dayzd

I'll start with a bit of backgound: We're an RM school that currently has a SmartCache 2 filtering box. We also have a small number of Macs that we have set up separately to the RM network and require separate internet filtering, because we don't like the way they work with Smartcache. We're currently looking at a SmoothWall solution for the Macs, but next year (2011-12) we'd ideally like to use SmoothWall for both our RM and Mac networks and dump the SmartCache all together. Our main problem is cost. We're gonna have to justify the cost of a SmoothWall system to our SMT over the cost of a second SmartCache (which will do the job, just not very well). If we've calculated our costs right (total cost of ownership - hardware plus licenses), getting a SmoothWall for our macs for three years is double the cost of the RM SmartCache system we already have. If we're to use SmoothWall on our entire system, it'll cost more than three times that of a SmartCache system. Obviously, this is not a negligible difference. We can already tell from our trial version that despite it's complicated interface, it is a far better solution than SmartCache, but just saying 'well, it's better...!' isn't going to get us terribly far! Does anybody have any suggestions on how we could convince our SMT that SmoothWall is worth the cost?

There are endless discussions on various forums around the web about 5400vs7200 rpm drives in laptops. (I know because I've looked before for my laptop.) Assuming the existing drives are 2-3 years old, a brand new 5400 drive should perform faster than what you have, without the added complications of power/heat. As far as I'm aware, 7200rpm drives will be a bit warmer and more expensive in the battery department, but I have no experience to say how much by... I'd assume there is a limit to the amount of power the board can make available to a drive, but I can see no good reason why it would not be able to satisfy power requirements of any drive within whatever the standard spec is for 2.5" drives. One thing you should check/watch out for is the height of the existing and new drives. My laptop can only take a drive 9.5mm high, while some are 12.5mm. I'm not sure which you'll need for a Macbook. HTH.

We may have a copy of Leopard Server available after the summer, if that's not too late for you. I'll have to contact our bursar for permission though, as we don't often sell old equipment/licenses on - most things are run in to the ground, as I'm sure you can imagine!

I had a sneaking suspicion that was the case, but wasn't sure enough to say anything...! That's a useful thing to know!

Using Disk Utility you should be able to create an image of the disc that you can distribute to clients with ARD to install from (manually, per client sadly), then delete later. As for stopping student access, do you have an Open Directory server? Application control would be provided by this within Workgroup Manager if you do. As it sounds like you don't have an OD server though, I'm not sure how you'd go about restricting application use. ACL permissions set in the 'Get Info' permissions pane, maybe?

http://www.deploystudio.com/ is a reliable way to deliver images to new workstations, and is suitable for mass-deployment jobs etc. You'll have to set it up, but I believe you'll be able to drop the image you already have straight into it and use that. Otherwise, copy the image you have onto an external hard drive of suitable capacity, put the OSX restore CD into your machine and restart the mac from that (press C while the apple logo displays at boot) and when it loads (you'll see an OS X installer program load), instead of doing a full installation, go to the Utilities menu and you can use disk utility to restore the image to the local hard drive. HTH.

You may want to include Plex Media Center for OS X on your video apps page. It's a Mac-specific fork of XBMC that in my opinion works very well! Still poking around elsewhere on the site. Liking it a lot - good work!

Urr, is this of any use? EduGeek.net - Announcing the EduGeek Logon Tracker

That's so pretty! I need an upgrade!

I don't know how a Mini will cope with storage major storage setups. They only have 2.5" drives and I've read before that they're not ideal for central storage - sadly I can't find the article I looked at to quote it properly though. OD authentication and imaging and stuff should be fine. Be aware that the 'Group Policy type settings' settings that the Workgroup Manager GUI offers are nowhere near as fine-grained. If it is your intention to secure your macs to a level similar to that which you probably have your windows machines, buckle up for a long and complicated ride. Many more things can be customised via what are essentially text config files, but it can take a lot of work. Depends on how thorough you want to be...

I agree with AntonioRocco. I've had Macs for the last three years or so and have never had overheating /cut-out issues. If this is happening, I would guess something isn't right. Your Macbook Pro may get loud when doing tough numbercrunching but that's to be expected. And I'm pretty sure that the aluminium body is used as a passive heatsink for it, so watch what surfaces you put it on! Now, on to some useful things you may not have discovered yet: Enabling tapping and two fingered tapping for secondary click on the trackpad is a very good way of making it feel more comfortable to use. Pressing the spacebar with an item selected in Finder will open QuickView, which can preview most files (.doc, .txt, .pdf, .jpg etc) in a pop-up window without actually opening the associated program. Pressing 'Enter' with an item selected in Finder will allow you to rename it, NOT open it. It took me a while to get used to this. To open a selected file in Finder, press  & the down arrow. You can navigate Finder windows by pressing  & the arrow keys to go up and down folder levels.  & Backspace will delete a file to Trash  & Q will fully Quit an application.  & W will close a window or tab (pretty much any, although some apps like System Preferences will Quit instead).  & T will get you a new Firefox or Safari tab.  & Z will recover an accidentally closed Safari tab (in v5) and , Shift & T will recover an accidentally closed tab in Firefox.  & H hides an application (it still runs, but all it's windows are hidden) , Alt & H hides all other applications except the one you're currently using. , Alt, CTRL & Eject will shutdown your Mac (without a delay) , CTRL & Eject will reboot your Mac (without a delay) As HodgeHi said, Spaces is a valuable multi-desktop system I use on my Macs. You can switch between spaces with a keyboard shortcut (normally CTRL & -> or CTRL & <- if you have your spaces set horizontally) or by dragging windows to the screen edge for a second. When using options in menus, particularly secondary menus (right-clicks), try pressing the ALT key, as this sometimes offers different options. For example, in a Finder window, the secondary menu contains the option to 'Arrange [your icons] by' size, kind, date etc, but pressing ALT while the menu is open changes this to 'Keep Arranged By'. Err, yeah... Hope some of that is of use...!

Ugh! What have they done? Can't say I'm a fan at all... ...Now I'm really glad I have a custom (local) homepage that will bypass that when I search and take me directly to the results page!

That is EXACTLY why we've struggled with our Macs for the last 12 months (well, except the financial part. Managment seemed happy to throw lots of money at it, there was just no time...). It seems that no-one outside my office could even contemplate the fact that the IT team had zero experience with networked Macs, and only I had domestic experience in the previous 18 months. But still every little problem was 'a technical issue' so I needed to 'get it sorted now, as it's affecting teaching and learning'. Anyway, regarding the OP... That Server Cleanup utility looks useful - thanks! *downloads for use while reconfiguring a hastily set up Mac system into something more stable over the summer*

Just throwing out a few ideas here, so apologies if you've already tried them...: Where's your source video from? Is it HD from an AVCHD camera? I'm not sure how/if iMovie re-encodes AVCHD footage, but I know the raw footage is horrible to deal with - even on high-spec machines. Are you able to re-import the same footage using your MacBook then copying it to one of the Pros? It might sound like vague/lo-fi option, but have you tried creating a fresh user account (admin/restricted) and tried with that? Sometimes account errors cause odd problems.va

Well, I found my old Fake-Command tool thing, dusted it off a bit, then decided I could re-write it better. Un-rar to the folder of your choosing and open cmd2.html or cmd2.hta -- the .HTA being the better option -- as I've not cross-browser tested this in any way, if you don't have IE7, it may behave oddly. The HTA should bypass this and keep everything Micro$oft. There's a handful of options towards the top of both versions if you open them in a text editor (you can change a couple of messages and the update speed), and if you want to edit the text displayed, that's in 'cmd2text.txt'. Use and abuse as you see fit. cmd2.rar

I wrote an HTML page that looks like a Command window and spews out random error messages at random intervals a few years ago, I could dig that up and bung it into an .HTA, I guess... We set it as a screensaver (fullscreen) on our HoDs desktop once... My and my boss found reasons to be in his classroom when we knew it would trigger; "Oh, I just need to check this printer..." It took him a moment to notice it projecting on his whiteboard, but when he did, he thought his machine was well fuxored. Me and my boss couldn't stop giggling. Luckily he saw the funny side!

Argh! My eyes!

Ditto. I don't think my macs have crashed while I've been using anything Flash-powered, but I have had Finder crash doing other things, often while moving between Spaces - it isn't always as stable as you'd want it to be! Personally, my somewhat cynical point of view is as Sted's: While Jobs' arguments make a certain amount of sense, the accusations of controlling the market for Apple devices seems the most likely reason to me.

I just did this recently with Illustrator for our logo. Was a difficult task as the Path tool behaves a little differently to Photoshop's! Was pretty pleased with the result, but as I only did a mono version (that I will apply layer styles etc to when I need it), I should probably do a properly detailed, colour version too, but will practise a bit more first!

Well that has made my day...! I loved Podd. Pop was an obvious favourite action, and it was the easiest to type, too...!

When I was taking lessons, I was taught that if you're stopping at the junction, to put the clutch down just before you come to a standstill and push it into first as you physically stop. You're ready to move away quickly this way, but don't actually engage first while you're still slowing. In terms of open junctions, where you can see what is coming, I was told staying in second was appropriate unless you were going really slow (almost stopped) by the time you were safe to move off again.

Ditto. And again: Ditto... Did anyone else follow people's Twittering ( Twitter ) and see that by the end of the session looking into this bill, there were only about 10 MPs still there (there were only about 30 to start with)?!

If you don't want to do a bit-for-bit copy (not always necessary), you might wanna try XXClone : XXCLONE, A New Way of Cloning the Windows System Disk It does a regular file-copy of everything of your disk, then makes it suitably bootable, so in many regards it's a cloned drive, with the bonus of being slightly less fragmented! I've used it to upgrade a system drive to a bigger disk and it worked fine. That said, I've only used it once so take that into account while making your choice!

I feel your pain. Our site was recently broken down page by page and responsibility for it's content handed out to the relevant people. I.E. if page X is out of date, it's person Y's fault. This resulted in a big push of updates for a couple of weeks, but in the last couple of months has died down to nothing again. Not even all the letters that get sent home to parents are sent to me for the site!

We have just under 70 of these (bought over the space of about 18 months) and have only had to replace a couple of keyboards on them. We had a damaged trackpad button last week, but were able to fix it. Aside from the latch weakness mentioned above, we don't really have any problems with the hardware. I can see that heavy-handed use will shorten their lives, though. Are your kids/staff particularly ham-fisted?!