RobC

I think about £10-£20 is a fair amount, although I could probably get the school to stump up about £50 tops.

My school's part of a managed service and we have no control over the servers which means we can't install PHP on them. I've tried using my external hosting to run the PHP helpdesk but you've got to log in through our web filtering, then log into the helpdesk. Basically, one of the functions I want is for staff to be able to open the helpdesk application/web page and be automagically logged in based on their AD user name. And because of the above setup, I can't do that. (And my teachers won't use a system that involves them logging in twice!)

If you mean 'how did I install it on my pen-drive?', then I simply changed the install location to be my pen-drive. If you're being silly, then I'm just missing the obvious...

Seems like a good product. The problem I've got is that I'm a fussy sod and I want something to do exactly what I want! Guess I really am just going to have to write my own. (Lots of PHP ones do what I want, but system restrictions rule out usable PHP systems. )

Well, thanks for all the advice. I've gone with ClamWin for now, but I haven't had a chance to test it fully. It runs quite nicely from my pen drive though, and updates quickly so should be good. Rob.

I lost over a year of my life to EvE! It was a damned compelling game and I made a lot of lasting friendships through it, but in the end it just required too much of my time. I do miss it, but not enough to go back.

I think Stewart's actually right on this one. Although a/b/g frequencies are essentially unlicensed, there is an upper gain limit that you can use. I thought it was either 19 or 20db, it could easily be 12dB.

I have looked into the whole LiveCD/PE side of things, but the bit that I don't like is the update side of things. @Nath - How do you handle keeping your virus definitions up-to-date? As far as I'm aware, you can't write a bootable CD as multi-session...

Clapped out H-reg Clio 1.4 at the moment, although just had a bit of a shunt in it so it's probably going to be written off. I really miss my previous car though - a 1.6 Diesel P-reg Astra that shifted like poo off a shovel. Couldn't afford the fuel costs at the time though so had to sell it.

If you can afford it, have a look at Draytek's Vigor line of routers (specifically one of the 2600 variants). They cost around £150-£175, but they are solid kit and come with ADSL modem, 4 port switch, VPN capabilites, proper firewall, some have wireless, and some also have VoIP facilities.

Ok, what I am looking for is an Anti-virus proggie (preferably free!) that I can install straight to my USB pen drive. Size isn't a problem as it's a 1Gb drive, but it needs to work on pretty much any version of Windows as it'll be used for AV scans on computers in my other line of work. So... Any suggestions?

Heh, I got a warning from the bouncers in our local night club a few years back for playing Kabaddi on the dancefloor with a mate. Ah, good times!

That's fine for England, but up here in Scotland, we're tied to what the council want to pay us. The school itself has no say in our pay scales.

@Iking: We've got our Cisco box in, but nothing's ever been done about it - no training, no software installed for it, not even a manual to look at, nothing. Have you actually gone live with yours? And is it all bad, or are there some good points to it?

I would be inclined to agree with Geoff that the system time may have something to do with it, as Kerberos tends to throw a fit if the workstation's clock doesn't match it's time record.

Yes, the thought has crossed my mind that something may have happened to Simon T... (god forbid!)

If you're feeling brave, you could always ask this question on the uk.education.schools-it newsgroup, although don't be too surprised if it turns into a bit of a flame war. (Not that all threads there do, but some do in spectacular fashion!)

Strangely enough, one of our departments has just bought three standalone Viglen systems. First I know of it is when I see three Viglen boxes & associated monitors sitting in reception with the department's name on it. I really hope they're not expecting me to support them. Especially as it's our Council's policy that schools must buy from our Managed Service providor in order to ensure that the machines can be connected to the network if required...

There's a bit about Groupware 7 in the Networks column of this month's PC Pro. Seems to get a good review.

I sense the force is strong in this one... BOFH stands for Bastard Operator From Hell and is the creation of Simon Travaglia. It now resides at The Register and is usually updated on a Friday (although there hasn't been anything new for a couple of weeks. Hopefully another one along today!).

Network 1: Myelgas1 - Local DC/File Server/Sophos server/Backups Myelgas2 - Exchange/Proxy Network 2: Primergy - PDC/File Server/Print Server/SQL Server (It's the only box on this network)

Check for a lurking "Deny" permission as well, as Deny will always take precidence over Allow.

Not sure if there are any peculiarities with installing via .MSI, but I've included the networking document from the Cars CD. The main points to watch are installing the data files to a mapped network share (in our case, drive O:), and making sure that you copy the PorterCars.txt file from the network share onto the each client that Cars is installed onto (if you don't, Cars won't be able to find the data files). I've also included my copy of PorterCars.txt for you to have a look at, but really it's only the top four lines that are of any use. Let me know if this advice helps... portercars.txt cars_network_notes.doc

Never been a fan of Xerox, myself. I've tried their Inkjets and they are expensive to run, the drivers are a nightmare to install and , as you mention, the colour reproduction was awful. They should definately stick to photocopiers! Incidentally for all the conspiracy theorists, you're not actually paranoid - They really are after you!

Ok, didn't have time to check today, but I'll definately have a look in the morning.