kaphc

I don't think it is in warranty unfortunately - it'll be a replace or repair job I think then. That's useful to know anyway as it confirms that it's not worth me spending an hour taking the projector down and giving it a good clean. If that sounds a bit lazy, it's not meant to be ... it's only because I visit that school every fortnight for 2 hours so I have to prioritise accordingly.

Managed to find a fix for this in the end at this thread on eduGeek

@dknsiper I'm on site at the school this morning, tested it on one netbook and all of a sudden the speed is back on Internet Explorer, and pages are loading properly! That issue has been troubling me for weeks and I am so pleased to have found a solution to it. Must be the combination of IE9 and one of the recent versions of Flash. I'll certainly keep an eye out for this in future again, though hopefully new releases will fix this.

I've always considered that Facebook was for people I know, and Twitter was for people I didn't (e.g. stalking celebs, general football banter etc). But I've just taken the plunge and created a work-based Twitter account @primaryicttech. I've followed a few people off this thread, feel free to follow me ... I'm an egg at the moment, though not for long.

It'll be a while .... most of them are booked up this year, though I would be interested in attending it in the future.

I'm really pleased that one of my schools has authorised me to go on the Thinkuknow Introductory Course in Nottingham in June. The headteacher asked me last week "Do you know anything about e-safety?" and thanks to this forum and especially @elsiegee40 I was able to get the school signed up for the ThinkUKnow resources, and start putting in place some training and resources for the school. It looks like I'm going to be delivering an e-safety talk/workshop for parents at the school at some point too. I'm happy, and just wanted to pass on my appreciation.

I'm having a weird issue with a Benq MP515 Projector. The projected image is showing little white dots at random places on the screen as it starts up, which then change to little black dots once the image from the PC is projected. It's still workable with but I'm trying to work out what to do with it. I've checked cable connections, cleared out as much dust as I can from the outside and the next thing would be to get it out of it's N-Cage (I hate those things!) and open it up for a good clean. I emailed Benq's customer support and they advised the projector's DMD chip might be failing and it will need a service. It'd seem a shame to have to repair / replace it when it's OK apart from these little dots.

Thanks for the replies. Yes that makes sense from a commercial perspective ... I knew there had to be a reason why I can't use the 2003 key. I'll check about the 2010/2013 issue as we definitely want to run 2010 for now.

I'm trying to get clear in my head how Microsoft Office licenses work if they're not on an EES and are operating on a machine-by-machine basis. We have recently bought four new machines to replace existing machines which had Office 2003 on. We want Office 2010 on the new machines (we're not going to 2013 yet, as we're only just trying to standardise to 2010!). The product keys for 2003 are not valid to use with Office 2010 are they? However, if we're quoted for and buy Office 2013, can we use those product keys with Office 2010? In other words - are Microsoft Office licenses backwardly compatible with previous versions of Office but not vice versa? Thank you

That would tally with the school I've seen this problem at. We had new netbooks and a head's PC in January and we've had to switch them over to using Google Chrome because of the issues with the speed of IE9. It's been driving me mad try to figure out what was causing it, but I knew there had to be some sort of conflict. I'm not at that site again until Monday but I'll certainly try giving access to those folders as it sounds like a probable solution.

Thanks, @dksniper, that looks useful. I have had issues with new build machines running IE slowly unless it's run without add-ons. Works fine with an admin login and Chrome works fine. It's been driving me mad as I tried to disable and re-enable each add-on without luck. Is there an issue with the new flash updates then that you know of? We're on version 11.6.

That sounds good - have they come back to you with any more info yet? Have tried the page this morning again and it part-loaded but wasn't quite there. Tried again and it went back to no css files at all. No urgency, just would like to know when there's a fix so I can report back to the school who sometimes uses it.

Bit of a bump - any ideas anyone? It's happening on the head's PC as well so it's not jsut a problem confined to the netbooks. - Open Internet Explorer, pages load really slowly (1-2 minutes) - Open Internet Explorer without add-ons and pages load fine - Open Google Chrome and pages load fine The only other connection I can make is that these are the most recent machines into the school and have had the latest Java / Flash etc installed on them. I'll maybe look at version numbers of those and roll some back when I'm in next Monday.

Just another bump / reply with more info .... Have installed Google Chrome and that works fine logged in as the pupil's login and the admin login, lovely and fast. I'm re-downloading IE9 just to check and reinstall but these are brand new netbooks so I'm pretty convinced it must be something to do with the Group Policy settings applied on those login accounts now. Even stranger ... I've tried a pupil login account on a desktop PC using the same redirected shortcut and the speed of pages loading is fine. It just seems to be a combination of the login and the netbook.

Just to add to this, the shortcut is set to start in %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH% I've tried taking this out but it has made no difference either.

Am having a problem with some netbooks in the school running Internet Explorer 9. When I log into them as a domain admin, Internet Explorer loads pages fine. des However, when I log into the same netbooks with one of the pupil logins, Internet Explorer is loading pages really slowly (between 1 and 2 minutes to load bbc.co.uk fully). When I run Internet Explorer without add-ons the pages load fine at expected speed. I've experimented enabling and disabling various add-ons but nothing has made a difference. I then wondered if it was something to do with the shortcut for IE9 on the pupil's logins as it comes from a redirected desktop. So I deleted the existing shortcut and copied over a new shortcut from a netbook logged on as a domain admin so that it was a known working shortcut. This worked, the first time I logged in and used it. But then I tested it on a couple more logins and a couple more netbooks and it has stopped again. I'm not sure if it's the shortcut causing the problem or not. The option via Start / Programs is also blocked via a redirected start menu and I've thought of adding a shortcut via there. At this stage I'm not sure which shortcut to use though! Has anyone any thoughts on how to test a shortcut for reliability? Or could it be something else?? Really scratching my head at this one.

Are there PCs in Foundation Stage which are running Windows 7 as well? Our staff plug the iPads into the PCs and then copy over photos and videos onto the network that way too if we want to use anything for the school website or the learning platform. The iPads just install in really well (not so great on Windows XP but we're nearly rid of that thank goodness). It's all fairly basic how we use them but it does what we want at this stage.

We have 6 iPads synced from from iTunes account. Each iPad is set to automatically download new apps, which then keeps them all the same. No one else has the iTunes password apart from me and the headteacher so this prevents them from downloading new apps. That's a very basic way of doing it, but with the number of devices, it works for us.

I was looking at 2Build A Profile yesterday as it seems like a useful way of recording data for the EYFS profile ... so much of it tends to be photos etc. that it is great to capture the data and upload it quickly. I know on their website they recommend some tablets. I would probably look at iPad minis as they seem to fit what the staff need size-wise, but be careful what cases you get for them. We got Griffin Defenders for our iPads which are great for stopping damage if they are dropped, but the staff end up taking them off sometimes if they want to video / take photos. As far as I'm aware from the 2Build A Profile website, all the data is stored securely on their server somewhere in Docklands, so all you'd need is to hook the iPad minis up to your wireless (adding in any proxy settings as well), and put in place some security so they don't go walkabouts and have too many other things installed on them. On the other hand .... if they have tablets to use, how long will it take before they ask for other EYFS apps to go on there (there's fab things like Pocket Phonics for practising letter sounds, letter formation etc and a BeeBot app for basic directions and simulation). If there's any chance that the tablets would be used for other things too, it might be worth looking at iPads instead with them being that bit bigger.

We have the same issue here, would be interested to know if it gets resolved.

Congratulations to the new mods, and thanks for stepping up! And also thanks to everyone who mods already, and runs the site. It's rather good.

One of my schools has Ofsted in yesterday and today. It's so quiet! The support staff are laughing and smiling. The teachers are looking harrassed. I was given an Inspection Questionnaire for school staff this morning, but given that they usually want it to be in on the first day of the inspection and we're now on day 2 then that's probably not worth completing cos they won't have time to look at it. The school website is bang up-to-date and, given that the number of visitors to it doubled on Tuesday, I'd say the inspectors were probably on there getting information about the school and that's about all I will have contributed to the inspection. :-)

Well (and it gives me great pleasure to say this!) I'm under 40. Only been working in Educational IT for 3.5 years though ... and again it's due to the factor that it gives me work/life balance now I have two children. The private sector IT I used to work in was from the age of 22 so it's kind of been my whole life once I got out of "casual" jobs from the ages of 18+.

I'm against positive discrimination too. I would be mortified if I got a job just to fill a "quota" rather than being the best person for the job. @witch - where do you get zebra-striped screwdrivers with feathers on from? They sound brill!

Ok, here's my answers - this is a very interesting thread, really enjoying reading it! How long have you been working in IT? Since about 1996 - I say "about" because I never chose IT as a job, it kind of chose me. The company I worked for was getting a new accounting package installed and everything kind of ground to a halt while they tried to get to grips with it. I was the one that figured it out, started getting it working and everything else went from there! Is this your first, second, third, etc career? Before IT, I was working in Customer Services processing customers orders and answering phone calls. I like to think the two are a good combination as it's made me a lot more people-focussed in my IT solutions. What other jobs / roles have you done previously? Well .... checkout operator, nanny and warehouse packer! It was an interesting career path as I chose not to go to university straight after A levels. Though I went back and did a degree part-time with the Open University and got a first-class honours degree in IT & Computing while I worked full-time. How many interviews did it take to get your first job in IT? None. It was more a case of the company seeing that I seemed to click with IT stuff, push more of it my way and then support me by paying for my degree fees. Since I left them, I have pretty much always landed jobs I applied for, apart from one where I was too technically qualified! Have you ever felt that being female is a help or a hindrance to gaining a job in IT? I don't think it's a hindrance to getting a job. I beat five (or more?) male applicants to get a job in a Uni as part of the IT support team. I think people take you at face value and employ you for your skills, not your gender. What I do find hard is when you talk to people on the phone - they tend to think that if you're female and don't know something, you are obviously not the IT Technician! If you were considering IT (or other engineering / programming careers) whilst at school what support did you receive? This was never something I considered at school. I did A-levels in English, French, German and Music so this was quite a career change! Now I work in schools, I look for opportunities to point out to girls that we can fix stuff and work with computers too. My pink tool case tends to go down well! Feel free to quote me if it's of any use.