camel

Another plus one for SchoolsICT

Have you had a look at Schools ICT's ZiLink modules that plug into Moodle. Used this at my previous school and now looking to implement at my current school due to the integration with SIMS and ease of use, compared with SLG.

I found that when deploying office in our environment that each Office installation stated that it could not activate. We have KMS set up correctly and it was receiving activation requests, but very few (less than 5) however, I was made aware of the need to rearm Office for use in a KMS environment. Maybe it is different for an Office MAK key installed before sysprep?

@FN-GM : just beat me too it.* You've got the right idea but I would go straight for KMS. Am I right that you would activate the computer you are imaging with a MAK key? KMS is extremely easy to setup. Install the server or client KMS key on the 2008 R2 server. Install the Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack on the same server, install the Office key and then wait for the clients to activate. Use "slmgr.vbs /dlv" to check how many activation requests have been submitted. *One caveat: on the image you are creating, Office 2010 will need to be rearmed immediately before imaging so that when the new installation has finished set up it will generate a new office installation ID. The issue will be that Office wont activate using KMS if multiple copies of Office request activation where they all have the same generated installation ID. There isn't this issue with Windows as you will run sysprep before imaging. Think of rearming as "sysprep for Office".

Hi, Yes I have had this set up and running successfully for around 12 months. LDAP settings should to be; MS Active Directory, standard LDAP (or LDAP +SSL), port 389, authentication should be simple and a user that can read the users and groups from AD. User should be in format of CN=*,CN=*,DC=*,DC=* and base dn should be where your users (email users) reside in AD. Also, ensure that all of your users have email addresses populated in AD. Hope this helps. Rob

Hi, You could use a powershell script to use the spreadsheet by extracting the fields and create your files. I assume usernames are the students root folder?

Try OpenBravo, there is a community edition. Server/client architecture it is deployable in many situations, local, cloud. Looked at it a while back for a small jewellery company.

Here are their current prices however, schoolsict are developing some interesting stuff with regards to Sims writeback in the near future. ZiLink for Moodle 2.0 | ZiLink Another school using zilink, great software, support and features.

A major vote for epraise.co.uk It is an excellent and simple system. We are running with it live from Sept where Ben Dunford (epraise developer) has been most accommodating to our requirements. It does everything we need. class/group add points, give out tokens(similar to top-up cards, unique code) that students can load onto the system, auto load points based on students UPN (we have tested this with giving a point for students having a full attendance for each week, created a SIMS report to do this for us). The reporting and accessible API (graphs and charts) are brill and can be easily placed on VLE and website (there are public and private versions available). After all of the looking for a points/reward system, epraise is the most simple, elegant and probably (for us anyway) very cost effective. And, our staff loved when it was introduced to them . We did look at vivo miles, SIMS behaviour and achievements (not practical or usable on SLG), schoolrewardsystem.

hi, We have 2 such trolleys and they are useless. They are old and the brand escapes me atm. The laptops are old fujitsu siemens v3505s which had flimsy caps covering the lcd screen brackets, all of those have broken off exposing the bracket. The front of the laptops has a petruding switch/catch that locks the laptop screen/lid shut. This has been damages on many occassions where the switch mechanism snapped inside requiring the whole screen cover to be removed to repair it. Additionally, the cable management is none existant where the cables bundle in a self mixing mess, several hours of untwisting and repositioning them ensues every term. It is a big no no to any member of staff who wants the chargers out of the trolley if the laptops have been used consecutively for several lessons These are a few reasons to go with a horizontal position trolley, albeit the latter doesnt matter, that is a general trolly isse. We have a monarch lapcabby which is horizontal, has great cable management and a safe laptop charger. Just to note, we've had no issues, as far as im aware, of batery issues for vertically stored laptops.

Orange Sanfranciso version 1, or if you want to pay the few quid extra, the Sanfrancisco 2 (not much processor or ram improvement but does have a front and back camera to name a few improvements).

We are in the process in developing a powershell script, where my colleague is in the process of finishing development. We have both searched for various methods in order to match students from initial creation right though to managed name changes. Some pupils' names can change, more than once in certain familial situations. We decided on comparing the UPN and the admission number as unique fields where I created a report in sims to export all of the necessary student details. The report can be scheduled to run through the SIMS tool CommandReporter found in C:\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS .net\. The powershell script checks all of the fields that we want it to compare and either creates, updates, enables/disables the users through a combination of student status and date of birth to auto create the intake year OU in AD. The export only exports pupils who are on roll or pre-admissions. If the student is a leaver, they are not exported, and they have already been created in AD then the script knows that the user has left and only disables the user. The same powershell script can be run with a leavers flag to remove pupils that have been disabled. Any changes in sims are daily mirrored in AD.

Another happy customer here.

This may be slightly off piste; We had the same symptoms though in a slightly different setup. This happened to any laptop (Mac/Windows) used to play DVDs onto a large hall projector with the sound connected to the mixing desk, PA system. We had great music sound and quality though voices or just anyone talking were virtually silent. This was a major issue and had our PA installer back out to sort it out, which he did. The problem was the 3.5mm jack to a single XLR adapter. XLR being a mono connection and trying to force a stereo signal down it, for obvious and stated reasons, this didn't work and caused the symptoms being described in this thread. This was resolved by our installer through creating us a stereo 3.5 mm jack to 2 XLR, essentially connecting the stereo channels separately all the way back to the mixing desk whereby they were joined to a single channel, similar to a CD, IPod or other stereo channel. Now back to your issue, I'm wondering if there is the possibility of a mono connection anywhere in-between the laptops and the IWB speakers? 3.5mm jack cable? We have had a few of these floating around, I think I've got rid of them all. Our W7, WXP laptops or macbooks don't seem to have experienced this issue on the standard IWB speakers? Sorry if it is off target; but the symptoms sound exactly the same and it may relate to others who are looking at the symptoms. [Didn't realise the thread was an old one, my bad...though my experience may help.]

Hi, I have a couple of DL380 G6s which have 4 ports. Ports are teamed and trunked for assigning VLANs to different VMs, very fast, very efficient. All VMs take advantage of the failover and HA capabilities of the teamed NICs. Only one virtual switch and one static IP (parent partition). Assigning a specific static IP will depend on the VLAN the new VM is going to be on and your current network numbering scheme(s). Not sure if the HypV VLAN capability is in Win2K8 SP2, worth a look though. I have W2k8 R2.

+1 for papercut, used the tracking only at a previous primary I worked at then moved to full version at the secondary I work at now, absolutely brilliant software. Vote for a feature is great as the guys at papercut really get an insight into how their customers want the software to work for them. I've sent a few suggestions where I hope to see them in the future versions.

Also setting hostname of your server to the A record in DNS? hostname NEW_NAME will set the name for your server or edit the /etc/hostname file.

are your virtual host directives (under /etc/apache2/sites-enabled) the same as the NameVirtualHost directive in the /etc/apache2/ports.conf file?

Last summer I started a 3 year plan to upgrade our network. Starting at the core, we needed layer 3 switching at core and while at it to increase the number of fibre links between our buildings from a single 1Gb to 2 or 4 1Gb bonds. I looked at several options inc HP, Cisco, Netgear. Decided on the a few Netgear GSM7352S's and a GSM7228PS for POE/POE+. They have 2 10Gb SFP+ ports per unit and we have them stacked on 48Gb redundant ring. Cost for features was deciding factor, plus Netgear lifetime warranty. What intrigued me was the SFP+ LRM modules for the netgear switches (all suppliers have these). These modules allowed me to reuse the existing OM1 fibres at 10Gb speeds. Distances upto 220m though but with the size of our site that was more than possible. This was a logical step forward and allowed us to incorporate 10Gb backbone for future proofing, and though it is overkill in normal day to day use (atm), the replication speeds and reduced backup times moving data between backup and live make logical sense. linked up to SAN with dual 10Gb SFP+ links to core. paid about £1600 for the 48 port + 2 sfp+ GSM7352S units £280 for each of the LRM modules.

It isn't wrong, it is a possibility and it is how we have setup here for just 2 subnets. I would prefer write once, read many for standard configurations. On another note, I have the 066 Boot Server option set to just the NETBIOS name not the FQDN and, option 067 set to the path of our default boot image in WDS.

have you setup the DHCP scope options within each scope, e.g. each subnet, rather than the server options?

Absolutely true. So in effect, those of us who are county council employees, works created are essentially copyright of the County Council for works created within maintained schools, depending on the legal entity, e.g. Academies/free schools individually would be the employer. If I remember back to my uni days, we had to sign a document stating that anything created within/for uni was under university copyright too. I can't remember the exact wording though...

Just had pricing from KCom, finally, and I am not shocked at the costs. They were definately not worth hanging around at and, when you take into account what Capita have submitted as a quote for their services. They just don't stand out in comparison to the competition. Schools Broadband and RM, to name a few, offer the full package (connectivity and services) at equivalent service levels and at a fixed costs over a three year deal. To get the best pricing from KCom we are to sign up to a 4 year deal, provisionally, and then wait further to find out if enough schools have signed up to get the pricing! The KCom offer asks schools to register interest in the emPSN service by the end of May and they wont give a confirmed final price or delivery date until the end of June, Assuming no more 'slippage'! This is so that they will be able to plan network capacity and aggregation within individual school clusters. Just want a quote with no ambiguity! I am not being unreasonable here. Other companies, previously mentioned, have no issue stating how much their service will be, what they will be offering (email, web hosting (linux,load balanced, DBs), filtering (AD integration, reporting), firewall, external IPs, VPNs, warranties, what equipment will be installed), when they will be installed, offering a safe/secure (onsite) BECTA/DfE compliant internet connection as a complete solution for about the same price as what KCom are offering just for their connectivity! They take the ambiguity out of it giving us either full control or picking up the phone/email to request an action. And just stating a fact and not being selfish, we could go it alone without our cluster for the prices we've be competitively quoted, as could could each of the schools in our cluster.

From Talk Straight? We are currently talking with them as a preferred bidder. I would very much like to know how it goes with your installation as we are looking at a similar service from them. What other features have you gone for; e.g. email, webhosting. And, have you gone onto the Gold service from SBB? Cheers

Our school still doesn't have pricing from KCom, they decided to send the email to an email address that we have never used! Having updated the email with them at the start of the week, they still didn't send it. Do Kcom and Capita have access to the site contacts through the information from talk2synetrix?! I've updated them now and there is a new round of emails going out Monday, seems that this issue has happened to quite a few schools in Leicestershire. I've also added a redirect on the email that they tried to send to so if they don't 'update' their records at least I'll get something, though next week. At this rate I'll get the posted letter quicker than the email from them!!!