SpuffMonkey

Ummm - getting made redundant when over 40 in the IT workplace can be a real problem. I'd been around in industry for a long time, and hadn't had problems getting a job when I was younger - last time was a 'mare though and I went from being a "high up" ICT Manager to first line telephone support - miserable... When the opportunity to do this came along - I took it - at least it was interesting - if badly paid. The hours are nice though, as are the holiday periods. I still miss working in an environment where people are actually in charge though and when decisions are taken, they are kept to (...or else!) and where planning for any major changes consists of more than some spud having a bright idea. More or less resigned myself to being stuck though - as even interviews are becoming few and far between nowadays, despite experience and qualifications. *sigh*

Hoy - don't poke! No - we haven't got any yet - its Caroline Chisholm that have gone Sun in a big way...

Can't you just do this with the login time facility on windows server?

We use the built in Windows auditing combined with System Change Log http://www.greyware.com/software/systemchangelog/ which puts all the info in a usable format - it really annoys those teachers who delete a few directories and then say "the network went funny"

Freshly roasted Brazilian Bourbon coffee beans - yum

29" - which given I'm upwards of 6 foot - makes me very poor at running

Or you could have a look at the Sun Global Desktop stuff that the Cutter Project sell - I know a school here (Northampton) is going through a transition from RM to SGD at the moment - so that will be interesting - supposedly its a lot cheaper than Citrix with the same functionality - but I haven't seen detailed figures.

....old enough to know better...

AB Tutor here - its cheap and pretty good - afraid our experience with NetOp was awful - I could never recommend it.

we've got a small Citrix setup just for staff at the moment - it works pretty well and gives them a desktop as if they were sitting in school - its not a cheap option though. I recently went to a demo of Suns Global desktop - which is similar but cheaper - courtesy of The Cutter Project - I'm sure Andy Trevor from Cutter would be happy to talk to you or demo.

The Dude is pretty cool too! http://www.mikrotik.com/thedude.php

Hi If you're in the area - the BCS are hosting a talk by The Cutter Project, who specialise in using Open Source within an education environment Tuesday 6th March 2007 - 7pm for 7.30pm until 8.30pm The Cutter project A talk on the Cutter project, which aims to reduce the licencing and operational cost of desktop systems by using a mixture of free-of- charge and paid for software, allied to thin clients. Cutter provides excellent support for most existing Microsoft packages as well as the newer Open Source alternatives Aimed primarily at the educational market, Cutter will also be of interest to business users who want to reduce their TCO. For further details go to the web site http://www.cutterproject.co.uk/ Its an open and free event - and you might even get to network with other BCS IT people. Here's the flyer for the event : cutter.doc

You could always bash up a test system in VMWare and play around to your hearts delight without the risk of damaging anything

Yeah - didn't work for us either - we had to write a little program run at logon to set the key in the registry to point at the right place...

Or you could just rename it - problem is - we found - quite a few old educational type programs won't run without it - Estarters for example and some of the installer programs - so make sure you test it out thoroughly.

We have a similar situation to what you describe - so I ban on teacher's request, but if another teacher wants them unbanned, they have to get the banning teacher's permission. This slowed down the messing about considerably.

Just looking at the DNS on our 2003 DC - in the Forward Lookup Zone/_msdcs..local/Domains area# there is just one listed - which is a long string of numbers & letters - is that what I should see in there? As you can tell I'm not a DNS guru - just checking to make sure its OK. Thanks

Hi - I'm thinking of doing a MythTV server/frontend set up - how do you find it? Is it doable without in depth Linux skills? I was looking at the KnoppMyth stuff which looked good. Cheers

It goes happily throuhjgh our RBC (EMBC) with no modification - very very useful.

Works fine for us too...

I think they quoted £3 for upgrade licenses

I certainly wasn't condoning tax rises (or trackers come to that) as a good way to reduce car usage - just suggesting it be a doddle implement as opposed to some bloated badly specced IT project. Personally I think we should all be allocated a set number of miles per year that can be traded - people who don't use their cars get to make some money on the side, 60000miles a year salesmen are discouraged and a whole new trading industry is created at a stroke.

Nice and deep and still coming down here (Northampton) - nearly everything is shut - excellent!

Yeah - if they wanted to up the price of road travel as a deterrent to using your car - why not just increase the tax on fuel - it hits the biggest users most, doesn't hurt cyclists, pedestrians, greens or little old ladies and doesn't need any fancy gadgets that we all know will go tits up or give incorrect readings leading to frustration and angst. KISS baby - but then that would be too easy - no big IT firms would get enormous kickbacks and we'd all keep a little bit of our privacy - or am I just a bit cynical in my old age??

dbpoweramp is god like