steveg

Have you looked at the Epson EBX-11 education projector? They are around £300 and come with a 3 year warranty on the bulb. (maximum of 200 hours per year) The ebx-14 is also good if you have very bright classrooms. We've installed a few casio led projectors in the past, never again. About a year old now and they just arent bright enough. We've used some sanyo's before, not sure on the model number but they look similar to the one you've suggested above. they have been ok, but after 18 months of use they desperately needed a clean - that is with cleaning their filters on a weekly basis - they get dirty far quicker than any projector i've known. I like the range of Hitachi short throw projectors, although I have to say the mount they come with is ugly! Works well, just doesnt look good! There would also be some re-cabling if you changed to a short throw projector. Steve

Thanks for that, that's pretty much what we pay. Was just hoping you'd found some secret source of cheap ms licences :-)

Just out of interest, what is the cheapest base licence for windows you've found? We also quite often build machines ourselves and have an EES agreement. Thanks steve

We've been buying a lot of Toshiba c660's recently - have about 5 trolleys of 16 in various schools now. They are really good value, and seem to be pretty robust. I think they currently have an education warranty offer on as well, so you can get a laptop with a 3 year warranty at a really good price. Steve

I'd say pentium D machines are just a little too old to benefit from this. We've put some in some earlier core 2 machines and noticed a considerable speed increase. (we even tried crippling one with only 256mb ram and it was still pleasant to use on xp. May be best to get one and try them side by side to gauge what sort of benefit they will have. Steve

IT can be caused by an earthing issue on the circuit. Have you tried running an extension cable from the other side of the building and powering the laptop off this? Does it then go away? We had this with a bunch of Acer laptops, cheapest way to solve it in the end was to put desktop pc's into the few classrooms that were affected - cheaper than a rewire, just used the laptops elsewhere. Steve

Can anyone clarify how you purchase multiple copies of an app? We have 2 sets of 16 ipads coming, and we are now ok with setting them up, having 1 itunes account and synching them, and using the config utility to lock them down to a certain extent. We were then advised to buy the app once on the account which we use, and then buy it as a gift another 15 times for each set, but not claim the gift. This seemed to make sense - we could prove we had purchsed 16 copies. However we have since been advised that you cannot purchase gifts using itunes cards, only with a credit card. Is this the case? - If so with a £500 credit limit on the school credit card, its going to take us months to buy all the apps we need! Steve

It's £283 after cashback - Cashback ammount has to come off the inc vat ammount, then you claim vat back on the rest. Still a pretty good deal though. Steve

We currently use coomber tape players for let the children listen to audio books, but these are now all begining to die. The teacher has come to us and, rightly so wants to replace these with audio files on the school network, so children can then listen to these from their computers or netbooks. Sounds like a good solution to me, until we try to purchase audio books for use on the network. If we download them from Itunes, we are limited to 5 computers which can be authorise to use them. We can't rip them off cd to mp3's and then share them, because its illegal. We have found one company which make mp3 player headphones designed for schools, and the accompanying software includes a site licence for any audio books purchased with it, however their range of titles is too limited for what we want. At the moment it looks like we will have to buy them on cd, and keep backups of them, just lending the cd's out like we do with tapes at the moment, would just be really nice to have a more high-tech and easy way of doing it. The concept of a site-licence for a book hasn't really happened yet. What do other schools do for distributing audio books? Steve

Groupcall make a product called emerge which does this. Steve

A free extra member of staff for a year? :-)

Anyone that works in a public sector School cannot personally accept gifts so they have to be something that would be of use to the school. Things like Digital camera's or money off a next order would be good, although a lot of the time actual hardware prizes can be a bit annoying - we get them from other companies sometimes, and end up with single items of differnt bits of kit, when normally we'd try and buy most kit in batches and standardise across the school. Maybe a prize selection that the winnder could choose from would be best? Steve

I may be wrong, but don't pretty much all modern cars no longer have a distributor? Also whatever you do don't drive it with a missfire, as this can dump petrol down the exhaust which can destroy the cat, which isn't cheap! Steve

We've got Ruckus kit in 2 schools and love it - it just works. Have deployed netgear git (managed) in 2 other schools, and it works ok, and unmanaged netgear kit in countless others, which also works fine for smaller deployments. We've just purchased 6 Unifi access points, and are about to do a strait swap in one of the managed netgear schools as a trial. I will do some tests before and after to see how it compares. - The price on this kit seems too good to be true - 6 ap's and a controller (ok software only so you have to run it on a vm or old pc) for £400! Steve

Can anyone reccomend a black and white network laser printer that is as small as possible? Very limited space where it is going to be installed. I've seen a few, but they all have fold out paper trays at the front, so if you leave paper in it, the footprint isn't much smaller than the normal ones we buy. Does anyone still make top loading ones, like some of the early hp's? Thanks Steve

Why have I not heard of these before? I want one! Steve

Didn't mean to be difficult, I don't have an issue with it at all! On something much more important, can you explain what exactly a chocolate pizza is? Maybe a picture? :-) Steve

I dont think many people would be offended by the chance of free stuff for their school, although why we are on the topic - (Maybe this thread wants splitting now?) - Most of us in public sector schools cannot personally accept gifts from suppliers, so the only competitions we can enter are ones where the school can win something. Not sure what's involved in a chocolate pizza (although it does sound good) but i'd guess this is unlikely to be something the 'school' could win without an individual personally benifiting? Also with regards to your current competition, I believe the question has to be at the point of entry, otherwise technical its still a lottery, whereby you win the chance to win a prize? Not being difficult, personally I dont have an issue with it at all, just commenting on what was raised earlier. Maybe there is a need for some edugeek competition guidlines? Its entirely possible some of what i've said isn't 100% accurate, it wouldnt be the first time! Steve

I think to not be classified as a lottery it either has to: Have an element of skill involved for example asking a question that would eliminate a significant number of entrants or Have an alternative free entry method. There is a whole load of other stuff you're also meant to do as well from what I can see. Turns out running a simple fun competition isn't that simple! lol Personally I think its a whole load of legislation that isnt really necessary, and there should be some sort of excemtion of total prize value is below x ammount. Steve

I believe primary and pbx are largely the same thing (someone will correct me if i'm wrong) and have a capacitor between 2 of the pins, which ones I can't remember right now, I've been teaching all day! (this is the same as your master BT socket which has the capacitor in it) Secondary ones do not have this capacitor. I once made the mistake of assuming pbx ones would be the ones to use on an internal phone system, apparently not, lots of crackling on the line and generally not working, secondary ones were fine. Steve

I assume it's these that you are after? Voice Converters/Line Adapters For most things you'll want the secondary ones. Steve

I've owned 2 of the earlier models, both gen 1, and loved them both. Got the first one when I was 19, as a 2.0 liter one was cheaper to insure than the 1.3 car I owned previously! Then later I got the F2 Evo model, which is supposedly has a faster engine, but I couldnt tell the difference. Then I got kids and a sensible car :-( They aren't amazingly quick, (not sure about the newer ones) as they are pretty heavy, but I loved driving it every time I got in it. Never had any major problems with either, although the clock did break in both of them! I could average about 35mpg out of it driving fairly sensibly. Steve

That is only a 1500 lumen unit, even with a new bulb its likely to be fairly dim still. I think becta guidlines were for 1500 lumen projectors in classrooms, but we always find these to dim and go for around 2200 - 2700 you can always run them in eco mode if they are too bright, and gain another 1000 hours bulb life. I'd go for a new LCD based projector with a 3 year bulb warranty. Steve

Excellent, just need the oem licence so we can upgrade them under our licence. Can i have them all then please? Will ring round for a van to hire now, will a standard transit be big enough, or do i need a long wheel base? Thanks

Sound perfect, do they have an operating licence attached to them? Would monday be too late to collect them? Assuming i can get hold of a van.