maniac

My suggestion has always been for certain controvercial sites which might be blocked for reasons other than indecensy etc. to be displayed inside a frame which clearly states this website expresses views and opinions which may not be factual, or warns the student about the website in whatever way is appropreate, insted of physically blocking it all together. I think this would have a much more positve result. Mike.

I actually agree with some of the points raised in that article - if you wrap kids up in cotton wool all their lives they will never actually learn. If you shield and block them from absolutely everything which can have an influence or potentially harm them, then they grow up very sheltered and totally un-prepared for the real world. Obviously you never want to allow the likes of porn etc. through, but there are certain sites which are maybe just controversial, like the BNP party website I raised last week (which ended up getting blocked) which schools just block to make their lives easier as oppose to actually educating the students about if and when a student finds it. I know that article was with reference to primary schools, but a lot of it also applies to secondaries as well. Mike.

A server room without messy cabling just wouldn't feel right. I'm contemplating deliberetly wiring my new cabinet up in a messy way just to make it feel at home with the rest.

I'll update this thread if/when I find out what the problem actually is.

All of the laptops have the right Codecs etc. on them, and the drive is already set to come up with a list on insertion of a DVD movie as some teachers prefer Media player, others like VLC so I like to give them the option - the problem is the laptop is not reading the disc as a movie, it's reading it as a data disc and lets you browse it's contents by double clicking it which movie discs normally won't. Our other staff laptops play DVDs fine with the same software installed, although each model was built from the ground up they all had the same treatment and I double checked every single build myself before we took the images so it's identical to our other builds which work fine. I've not had anyone else report this particular problem yet, although there's only 10 of this particular model of laptop in use and a majority of them are with admin staff so there's every chance the same problem exists on them all, just no one else has tried playing a DVD movie yet! I'm going to look into it further tomorrow, I just ran out of time today. Mike.

Media player won't play them, and VLC will play them, but only if you open the software and force it to open the disc and it takes a long time to do this. There's no right hand click options for playing the disc like there's should be and no automatic popup 'Play with . . . ' dialogue which is what I rely on coming up for DVDs as that's how we tell the staff to play them. It just doesn't recognise it as a DVD movie in windows, just reads it as a normal data disc. Mike.

Well tried this, and it didn't work - was no reference to upper or lower filters in that registry key anywhere further investigation and I discovered it only complains with DVD movies, when you first start the machine it says DVD RAM drive, but as soon as you put a DVD film in, it complains like hell, won't play it properly and when you eject the disc it says CD-ROM drive after that - very odd. I then found an updated firmware for the DVD drive on Dells site which I downloaded and applied - still no change Then I looked for an updated chipset driver, we already have the latest one but just incase I re-installed it and deleted the hardware again so it re-installed - no change. @Craggus2000 - I'll try that tomorrow - hadn't thought of doing that so we'll see if it makes any difference. Mike.

As the title says, I have some laptops in the school where the DVD-RW drive in them is recognised by Windows XP as a CD-ROM drive. Because of this it won't play DVDs properly. It still reads the disc, but insted of recognising it as a DVD movie, it just lists the folders on the disc instead and just makes the whole machine lag badly. Causing me a big headache at the moment, anyone got any ideas? Googling has produced no conclusive solution although several people have reported the same issues. Regards Mike.

I was 'ICT Development Engineer' at my previous school, which was basically deputy to the Network Manager, who had the Job Title 'ICT Co-Ordinator' but essentially did the same job as a network manager. They did like their fancy job titles at that school. Mike.

Promethean pens are different to the hitatchi ones. The Hitachi ones run on AAA batteries and are a nitemare and very expensive to replace. The promethean ones are passive and don't have a battery and are thus very cheap to replace - we pay around £10 a pen and order 10 at a time. The Promethean boards are very hardwaring because they have a hard surface which is difficult to damage - that's the main reason we opted for them, but I understand the smartboards can be more intuative to use although I've only used a smartboard once it did work well. It very much depends on the situation as to what board you want to opt for, they're all pretty good at what they do. Mike.

That's how it's done now, but it's a complete nightmare as cables go missing left right and centre - this morning someone had stolen the extension lead so we had to find another one at short notice. It really doesn't work. Plus I don't want to be responsible for managing the loan of the rack. We have a Performing Arts technician who's supposed to look after the kit, but his time is split between Performing arts, Art and Design and photography so he can't manage the kit effectively and it ends up in a right old mess. He's also not that technically minded, and never has claimed to be - he just got lumbered with the PA kit as there was no one else to look after it. I origenally suggested cannabalising what we have now into a permanent solution, but the Director of learning for Performing arts doesn't want me to touch the existing kit, although aknowledges something needs to change to make assemblies easier. I was just looking at the options available. I want to leave plugs on the wall so the existing kit can be wired up and used as it is now, but also have some permanently wired in kit that can be turned on at a moments notice and we know is going to work properly, rather than bodging wires together in a hurry to replace missing cables like we do at the moment. The problem with the portable kit is it's way OTT for assemblies, it's got a 16 channel mixer with only 2 stereo inputs and all the radio mic gear on it. I want to keep it simple, just one mic input and 3 or 4 stereo inputs on a small mixing desk we can clearly label so it's easy to use. We have fitted speakers in the hall which are good and work well, so it was working out the most effective way to switch between the fixed installation or the portable kit that was proving to be a problem.

I can't find the site I was reading earlier, but essentially it's not the amps it can damage, but the speakers. Some cheaper amps don't sense whether there's speakers connected or not, and can apparently accumulate high charges inside capacitors inside them which can blow the speakers if they are suddenly connected while the amp is switched on. A lot of better amps will detect if the speakers are connected or not, and if they are plugged in while the amp is on have a sort of 'sort start' system so the speaker won't blow. Saying that, according to what I was reading the risks are low and any decent brand of amp this will not be a problem, although speaker switch boxes aren't recommended on high output rigs by anyone, hence the reason I can't find any dedicated decent speaker switches. The speakers in our hall are 4 x 400w RMS output which is pretty powerful so I am warey about switching it. I might have a totally different appraoch for this now, as it's now possible they may go for having all the PA kit permanetly installed so I may not have to buy new stuff, just put the equipment we have in a decent rack and wire it all up properly! Please note I'm by no means an expert on PA equipment, Home audio yes, but this is different. I am probably the person who understands the most amongst the people emplyed at the school however, so naturally it's fallen to me to sort out which I don't really mind as it will make my life a lot easier. Mike.

Actually there is some truth in his statement, but it seems to depend on the power amp. Saying that, we would be in control of the switch, and would obviously make sure it is switched to the correct speakers before we turn it on, so might still opt for a switch of some sort. Just weighing up my options at the moment.

That's a good idea, a little bit more complex than I had in mind, but would do the job. I was after a switch of some sort, but I've just been reading about power amps and switching speakers - it really isn't a good idea it transpires. Speakon connectors might be the best bet as they're easy and cheap to get hold of and wireup. Mike.

The thing is, I don't wany any of the equipment in the new rack to be left on or for it to be left open at all, but Performing arts need to be able to use their existing PA still with the same speakers that are already fitted, so each set needs it's own amp really. It is really that bad to switch the output from power amps in this way, if so I might need to re-think my strategy? The problem we have at the moment is too many people are using the PA equipment and not putting it away properly, stealing cables and leads or messing with the settings on the mixing desk that it's taking us an age in the mornings to set up a simple assembly and quite often it doesn't work properly or sound very good as a result because sometimes we've no idea what wire they've moved or what setting they've changed. As most of the people using it have no real idea how it works, they tend to just move every single dial when it doesn't work meaning the carefully worked out settings that I spent hours testing get all messed up. The idea is seperate equipment which is permanely wired in and under lock and key to use for these events, and everyone else can carry on using what they do already. This way I know the hall will always be ready for an assembly or other event and I know bits aren't going to be stolen, borrowed or changed without me knowing.

Projector's already in place, that will be wired into the PC in the new rack, but also via a KVM switch they'll be a wall box next to outside the rack so the Dance teacher can still use her laptop, we'll make sure the KVM is switched over to the external connection when we leave the hall. We may possibly allow the dance teacher to use this kit once it's installed, but at the moment it's aimed at allowing assemblies to take place without all the drama that happens at the moment! We will still use the remotes for turning the projector on, we have about 6 of them with various people around the school, so that's not really a problem. I just need to ensure the people that use the screen, projector and sound equipment can still use what they have, and my new installation can be totally seperate and only used for presentation evenings, assemblies etc. I would like to dismantle what we have already and fix the whole lot in, but our Director of learning for Performing arts wants that PA to remain portable unfortunitely. Mike.

Finally, after a year of suggesting and this mornings assembly being a complete mess up, I've been given the go-ahead to order some kit to permanetly install in the Hall for assemblies. At the moment we use a portable PA kit, laptop and lots of cables to make it all work. This has a lot of problems because bits get borrowed off the PA, cables go missing, kids play with the mixing desk when it's in storage behind the stage so it sometimes goes completely wrong when we've no idea what switch, button or cables been moved or unpluged - like this morning! The speakers are parmanently wired into the hall with 2 speakon connectors on the wall at the front where we hook it up. What I've suggested is we buy a seperate power amp, DVD player, rack mounted PC with pull out keyboard and monitor, and small mixing desk to permanely wire in in a 19" wall mounted rack at the front of the hall (as that's where the speakers terminate) that way we know the kit will never be messed with as we will hold the keys for its use! Drama can still use their existing PA when required, as we will leave the speakon connectors in place and hopefully, if I can find the right sort of switch box, have it so you can change between the two. So I'm looking for a professional speaker swich box which can be used to select between the permanetly wired in kit and the portable PA kit. It's pretty powerful stuff, so a normal domestic switch box is a no go. Anyone got any suggestions? Mike.

Change it, straight away without fail or someone else will and lock you all out the system! If you turn on Account auditing, you can trace where and when people login. By default I think it only logs failures, but you can turn it on to log sucesses as well. Mike.

Silly thing, but check the clocks are in sync on the servers - I've had that cause all sorts of silly things before to do with authentication.

We sync the clocks on ever PC in the school with our Domain Controller which is in turn synced with the LEAs authorative time source. We then have an on-screen clock available on all staff laptops and this is the authorative time source for our school. Mike.

If you're having trouble spending it, you could sling some of it my way - I'm sure I could invest it wisely for you

The steering lock should not engage until the key is removed from the ignition lock, just turning it off should not engage the steering lock. Still probably not the best thing to do, but if you were absolutely desperate you should be able to get away with it.

If the laptops are all in one area, in theory you can have 3 Access Points on channels 1, 6 and 11 to keep them in totally seperate frequencies. You don't have to do anything special with them, just make sure they are all setup on the same SSID with the same security key and the laptops should roam to their nearest AP. Of course this can cause problems if they are all at one end of the room or something like that. As you only have a relatively small number of wireless machines you might want to look at locking the MAC addresses of the machines to specific access points if you use 3, which can be done on most decent access points in the AP software itself. However this could prove detrimental if only 20 machines were used and they happened to be all locked to the same AP - so it depends how the machines are used within the school as to what approach you'd want to take. The thing you have to remember about wireless networks is the 54MBs is shared between all the devices connected to it, therefore with all 60 on each machine is in theory getting <1mbs data rate. Even 20 machines to an AP is pushing it if they are all accessing data at the same time, although it depends how intelligently the AP handles the data. We run upto 25 machines on a single AP here in some areas, but I've worked really hard to optimise our network to perform well with wireless devices (mandatory profiles etc.) even then it's still slow, but such is life - there's only so much you can do. The key thing to remember is wireless will always be slower than a cabled connection no matter what you do. Mike.

That's let me specify a new template for new users, and ADmodify which was linked from that page let me change the existing ones - brilliant! Mike.

In order to seperate Students and staff a bit easier on our e-mail system, I'd like to add STUDENT in capital letters at the end of all the display names so it's blatently obvious when an e-mail is from a student or staff member. At the moment we have full firstname/lastname entered for everyone, so unless you know the names or check the actual e-mail address it isn't immediatly obvious whether an e-mail is from a member of staff or student. This has caused issues recently with new members of staff and a couple of on the ball students who realised this flaw and exploited it a little. Only problem is, I can't see an easy way of amending it in bulk, Can anyone help?? Mike.