alan-d

We have a couple of bird feeder stations in the garden which is frequented by the local sparrows and other birdies. Last summer I caught a glimpse of what I though may be a sparrowhawk but not enough to be certain. At least I have an explanation as to why the sparrow population seems to have dropped over winter from around 20 birds to 10 or so. I suspect the winter weather would have taken some though. @ DB - Is that when you decided to get your hair cut?

My wife looked out the window to see this Mad rush to get my camera, no time to play with settings and had to take it through a closed window from the other side of the room. Just made it http://www.al-d.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/sh1.jpg http://www.al-d.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/sh2.jpg By the way - it's a Sparrowhawk in case you were wondering

As Edu-IT says above but also if you have to install another switch in the future you can link them via fibre modules which will increase the speed at which the switches transfer data.

I was beginning to think it was just some of our clients that were playing up and crashing IE but it seems to be a wider problem. We also have a problem with some clients not blocking web sites. I thought that was just our setup as we also have issues with writing anything in the History log since 3.0.0.8 which I hoped 3.0.0.9 would fix, but it didn't. Time to bring in Forensics I think.

We use Stone for the most part - Good Pricing and excellent warranty service if you ever need it. We tried using Dell a couple of times but getting hold of the right people is a real pain and delivery can be very slow. CP Ltd - Good pricing and delivery - not had call to test the warranty service yet though. If you know what you want then Probrand are extremely competetive on pricing, we had to return a switch which was DOA - it was picked up and replaced within 24 hours. WStore - done a couple of orders - great service & pricing. Equanet - used to deal with them a lot but they seem to be losing the price war and returns can be a pain. Misco - good pricing but again returns can be a pain. European Electronique - tried them for a few quotes - if I got one back it was usually beaten by one of the above.

No but I could be if you are offering

Are you still on a commisson?

There is nothing brave about taking backups home nor is it a question of responsibility or capability. It's the principle of taking home data without it being formally recognised as part of your responsibility. You have it written down that you are to take backups home, therefore you would be fully covered in the event an incident should occur where that data is lost. Unfortunately in this day and age of liability it would be a course of stupidity to take data home without that formal recognition you currently have. I would be negligent in my duty if I were to ignore the possible flaws in taking data home without investigating alternative solutions or ensuring that individuals were protected.

I bet you're the life and soul of every party!

For those that don't know him, Major General Peter Cosgrove is an Australian. General Cosgrove was interviewed on the radio recently. Here is his reply to the lady who interviewed him concerning guns and children....... Regardless of how you feel about gun laws you have to love this! This is one of the best comeback lines of all time. In a portion of an ABC radio interview between a female broadcaster and General Cosgrove who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military Headquarters. FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Cosgrove, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base? GENERAL COSGROVE:! We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery and shooting. FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it? GENERAL COSGROVE: I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range. FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children? GENERAL COSGROVE: I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm. FEMALE INTERVIEWER: But you're equipping them to become violent killers. GENERAL COSGROVE: Well, Ma'am, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you? The radio went silent for 46 seconds and when it returned, this interview was over. He is now my new hero !

Sorry - I forgot to mention it should be a managed system. Ruckus will handle it quite easily and we have had 60+ laptops in use at the same time in the same area of the building, but not in the same room with no problems. There are other makes that are reportedly very good too . I also forgot to mention - If you do change the switches, make one of them a POE capable one, then if you use POE APs it will reduce the need for power cables and extra power sockets.

Record the child ringing the bell. Install a PA system around the school. Set automatic playback of recording at set times. PA system can also be used as a messaging service etc. Old time sound using modern tech

I wouldn't worry about upgrading the wireless cards to be 802.11n as you are unlikely to get 54Mbs out of them with 60 laptops in use regardless of the speed of the Access points. You can do this as part of your normal rolling replacement program. Spend the money on good quality APs instead, 802.11n capable. If you use 3 APs I'd be tempted to spread them out a little. for example one each side of the room you indicated and one close to the ceiling in the room below. This should give you the cover in that room and allow some of the laptops to be used in the surrounding rooms. This of course will depend on the structure of the walls and floor. If you can try to go for 4 APs and cover the whole area. As for the comms cab - it's hard to say without a more detailed inspection of the setup but a Gigabit link between switches would help which will probably mean replacing the ones you have from what I can see.

Still better than being a door mat and taken for granted eh! If you were any sort of manager you would point out the possible downfalls of taking data home, regardless of the format it is in. Being a manager is more than working extra hours without the extra pay. If you are happy with the way you do things then good for you, but don't expect other people to follow your lead.

No but would you really want to be the first

....and of course you have insurance to cover theft of the tapes and data and it it clearly written down that you are responsible for them during silent hours. If you don't and you do it for free then you're a mug!

Then tell THEM to take them home. Are you being paid to secure them at home? Is it in your contract? It is the schools responsibility (under advisement from you) to ensure the backups are secure. If you take them home - it is your head on the block (initially). Don't risk it!

We've spent the last 7 years educating staff and students about printing costs which is paying off. Despite increasing the number of printers our consumable expenditure has not risen above the level it was 7 years ago so we must be doing something right. Emphasising email to communicate and print preview helps a lot We do use the free version of papercut to track down the odd occurrence of exuberant printing, and we try and install more cost effective laser printers wherever possible. Yesterday I had a salesman visit to look over our printing requirements and suggest some monitoring software, printer leasing etc. By the end of the conversation he could not think of anything he could sell us that would improve our system I almost felt sorry for him

Sims registration then lesson monitor the rest of the day. 6th Form sign in when they are in the building and are registered with lesson monitor when in lessons. Currently looking at ways to get rid of the paper registration for the 6th form.

You just had to mention it didn't you! You just could not leave it alone! Well I'm not cleaning the mess up this time!

Another one for Stone Computers here. Warranties range from 3 to 5 years and kit is fixed in no time at all. That's PCs, laptops and Servers.

A radio presenter this morning said that the Ipad made him feel like one of the Borrowers with an Ipod Touch

We had a similar issue on one client. Uninstalling IE and reinstalling seemed to do the job.

Student photos are held on SIMs anyway and the lighting issue is one reason I'm asking the questions As for the finger printing, the actual finger print is never held on any systems, it works by matching a number of points. (Exactly how, I'm not sure).

We are looking at the possibility of using Auroras Face Register system attached to SIMs. If anyone out there has any experience of this system I'd be grateful if you could post comments good or bad here, or pm me if you prefer. Main points I'm looking for initially are; Is it worth the expenditure? Has there been a significant reduction to the staff work load? How reliable has it been in updating the MIS? How reliable has the hardware been? Do students like using it? There are probably other questions but that will do for now Any input welcome.