was black! And the say M$ doesnt care about anybody! Google's distroying the planet one search at a time!

.....too young to care.....

Incidently, if you really struggle to read the colours of the forum (or any webpage) and cant wait for a new version, use Firefox. Go to Tool --> options. Select the content tab. Click on Colours in the "fonts and colours" panel. Select your ideal text colour and background colour, also adjust the unvisited / visited links colours as required. Untick "Allow pages to choose their own colours, instead of my selections above". Click ok, ok. Refresh page. Edugeek is now available in whatever psychedelic colours you want it. Hope this helps.......

I hope not, and with this agreement in place it doesnt matter anyway, right?

I believe you need to purchase the external connector license (pre-agreement) if people outside of your organisation need to access your OWA, in a school context this could be alumni, govenors, parents etc. i.e. people not directly employed by the school or on roll. Somebody correct me if i'm wrong please.

Somebody said to me the other day that there seems to be more people with dyslexia these days. My response was "no, there isnt. We're just better at diagnosing it". Schools have improved dramatically over the past few year. My fiancee was only diagnosed with dyslexia when she got to uni. Her school told her she was stupid and would only get a handful of GCSEs, she got 10 A-C's. and has since added a BSc, PGCE and MA to her name (literally). She actually informed me that Richard Branson is dyslexic, when he gives a speech or presentation, he learns it line for line, word for word, because reading off an auto-cue / prompter is very difficult for him. People like him prove dyslexia doesnt stop you being successful Because schools are now better at diagnosing dyslexia and are not labelling people as stupid, non-dyslexics like me are more likely to know somebody with dyslexia, which make us more understanding. I know this won't help your current situation alonebfg, but hopefully nobody else will have to go though what yourself and others have been though / going through in the future. Keep your chin up, by the sounds of it work is quite stressful at the moment, glad to hear you have a supportive wife at home, even if she does get annoyed (i must admit i do to when my missus asks me for spellings....... where's the emoticon for ashamed? ). I'm sure you are already looking for another job, hopefully something will turn up for you. Keep faith with the forum, sometimes people say things that can be mis-read, or about something they dont realise will offend. It's by meeting people with things like dyslexia that teaches us. As for the colours, they're hoping to fix that, but differnt people have different colours they see best in. We have a pupil we had to write a script for to turn everything green. My fiancee's sister need everything in claret and blue (i'm sure this is not mutually exclusive to her choice in football team also!), hopefully something where everyone could choose their own...........

One of our teachers had a load of trouble with PC World. His PC would read CD's but only after about 10 times of trying to run a game would it work, they said there was nothing wrong with it, and that it was a software issue (after keeping it for a week). He bought it in and gave it to me to look at, after 30 mins i diagnosed that the DVD-drive was faulty and not getting up to speed, only after a number of attempts was it finally going fast enough to run the game. He took it back to them, gave them my diagnosis, they kept it for another week, before accepting there was a problem and replacing the drive. Jerks!

Always wondered, but never known anyone to ask.... Do you celebrate your birthhday on the 28th Feb or 1st march? Being as you said wednesday i'm assuming the 28th, what made you pick that one?

You might have been if he'd paid you a good wage! Congrats on the new job!

ASP.NET personally. with a C# code behind. I liked C/C++ and Java so it was pretty intuitive to pick up.

So the thin station image will run on any pc thats set to network boot? Where can I buy small diskless computers for cheap! Most of the ones i've seen have an embedded OS on them.

Thanks for the quick response. If we had linux ones, would the still connect to server 2003 without any problems?