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Have you come across the Professor Messer materials? Professor Messer, CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, Linux, Microsoft Certification Training They are free and very informative and probably just as good, if not better, than a lot of course materials offered by online companies like ecareers.com. Obviously the exam fees themselves are still not included though, but the knowledgebase of information is amazing. I'd forgotten about it all until it popped up on my Facebook feed last night, unfortunately I don't have the time or the discipline to sit and watch stuff if I don't *have* to!

Hi Now there's a point I hadn't thought of .... the materials are cheap because the exam costs aren't included. Yep, have checked back on the details and it says "preparing for full qualifications". And the knowledge without the letters aren't really much cop. I've googled the company and the results suggest they are slow to redeem the initial vouchers and get things moving. I think I will walk away from this one, safe in the knowledge I've just saved myself some money :-)

I am seriously looking at this Groupon deal and wondering whether to bite the bullet and go for a years' worth of studying. It covers the following: "Eight Course PC Technician Package Including Maintenance, Security, CompTIA, and Microsoft Windows 7 for £79 (90% Off) This home-learning online course can transform aspiring IT professionals into competent CompTIA and Windows 7 specialists, with 24 hour support offered Monday to Friday. Available on any computer with internet access, at home, work, or elsewhere, the course is accessible for a full year, letting students swot up at their own pace. Students over 16 qualify for an NUS Student discount card. Today's Groupon offers computer technician package for £79, from e-Careers.com. The Specifics • Microsoft certified Technology Specialist course In Windows 7 Configuration (11 hours) Covers installation, deployment, and upgrading to Windows 7 • CompTIA A+ 220-701 Training Essentials (25 hours) Covers diagnosis, troubleshooting, and operating system and hardware fixes • CompTIA A+ 220-702 Training for Practical Application (21 hours) Covers installation, configuration, upgrades, and maintenance • New CompTIA A+ 2009 for Windows 7 220-701 and 220-702 (36 hours) Covers installing Windows 7, User Account Control, IPv6 addresses, and Windows 7 utilities • New CompTIA Network+ 2009 N10-005 (27 hours) Recognised by Microsoft, Novell, Cisco, HP and Lotus • CompTIA Server+ SKO-002 (46 hours) Covers areas such as RAID, SCSI, multiple CPUs, and server issues including disaster recover • CompTIA Security+ SY0-301 (24 hours) Covers security protocol skills to protect IT systems of all sizes • CompTIA A+ 2009 Essentials (220-701) • Designed to prepare students for full CompTIA qualifications • Qualify for an NUS Student discount card • 165 hours total course time • Live chat with an advisor available • Full customer support offered Mon-Fri 24 hours per day To find out more about Groupon Goods, see the FAQ." I have done distance learning with the OU so that shouldn't be a problem. I know some of these courses are not the most up-to-date, but neither is the technology in the schools I work with. I would be doing this to enhance my knowledge of existing stuff, not to be cutting-edge and with the potential to move to a new job. Does anyone have any experience of the ecareers.com company? I'd welcome opinions on this, both positive and negative! Thanks

Didn't get a chance to have a look in the end .... kid dropped a netbook which I ended up looking at instead! I'm back in that particular school after half-term, so I'll try connecting it up direct without the splitter and see what happens. I know there was some decorating done in the summer holidays in that classroom so everything got unplugged and then reconnected. It's one of those "well this used to work before the summer and now it doesn't" issues! I checked all the cabling, connections etc and it all seemed sound so I'll have to tinker a bit more with it.

Cheers, I'll give that a go and see.

I'm having an odd issue with a Casio projector hooked up to a SMARTboard via a PC and video splitter. The projected image is fine, until you try and play a DVD on full screen and then it goes black. Have tried running it through Windows media player and Interactual player and the same thing happens. When you play the DVD within a media player window and not full screen, it's fine.

Sorted it in the end! Got Microlib on the phone and they were very helpful. The main database was corrupt - it was nothing to do with user profile data. We think that there may have been a problem when there was a power cut to the school a couple of weeks back.

We have Junior Librarian 3 running on a single PC which is Windows 7 64-bit. We've been having problems with the database - one networked user account can log on fine and see the whole database, another networked user account was logging on and seeing another older version of the database. Microlib advised us to switch off User Account Control, which has been done locally on that PC but which hasn't made a difference. I've been checking the dates of the files in c:\users\xxxxxxxx\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Junior 3 (where xxxxxxxx is the network user account name) and there was some disparity of dates between the two login names. This week the problem has got worse - now neither user account (nor indeed the domain Administrator!) can see the most up-to-date version of the database. The network account that was working has now rolled back to a previous version of the database too and the dates in c:\users\xxxxxxxx\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Junior 3 have reverted back to older versions on that account! Microlib are hard to get hold of and are supposed to be phoning me back. Has anyone else had this issue and has any idea what's going on?

Got it in the end .... he was talking about Offline Files and Folders and Syncing this. The PC was set to make the folder available offline but hadn't had a sync run on it. Got it in the end!

Hi, am at a different school from normal that I'm "helping out" at (never again .... but that's another story!) Somehow the teachers laptops have been set up so that when they use their machines at home, their network documents pull down onto the machines and then when they log onto the network, any changes they have made synchronise back up onto the network copy. This is as far as I can tell from what the ICT co-ordinator has described. I've never come across this before so no idea where I might be looking to set this feature up myself. But I've been settting up new laptops for teachers and the synchronisation happens with the old laptop but not the new laptop - therefore I'm thinking it must be machine-specific that I need to do (the new laptops are running Windows 7. 32-bit, the old laptops were running Windows XP). I've tried looking at the user accounts and replicating the setup of that, but it had no effect. I'm trying to think where else to look and what it could be. Has anyone got any ideas? Thanks

Just for info with regards to Flash not being supported on iPads, there's a apparently an app called Skyfire which is a web browser you can download in the app store that supports Flash video (though not Flash apps). In terms of managing apps, we only have 6 ipads in my primary school - we have an iTunes account set up on a PC and then we sync (or restore etc when needed) from that PC. set up 4 iPads yesterday and it took just over 10 minutes for it to register as a device and load the Windows drivers, name it on iTunes and then sync the apps.

Hi, not sure whether you'll have got this sorted or not, but have you tried downloading the Clevertouch drivers from Lynx 4 update Also, I think there are UPDD drivers which work in conjunction with the Lynx/Clevertouch software - are you on 64-bit Windows 7 or 32-bit? If it's 64-bit the UPDD drivers may need upgrading as well.

We're in the same position at one of my primaries - the head wants some ipads for the kids cos she's seen a good demo of them being used. So we're having six iPads. Thanks for the ideas in this thread so far, it'll give us a starting point of what apps to put on and some dos and don'ts on how to manage them.

Chop-bust all you like, I assumed they were thick and meant CSID - certainly wasn't about to run anything on my PC but haven't come across a CLSID number before so I can see how tempting it is to be bamboozled. Yep, I'd rather know what the low-lifes out there are trying to do.

But obviously yes, it's the most important info about a computer ..... :-)

No there's nothing power at all, no lights, not even a fan whirring or anything. I might be able to try swapping the power pack but the leads are all cable managed into a tray underneath the desks and so it's like a mass of spaghetti to untangle!

Had a guy phone up last night from India / Pakistan claiming that my computer was running very slowly and offering to help fix it. "Oh yes?" I said politely and then proceeded to tell him that I work in IT and if my computer is running slowly then I'll sort it out myself thanks. On and on he went, asked me for my computer's CSID which I laughed at and then when he kept trying I told him I knew it was a scam and I was going to report him to the police. He still kept trying to get a CSID number out of me! Reported it to the police but as I hadn't been "scammed" there was no crime so not much they can do, so I ended up reporting it to Trading Standards via a Citizens Advice form. I had the contact name, company name and a phone number etc. The thing is, I had a Kryptik.AHAG trojan on my laptop last week (my own fault, I clicked on an e-mail that said "Private Message" from someone I knew). I don't think I've got it off fully yet as it freezes two different free virus scanners (AVG and ESET). Now I'm wondering if the two are linked in any way. Am not using that laptop for anything other than Skyping and the kindle app and am doing all internet browsing, email, home banking etc via my PC at home. Can't help wondering if this is more than just a coincidence?

Thanks for the tips .... had to move on and look at something else in the end yesterday but I'll take another look at this later and see what I can see - not sure about what jumpers there were off the top of my head nor the state of the capacitor but I'll investigate.

I've got a Dell Optiplex SX280 that was reporting system voltage low on the CMOS battery. So ordered a new battery, took out the hard drive very carefully, took out the old battery, put the new one in and reassembled. Found some very helpful online instructions here: Installing Dell Optiplex SX280 Battery - Page 3 - iFixit which I followed. But now I have no power to the PC at all - nada. Switching it on at the power button does nothing. I've tried swapping the old battery back and that has the same problem - no power at all now. Have checked all the obvious things like power cables plugged in at the back of the PC, power cable reconnected to the hard drive etc. This is the first time I've changed the battery on a motherboard and I can't help thinking I must have overlooked something? Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Well I hadn't come across the DISM facility before so have learned something today - thanks! I'll put KMS servers on the list of things to sort going forwards, good advice. Have got the first laptop onto Professional now, but it's knocking out some of the drivers which is a pain to locate and reinstall them. Still, am further forwards now.

Yep, it looks like a reinstall is the way to go. Unpleasantly surprised that the upgrade path isn't a straightforward option - thanks though for the advice and hints.

Well yes ... I agree the KMS server is a better solution but I'm trying to work with what the school's got in place for now (To give you an idea of their current state, I am also trying to get someone to explain to me why they have set up a Win2008 R2 server and expecting it to backup to tape drive storage using Windows Server backup!) When I asked if it would make a difference I kinda meant could I verify with the MAK keys .... just didn't word it the best way. Have tried the dism command (Dism /online /Set-Edition:Professional /ProductKey:XXXXXXXXXXetc - but am getting back: "Error: 50 Setting an edition is not supported with online images" Any ideas gratefully received!

Looking at the current setup, the school is only using MAK keys to verify as there are 43/63 activitations used, I don't think the KMS server has ever been setup. Would this make a difference?

Sounds quite complex .... am currently trying to get round it by selecting a fresh install but haven't changed the version in the registry beforehand so will be interesting to see what happens. If you've got anything written down that'd be grand. Considering the EES Agreements were supposed to make upgrades easier, I'm surprised it's this tricky!

Just to confirm, neither the school's EES MAK key or the KMS key is accepted by Windows Anytime. I try and run the upgrade disc and get prompted to go via Windows Anytime Upgrade. And Windows Anytime Upgrade won't let me upgrade because I don't have a valid key. Any thoughts?