emyllis

If spiceworks is a positive choice, how easy is it to install and run? Does one have to auto install on every computer or just once on the server?

Request Tracker also looks like a possibility - I'll investigate

How easy is spiceworks to set up and use? It looks quite a comprehensive package?!

So, one thing we've lacked for the past few months since one technician left was an effective fault logging system on our computers. I don't need anything fancy , - there aren't many free versions as far as I can see. All i want is for staff to go to a website, log a fault which is sent to a technician who can see it and fix it, and update the status stating the outcome. Does anyone know of any sensible solution? I've tried the search facility and typing in free fault logging software brings up nothing but software... Very annoying! Your insight people of this forum is as ever much appreciated!

I find it quite restrictive in its approach - e.g. today the most innocuous websites on ASD (Autism) were banned, when there's nothing that is remotely "worth" banning on. The net effect is that a lot of staff are fed up with the poor filtering and over zealous filtering. Is that just the way we're set up or is that a feature of websene?

Well then: i'm writing from a school in the West Midlands that currently uses websense to provide filtered internet... There are in my mind many things wrong with it, and I'd like to look at alternatives - namely the possibility of Open DNS as a more flexible option. Having looked at the messages here, I'd be interested in knowing - a) In general what's websense though of and b) Would Open DNS be a good alternative to websense? Any insight would be gratefully appreciated; Thanks

Thanks for taking the time to post, having read your blog it appears that there's never anything easy to do with education is there

Thank you, it's a really detailed answer, and has given me some thought provoking questions, so thanks for that! I think more searching is needed to occur with the issue to ensure the right decision is made. It makes me wonder how much thought other schools using google apps have investigated the issues of security etc. Have you had any experience with your school using it Ashers?

So then... We have a long winded school website - currently 37 letters long - ie not very easy to type - and it's our "official" .sch website as done 5 or so years ago, so can't really be changed. Emails have been provided for all staff and students based on first name and surname, so if you have a long name, your email address is coming out at bartholomew.featherstone@... over 50 characters long! We are linked with RM we-learn for our provision of email etc, and many staff do not use we-learn for email as it's in their eyes a clunky system. How easy would it be to: buy a new domain, e.g. schoolname.co.uk use either google apps or liveatedu to provide emails for staff (initially) with a simpler structure of email - [email protected] So I think this should be do-able - buying a domain isn't expensive. Is it easy to show google apps that this is an "official" school website, even though it's not got a .sch and will be used only for emails? Please reassure me! I'm an ICT teacher with good knowledge of systems, but email settings are not a strong point. My plan is to set this up asap, move over say a trial of 10 staff to google apps then maybe a term later extend it to all staff, so that by the summer of 2010, all students have migrated over to google apps. Appreciate any feedback/comments you can give me. Thanks

So then: As a teacher I use outlook 2010 to list my lessons, e.g. "1 10:A:1 meaning lesson 1 I teach 10:A:1. We have a 2 week timetable, and I've added the first 2 weeks to my outlook calendar, so each day has 5 lesson entries. What is the easiest way to copy these entries into certain weeks? I can't do the "rules" option as we have half term/Christmas breaks etc. My innocent assumption was that I could copy and paste all 30 entries from one week 1 to another week 1 and it would copy and paste in. However it doesn't seem to want to play ball... Can anyone advise me please?!

Witch - good thinking. Will pass your thoughts on too.

That's a very speedy response! I'll forward the info onto my technician. Appreciate the replies so promptly. If we have any other qns, I'll get back to you. Thanks

Long time reader (I'm a teacher) but not a regular poster. Simple qn, our computers by default don't let us right click on any program which is pretty annoying especially when copying pictures/copy and paste as you can imagine. Our technician (who has loads to do) can't remember where the setting is to re-enable this - it was de-activated many years ago but we can't remember how to re-active it. Can anyone enlighten us where in the registry settings are to enable context menus etc? And apologies for what is a simple question, and I hope a simple answer!