steveg

I think some of the passwords that can be applied to sata hdd's cannot be cleared. When they are setup you get the option to set a supervisor password and a user password (a lot like a lot of bios's) and certainly on the ones we setup you get a lot of warnings saying dont loose the password, it isn't recoverable! Obviously as it wasn't you that set these, you wont know either password. You're best bet is to 'extract' the password from thechildren! Steve

5 of us, 4 full time and 1 for 3 days a week term time only. Support 14 schools (all primary) with aprox 3500 total users and about 25 servers. Steve

Thanks for the examples, both look really good, and looks like we can do everything we want in moodle. Now just got to decide if the benefits of using it outweigh the hassle of moving from a Learning Platform we've had for the last 3 years! Steve

We're currently looking at moving to Moodle for our primary School VLE. Does anyone have this running in a primary School, and wouldn't mind me having a look at it? Thanks Steve

Has anyone else noticed how almost every one of nicko17's posts is promoting Aerohive, or starting a thread in which they can promote it? Maybe its just me. Steve

Have you tried playing mouse conkers with them? :-) Steve

So you want to go from the BT router > Infrastructure cable > Phone? If so then yes, this is possible, and you can buy RJ11 to RJ45 convertors that do what you want. If however it is in a different building for example, and you plan to plug the phone into a network socket and then into a switch which is linked to the BT router then it will only work if it is a true IP handset (which would have an RJ45 socket not an RJ11 socket on it) Steve

Hows it going there now? Had a busy summer? (stupid question!) Let me know if you can't find anyone, I may be able to spare a tech for a week or 2 after next week. Steve (from Chyngton)

Is there no way you can fit another patch panel in the cab? you can terminate 48 ports into 1u of space, and if you get the krone punch down ones, they will be so much easier to terminate than crimping 30 cables, and also less likely to have problems in the future. Something like this 48 Way RJ45 Cat5e UTP Patch Panel - 1u Steve

I had a 2.0 one for several years and loved it. From all the reviews the v6's arent really worth it, (more wieght, minimal extra power) I found the 2.0 quick enough, and pretty good on fuel. Was also very good on insurance, I was 19 when I got my first one (have owned 2 now) and the insurance was cheaper than I could get for a fiesta! Steve

If you can't stretch to a managed system, then although it would take a little more configuring, i'd recomend 2 different ssid's. For example, wireless1 for 1 ap and wireless2 for the other. On the first 15 netbooks set wireless1 as the prefered network, and wireless2 as the second in the list. On the remaining 15 netbooks put wireless2 as the prefered and 1 as the second. They should then hopefullyt split 50/50 between the access points. If either point fails then they will all use the other one. Both ap's should be on different channels. Steve

I've not used it as much since the re-design. 99% of my time on here was on the forums, and the old 10 latest threads was (im my opinion) better than the current system of latest posts - its often hard to work out what a thread is about by only being able to read the latest post, and because there is only space on the side for a few of them, if there are 2 or 3 from the same thread then you dont get to see many new threads. I recently discovered the new posts bit of the forum, but often just quickly pop past the front page and used to post on any topics that caught my eye, but generally dont now. Steve

Is there not a half - way solution to this? We buy all of our MS through the LEA, which is a one off cost. We dont run the latest versions of everything (currently still office 2003 for example, although moving to 2007 soon) but there are no annual costs. If you just purchase the OS licences this year (we pay about £35 ish a copy, and £80 for the servers), then remove MS office and install open office. Total cost will be around £12k this year, and then zero in any subsequent years. If you factor in the time of re-building the whole network from scratch, and re-training all staff then this might be worth it? Steve

Thanks for all the suggestions, it looks like the lots of different options approach might be best. I'll burn cd's and dvd's for everything, and then probably copy it onto a usb memory stick as well. Even if it doesn't work i'm sure a techie in the future will have fun trying! Steve

As part of our building work, the children will be burying a time capsule not long after the Easter break. One of the things they want to put in it is a video they have made about the school, and a lot of photos of the school. What do you think is the best storage media to use for this? It is going to be in an air tight sealed box, but the data has to last at least 20 - 25 years (the school has just turned 50 so its likely it could be dug up when the school is 75) So not only does the data have to survive that long, it also has to be readable in 25 years time! My initial thoughs were to just burn a dvd, but wondered how long these last? I'm sure something will be around in 25 years to read them (we can still read floppy's now). Anyone got any ideas? Steve

We're a 420 pupil primary with a setup as follows: 1 exchange server, 1 sql (sims) server, 1 Terminal server, 1 remote access server and 2 file a print servers (being upgraded to 2008 over easter) Aprox 200 client devices, over half of which are wireless running of a managed hp procurve wireless network, and soon to be 4gbit backbone with gig to the desktop everywhere. (summer upgrade) One of the smaller schools we support only has 90 children, but 35 desktop and 45 wireless computers, with more coming, so will be 1:1 pupil to computer ratio after the summer. Equally some of the schools we support are almost excatly what you have described above, - there is a huge variation between schools. Nearly all the schools we support now backup remotely to servers at the LEA. Looking to the future increased numbers of wireless devices are the way almost all of our schools are heading - we've purchased more netbooks in the last couple of years than anything else. I think SAN's and any sort of major server upgrades are unlikely - most schools want to concentrate on the front end stuff that they actually see - its often hard to persuade them that they need to invest several thousand pounds in the back end kit to support it all. Most will replace their main server as its needed, and add storage etc, but multiple servers are still not very common even in larger primaries. (at least multiple modern servers anyway) Steve

Sorry should have read the forum name! Can you not just select half of the folders in 1 go though? and then schedule a second backup to run when the first completes with the other half of the folders in it? Steve

Which version of windows are you running?

Stretch the budget a bit more and get a third hard disk! - Looking at the spec that motherboard supports Raid 5, so you'd get the speed and some redundancy. Steve

I just lend mine to the wife, does the same thing!

Why not replace the pc with an atom based pc - much less power and therefore going to run a lot cooler? If not how about one of the antec thermally controlled fans running off a 12v power supply? - It will only come on when its needed then? Steve

Great, thanks for that! Now all we've got to do is set it up! Steve

Can someone tell me if they think this is A. Possible, and B. Possible using OpenVPN We want to provide remote access through terminal services to a number of our sites. We would like to setup 1 VPN server at our main site, and get clients to connect to this. Depending on thier username they would then be granted access to only the IP of the terminal server at the site where they are based. So a user at the main site would authenticate to the VPN server from home, and be permitted to connect to the TS at the main site. A user at remote site 1 would authenticate to the VPN server from home, and then be permitted access to the terminal server at site 1 only. From the main site we are already able to access the terminal servers at all of the remote sites. Hopefully this makes sense, and I think it is possible, just want to check before we start setting up an openVPN server. Thanks Steve

Brilliant. My sat nav at the weekend decided that while driving along a motorway, I should exit at the juntion, do a complete lap of the roundabout and then re-join the motoroway! Steve

I've had a similar issue with an hp laptop, when the speakers were plugged in there would be a lot of white noise if the AC adaptor was plugged in, it was fine on battery power. As it was only 1 laptop hp swapped out the adaptor and the problem went away. I guess its possible you have a faulty batch of adaptors? Steve