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You mean software surely? I'm using El Capitan and had the same problem with Yosemite.

Absolutely! I'm not anti-Mac - I have one at home, and have used Mac OS X since the first OS X iMac (the lampshade model). I prefer Windows personally, and moved to a Windows desktop as my main machine after Windows 8 came out. I am now on Windows 10. As ICT Coordinator I like a mixed economy - at school we have Windows, Macs, Surface tablets, iPads and a couple of Android tablets. All have their uses. I just hate the 'Apple is best whatever' mentality of the fanboys. I personally instigated Macs in our music department because I felt they were the best solution for music. Yes, mrbios, I absolutely agree that technical staff should not be making decisions about teaching and learning. They should support and implement what the school decides, giving advice along the way.

Yes, about 25. They have been a PITA, but the techies will not accept the problems and always blame the fact we have Windows servers and say AD is the problem. I see that a lot - Apple users are happy to dismiss all sorts of problems with iPhones, Macs and iPads that they would bitch and moan about were they any other brand of devices. It's almost comical. Now we have Casper Suite they reckon all our problems are gone . . . . Personally I have found OS X is not as robust as Windows. At home I have a Mac and a PC and the Mac will lose connection to network devices like my NAS and these need to be manually re-mounted. I have tried various scripts to check for a connection and remount if one is not found, but Apple seems to change things at a whim stopping the scripts from working. If Windows loses a connection (say because or a firmware update on the remote drive) it will re-connect automatically. IMO it's about the brand and some people think they are somehow superior by buying into the brand - Apple is very good about cultivating the perception that its products are better with no justification in reality. Anything OS X or iOS doesn't do is countered with 'I don't need that anyway' or 'who needs more than 720p on a phone?' or 'an SSD is so fast anyway you really don't need the extra optimisations Windows offers' and so on. You can never win an argument with an Apple fanboy (well you do win, but they never accept it!).

As the original poster I completely agree! Currently they are using Casper Suite to run 25 iMacs and they feel this is robust enough to run a full network of 300+ machines. Unfortunately (lol) I'm taking early retirement at Christmas from my job as ICT Coordinator so my influence is currently minimal. I need to let go! It's the usual case where an individual likes Macs in their personal life and feels driven to converting over an entire enterprise.

Our network manager and technician feel it would be far less troublesome and easier to manage than the Windows network we currently have. He feels that Mac OS X is far superior to Windows.

We are looking long term at moving to a full Mac network and would appreciate any comments on this - any schools running such a network?

I have had a number of internet radios because I like to listen to BBC's Listen Again on demand service as well as live radio in my kitchen. In my experience, Internet radios are let down by a limited LCD display, and they don't easily refresh available programmes without rebooting. I have a Squeezebox in the lounge and use this to stream music from my Mac to my HiFi system. The Squeezebox is not so good for on-demand services and needs an add-on to make this work (Alien BBC). I have found the ideal solution for me. I bought an iPod Touch - I started using my iPhone, but kept having to stop listening to answer or make calls or texts - and a Bose SoundDock. Any speaker dock would do, of course. Using an iPhone/iPod Touch means that you get an excellent display and can use the BBC iPlayer for on-demand radio. Install the free Fstream for live radio from around the world, allowing you to pause and record radio, and Stitcher for listening to PodCasts and you have all bases covered. Lots of other audio apps too. On top of this you have access to your music library in iTunes. In fact you may already have all the kit you need!

Exactly!! I have Apple TV and it doesn't run a full version of OS X - it isn't meant to be used like a computer, it is set up to do a specific job. I have this unit and love it - I have a US account and rent the latest movies in HD for less than I could get them at Blockbuster and a darn site easier too.

It is Microsoft which has the bizarre idea that we need Windows on everything. They don't get the Apple paradigm of making things easier to use and using a sub-set of OS X to achieve that. The Windows they want on everything is of the full blown variety, hence we get the ridiculous start button concept on a mobile phone, and a media centre which is full-blown Windows with a few extras. An end user has certain things they want to do on a connected device - they don't need all the extras a full OS would provide. After the iPad was announced I sat down and thought of all the things I do on my laptop - practically all of them would be covered by the iPad with fewer overheads and an instant-on OS. 10 hours (claimed) battery life too. I know of several almost computer-illiterate people who have embraced the iPhone and are doing all sorts of things with it they couldn't hope to do on a PC (or Mac) unless someone carefully set things up for them. What Apple do very, very well is that interface between human and machine. Why make it more difficult than it needs to be? We don't expect our washing machines or TVs to need so much setting up and maintaining as the average computer.

I would be using it myself. There is no way i would voluntarily use Windows - I hate it. Shoddy, klunky mess that it is. Currently I use my own MacBook Air at school because I won't accept a school-provided laptop, so the iPad would do what I need perfectly.

Groan. I knew I shouldn't have bothered posting in a geek forum. Geeks love Windows. There's lots to do to keep it working. It gives them a feeling of power because they can sort out the virus-ridden PCs all around them, earning the respect of those who do not have the knowledge. Pah!

I'm excited by it - I will use it to assess pupils' work. I prefer to do this by getting the pupils to show me their work on their computer where I can ask them questions. The portability of the iPad and the fact that it will run Apple Numbers (which is largely Excel compatible) will make it very useful indeed. I already store school docs on Dropbox which will run on the iPad so it is already coming together . . .

In a geek forum such as this there will inevitably be a lot of support for devices such as the HTC which can be tinkered with ad infinitum. That's what geeks like to do. I have a mate who was quite put out when he got his iPhone because everything just worked. What he was used to doing with Windows Mobile devices was to find something didn't work, then spend quite some time researching, asking around, working it out and he felt quite elated that he had 'got it to work'. Very odd. Now he's found out about jailbreaking he is happy again and keeps ringing me to tell me how he got this and that to work. I like the Apple paradigm. I like a phone that does what you want it to do. I like the fact that a computer novice can work an iPhone with minimal help. All good stuff. I have had numerous smart phones with a range of different OSs on them, and the iphone is far and away the best, even though it doesn't always look that way on paper. In June when the iPhone 3GS came out I used a credit card to buy it PAYG. I then put a contract SIM card in it. O2 do a Simplicity SIM with 'unlimited' internet access and 600 mins/1000 texts (or something like that) for only £20 a month with a one month notice to quit. Quite a bargain! If you do the maths, comparing an 18month contract with a PAYG iPhone and Simplicity SIM, the Simplicity route works out considerably cheaper over an 18 month period. What's more, you're not tied in and can buy the new iPhone in June 2010. You would get a good price for your old 3GS too.

We use It's Learning and have done for a couple of years now. We are in Oadby, Leicester, so if you fancy coming over for a look you are most welcome.

What we do is subscribe to OpenOffice Enterprise - it costs us around £200 a year but slots into AD and allows easy upgrading, configuration etc. through AD policies. Well worth it. Have a look at Open Office Technology | Group Policy and registry-based management for OpenOffice

It's Learning is auto-updated from SIMS so when a user joins the school and is added to SIMS they appear in It's Learning. Likewise, when the user has a 'date of leaving' flag set in SIMS the user is deleted from It's Learning. It doesn't interact with AD at all. Problems occur when SIMS is not set up correctly. We have several primary schools in our It's Learning cluster and some have not set up SIMS Pastoral to correctly reflect a vertically-grouped system because they haven't needed to before. It's Learning is therefore unable to allocate pupils to the correct yeargroup and classes until this has been done. My school is the lead school in the cluster. We are a high school, 10-14, and any new pupils appear in It's Learning, correctly assigned to all their correct teaching groups, year group and tutor group. Since we have adopted a specific username convention to match that we use in AD, we then need to change the default username created by the SIMS/VLE integration process to one that matches our preferred style. That can be done in bulk in a synchronisation process using a csv, or manually if only a few users need to be amended. At the same time, a password can be allocated in the csv. For new pupils who arrive during the year, It's learning can generate a secure password and a welcome message can be printed for the end user to use in order to log on. We are finding the system is pretty flawless. We have nearly 800 pupils and the work involved in updating default usernames and passwords is pretty simple compared to what we'd have to do to manage something like Moodle!

As an ICT coordinator in a brand new school, I was involved in this process and found it one hell of a battle. Our LA built five new high schools and the contract was awarded to Dell. Ramesys installed the infrastructure and the project was coordinated by a third party. We had reguslar meetings comprising LA reps, Dell, Ramesys and the third party. There was already an agenda regarding what 'they' thought we needed. I pushed for Apple Macs, but the LA was too nervous about that one. I managed to get 20 iMacs for the music department, but it was a struggle. I wanted OpenOffice, not MS Office 2007. I lost out on that one, even though I was supported by BECTA. I wanted Promethean IWBs in each room, the ones that can be raised and lowered - couldn't have them, they only let us have standard Promethean boards. Then, after installation I found that the LA had insisted that Promethean install serial connections to their boards, not USB. During the process I was constantly arguing with people who didn't really understand IT and just wanted to stay within comfort zones. The headteacher in particular was a problem in this respect. Then they messed up and we didn't get enough PCs, the install was absolutely awful - it was like they were reinventing the wheel at every step of the way. I expected a mechanism to roll out new software and updates, and to quickly get any new machines set up. Their solution was to create a darn great image for each type of machine containing all the software titles leaving us with problems down the line. I had expected a small image containing Windows XP + drivers, then msi packages of all our software which could be rolled out as and when necessary to groups of machines via AD. I got the impression they thought I was an irritating nutter for suggesting such things. All in all our network has been very flaky and nearly two years down the line I have at last got an excellent network manager who is in the process of creating msis and small images . . . . . I hope your procurement process is better than ours and that you are actually allowed not only to make decisions but have them implemented!

We use It's Learning and I am very enthusiastic. A VLE is a way of engaging learners in lots of different ways. All sorts of resources can be provided and different ways of learner interaction can be established. In my school, I introduced the VLE to the pupils first and got them messaging and blogging. Only then did I start introducing it to staff. My aim was to eliminate the ICT support guys from the equation - I as a teacher set everything up and trained staff on how to do the various things they need to do. It was important to me that nobody had to run to a technician to ask him/her to upload something. My philosophy is that our ICT system should be led by teachers not technicians (sorry guys!). Tech support should just 'make it so'. One good way of getting staff on board is to post important notices via the VLE and to get them to do all internal messaging through the VLE rather than email. Having some 'must have' resources is also very useful. We have just bought into Music Delta (Velkommen til Musicdelta) a superb Norwegian music product which slots into most VLEs. We have also upgraded to the VLE versions of all the Boarworks products which staff seem to like. We have created a virtual staffroom where important documents are placed so staff get used to logging on to access them. We have been using It's Learning for just over a year and there are a great many courses set up and staff will use a course as a vehicle for collaboration. Pupils can set up courses too - these are called projects and they invite other pupils to join rather than adding them as participants like a member of staff would do. Staff like the way pupils can hand in work through the VLE and how easy it is for the teacher to access it for assessment. It sure beats an intranet! The testing feature is coming on well to and there are several interactive types of questioning possible. I like to think of the VLE as a virtual classroom. During one of our recent closures due to bad weather it was interesting to see how many pupils had logged into It's Learning from home. Interestingly, It's Learning doesn't seem particularly slow. The servers are in Norway, but are on the JANET backbone as are the UK educational boroadband providers.

We have 20 Apple iMacs in our music department. We wanted to deploy them using AD on Windows Server 2003. Our iMacs have Tiger rather than Leopard. Initially we found that every so often users were unable to logon. This became so annoying that we invested in a 20-user license for AdmitMac (Thursby Software). Once AdmitMac was installed and configured we had no further problems. Users' home directories were correctly mapped and it was fairly simple to map other shared areas on the network. It also appears that the restrictions users have on the Windows clients are also in force on the Macs, even though we have done nothing to configure this behaviour.

Thanks, ysangkok. It's Learning is based on Microsoft Sharepoint, so I would expect there to be any number of security holes. We block access to all secure websites by default so that goes someway to helping with some of the issues you raised. The upload limit has been raised to (off the top of my head) 1GB. I raised the issue with It's Learning and it wasn't long before it was resolved. They are very good at listening to problems and doing something about them. We have limited students to sending a single message to a maximum number of 35 pupils - easily configurable. As site admin the user profiles are very configurable and new profiles can be created easily. I do take on board what you say, but as an educator rather than a techie I am more interested in the pedagogy of a VLE. From what I have seen and heard, our VLE is used more than that in almost any other school I know of. I have a friend in a nearby school who is also an ICT Coordinator. She does not even have a working VLE at all because she is seeing all the negatives and few of the positives. I am sure this time next year things will have changed little in her school. There might be security holes and other issues with It's Learning but I am sure you are aware this is the case with almost any software out there. At lunch the other day overheard a year 7 pupil say to his mate 'I don't know what I'd do without the VLE - it would seem really strange without it'. I made sure pupils were on board before anyone else - there are many pupils blogging, loads creating their own mini-projects with friends and other peers, some doing surveys (like the pupils running my ICT club to find out what other pupils think about the club); others contributing to teacher created courses, pupils handing in work to be assessed through an assignment, it's all going on. Technically perfect it may not be, but IMHO it is pedagogically sound.

We are locked in to our regional broadband provider. It's Learning is on the same JANET backbone, so I don't see a problem. Last night our school suffered one of many power cuts - because our VLE is externally hosted we could carry on working from home. How well is your VLE used in your school? I can categorically say that It's Learning is used very widely indeed in my school and users like it because nothing they need to do involves a technician. It is all teacher driven and very intuitive. IME techies hate solutions which move them from centre stage, hence the popularity amongst techies of Moodle. Maybe you could post some of your issues with It's Learning - it could be that your expectations of a VLE are too high or that it is not implemented very well. To dismiss It's Learning as 'crap' beggars belief. It is effectively driving our school forward so I would be devastated to learn that it is of no worth. I know plenty of schools using Moodle but none have done as much with it as we have with It's Learning.

I think child protection concerns have got out of hand - as a parent I have absolutely no problem with someone knowing my child's name and yeargroup. This information could be obtained in any number of ways. It's like how people blank out their registration plates when their car is shown in a picture. What is the problem? Walking round a a neighbourhood gathering registration plates of cars parked outside people's houses would give even more information. We really need to be less anal IMHO. We have been using this naming convention for several years and none of our pupils have suffered as a result.

It's Learning has a SIMS integration module. If you have a brand new VLE set up, and SIMS/VLE Integration has been installed on your SIMS server, you simply run the batch file (on the SIMS server) and It's Learning will be populated with all your users and the hierarchical structure will be created putting pupils into their correct teaching groups for each subject. It's Learning will create a unique username for each pupil, but if like us you want your own user naming convention you can create a csv with the new usernames and synchronise it with your VLE users to change the usernames in one go. We have found it useful to create usernames which enable us to identify the yeargroup of a pupil. Our VLE works across our feeder primary schools as well us us (a high school) so we use this format: xxyyyyyyzzz - where xx is the year the pupil entered year one, yyyyy is the full surname and zzz are the first three characters of the firstname. So, John Smith, who entered year one in 2003 would be 03smithjoh. We use the same username for our school network and our email addresses. I use the following spreadsheet formula (OpenOffice Calc) to create the usernames: =LOWER(CONCATENATE("03";A1;(LEFT(B1;3)))) where 03 is the year of entry to year one, A1 is the cell containing the pupil's surname and B1 the cell containing the firstname. Hope this helps.

You might like to look at Open Office Technology | Group Policy and registry-based management for OpenOffice - they have loads of adm templates for OpenOffice, but there is a cost. We pay around £200 a year and for that we get to control in fine detail the operation of Open Office. It also makes it easy to roll out updates.

I have the Harmony One and regret replacing my previous Harmony remote with this model. The touch screen is OK, but the actual screen is a quite some depth under the perspex panel. This means as you angle the remote towards your equipment (oo er!) you end up selecting the wrong item. It is made worse becuase there are no colour hard keys - and most UK tv entertainment devices seem to use the coloured keys quite a bit. The Harmony One will give you touch-screen colour buttons but they're not as good.