dayzd

Figured it out. For some reason, the STT app needs restarting between moving tapes and carrying out any other actions...

So far I've not been able to get that to do what I want. Think I'm getting there, though!

They just get loaded into the carousel. It's fully loaded and ready to rock, so it's quite frustrating we can't tell it "Use that one!" and get cracking!

Yes, we've looked at that (we can Google, too). Neither the front panel options (as stated in my first post) or the web interface allow you to control which tape is loaded. Might just look into that - the server it's attached to isn't used for any backup stuff any more, so we could easily do that.

They're redundant. The unit in question was replaced 18 months ago after a successful migration to a SAN system, with its own higher capacity backups. The tapes nor the backup tape library (the one in question above) are no longer in use. We want to erase the old tapes so we can pass them on to other schools who may need them, without running the risk of sending them loads of our kids' work from '08-'09!

Hello all Does anybody know of any free method/software that will allow us to manage a Sony AIT tape library (LIB-81)? The tape library in question is redundant (it was replaced by a larger unit when we installed a SAN last year) and we want to use it to erase our remaining AIT tapes. However, we do not have a spare Symantec license knocking about and are hoping someone can recommend a technique or bit of freeware that will manage the tape library and allow us to batch-erase a set of tapes in one go. I know NTBackup can erase the tapes for us, but we're struggling to find some software to control the tape loader - there are no front panel options to control which tape is loaded in the drive, so we can't actually access the tapes!

Giggled like a schoolboy at that!

Just a quick straw-poll for those of you using EMBC provided hosted websites: Do you you use a CMS on it? If yes, which one? I'm looking at potential updates/upgrades for our current EMBC hosted service (based on a simple PHP engine and html files) and it'd help to know which ones actually work!

Yay for dogs! I'd love to have one, but sadly have neither the time or the money... He looks a lovely fella. What's his name?

I don't imagine it's as intended as that. The BBC are just getting caught up in the media hype along with everyone else - they'd be accused of not reporting properly if they didn't cover Apple launches. Plus, when Apple announces something they call groundbreaking, or a 'game changer', for whatever reason, they're normally right, making it newsworthy.

And if there's anything Apple know, it's how to work the hype machine...

That is part of what makes Apple so popular. They remove the complications and abstract things so far for the benefit of the average user, who doesn't care what size swap file they have, or what services are running at startup. They make things easy. Which is why, for many users on here, who are more advanced users and won't use anything they can't tweak and control, that Macs can be so frustrating. They feel dumbed-down. Almost 'My first computer'-like. For your average 'email/Facebook/Tesco online' user, Apple makes it easy to do what you want and removes any options that might allow you to break it. Apple's 'just work' because the important stuff is hidden away, away from fat-fingered users, ready to click the wrong thing! Does there have to be? There's very often a part of the purchasing decision that comes down to personal preference. Continuing the thread with cars... As said above, why buy a 4-seater BMW saloon for £25kish, when you can have a Mondeo for £18k or however much they cost? Take their cost out of the equation and you level the playing field of this discussion drastically.

Your AD problem is to do with the Mac machine accounts expiring in the AD, I think. It's something along those lines. It was mentioned by an Apple guy I met once, but I don't really remember any more about it! Sorry. I expect the card reader/mounting devices issue is something you'll have to live with. It's probably related to the fact you're using supplemented AD accounts, rather than Open Directory ones. I found a handful of quirks in our system the other year that stemmed from that, which there seemed to be no solution to - at least that I could find! Either that, or your 'Media Access' settings in Workgroup Manager are wrong! Your iMovie problem is probably caused by the fact you're using supplemented AD accounts, meaning the user doesn't have a proper local 'home directory' - a requirement for iMovie, for which mapped AD home folders (that typically appear in the Dock) do not suffice for. iMovie will only work properly with media on a local disc. If the user has a local folder, it'll be put in %user%\Movies\iMovie Events.localized. Otherwise it tries (in my experience) to place the iMovie Events.localized folder on the root of Macintosh HD, where your users most likely have no permission to write. There are ways of dealing with this, but they all involve some kind of local 'movie' folder where iMovie can run from. There's a good few threads about this issue already on EG with a few suggested solutions, so it's probably worth your time hitting up the search box! The proxy authentication issue, as zoom7000 said above, can only really be resolved with an IdentD client [ Download IdentD 2.5.1 Free - IdentD - Standalone identd server - Softpedia ]. Apple doesn't support Windows' transparent authentication methods.

The point with the Elise comment is that you can have the same/comparable components in two very different systems - so different they are almost not worth comparing to each other. Clarified further by Sted: Lots of cars have the same spec on paper (engine capacity/bhp, seats, stereo, aircon etc) but they don't all add up to the same experience when you use them. I know how frustrating Macs can be to an experienced Windows user who has never used one before, but also know that if you give them a chance, they can be enjoyable to use. Ultimately, it's a choice. An objective decision with no right or wrong answer, so I have no idea why we need threads like these...

There is a 'Safe Mode', never used it though so can't help with what'll work/not work...! Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?

Currently we're floating around 400:1. This includes 13 servers and appliances, 23 Macs, an EMC SAN plus 3 or 4 NAS boxes. We were a three man team until a year ago, since when no attempt has been made to hire. :-(

No it's not. It's just a computer. It's a tool, the same way a car is. Or a vacuum cleaner. Or a hammer. Using a mac doesn't make you or anything you do inherently more creative. I will, however, agree with your point that the most common use of Macs is for running creative software. When it comes to storing work locally, most support teams frown on this. The lack of decent, expandable backup solutions for this idea is the primary reason not to do it. As for having users 'drag' completed work to another location, that's a no-no, too. No matter how much user education you do, there'll still be those that get it wrong and lose their own or someone elses work. Or accidents happen -I know of a school local to us who lost several pupils' coursework when an external drive they all copied to broke. The ideal set-up, that most of us strive for, is for the user not to even know that their work is being copied/moved/backed-up/secured in whatever way. They shouldn't have to think about it, or be involved in it. It's our job to make sure their work is safe, not theirs. ...Hence the OP.

The specificity of my comment doesn't change the fact that a little flexibility wouldn't go amiss. Yeah, there more than likely are more important developments that should be made first. It doesn't change the fact that there are users out there who perceive that this particular area of the software is lacking in features.

Our bursar had what I can only assume is a speculative phone call from SchoolWebsite .co.uk earlier on this term and has been caught by there sales blurb and promises of the most wonderous website things you could possibly imagine... This bothers me, as our current website was developed personally by me over about 6 months a few years ago. I know that, three and a half years after it originally launched, it's a bit long in the tooth and rough around the edges -it's had bits bolted on and ripped off quite a few times. I have every intention of rebuilding from scratch before the end of this academic year - something SMT are aware of (I've spoken to some SMT staff about it, and it is one of my targets in my recent annual appraisal). I can produce a new website with all the bells and whistles SchoolWebsite are flouting (CMS, Podcasts, News feeds, blogs etc.). I have the knowledge and skills to make an accessible and usable website and I understand SEO. Knowledge and skills I implemented in the site I made for them 4 years ago. The bursar, however, has gone ahead and set up a meeting with SchoolWebsite .co.uk in January and is obviously considering paying them their £5000 fee to rebuild our site. Has anybody worked with them before? Do you have a website they made? What are the company like? Are they reliable? Are changes accommodated easily and quickly? I'm just trying to guage what I'm up against. The school's website is the only thing I have any pride in within my job and I'll be very angry if it is taken away from me. Especially so if SMT don't actually tell me what they think is wrong with our current site, let me know what they want from it or give me a fair chance to prove I can do just as good a job as an external company can... (Apologies for the slightly ranty tone of this post. This (among other issues) has really got my back up. If decent jobs weren't so rare, I'd be leaving.)

This is something I've been asked to look at, too... (Are you listening Capita? People don't like your default output - please let us change it!) I was planning to get our cover manager to export the regular HTML to a folder on a webserver, then have staff access it via that, while using some PHP/Javascript/JQuery goodness on the way to pretty-fy it. Haven't had time to even start as yet, but it'll happen eventually!

I've struggled with the iMovie video location issue since Macs entered our building 18 months ago. I can only see that it is so difficult because of Apple's aforementioned focus on domestic users. Most people at home aren't concerned where the video goes, just as long as they can get it on the computer so they can start making their generic movie trailers to share with friends. So Apple have taken this out of the equation. The same way they have removed responsibility from the user for picking the right frame rate/size and compression type at import. The average user doesn't know or care about this, they just want it to work. That's what Apple software does - it just works. And rightly so. Which sucks for those of us who need a little more control over our machines. I agree completely with all you've said above. Apple software should be more flexible. There should be ways of offering more control over certain things when used in a network environment. Originally, for the first year they were in school, our Macs downloaded a users' video from a network share at login. Which would have worked well, if iMovie didn't 'touch' every single video each time it loaded, stopping rsync from being able to tell what was new and needed syncing and what didn't. This led to ALL the video being syncronised, even if nothing new had been added. Compound this with students' inability to delete footage they did not need and you have some VERY long login times. This system was removed in the summer, and now we've gone all-Apple. Our Macs are no longer AD-connected and we use mobile accounts to keep local copies on the client machines that automagically sync to the server in the background. It seems to work, too! Managing two sets of accounts for a small number of users (we only have about 50 who use the Macs, which is manageable) and it sure beats the problems we were having last year!

However if you're stuck with Creative cards, I used kX Project drivers with my circa-2002 £30 Creative SBLive 5.1 card to get me through my three year music technology degree. From the looks of things they haven't been updated in a good while, but if your card is compatible, those drivers are fantastic!

The crucial thing here is it's important to have something that has decent ASIO drivers. If your device uses generic ASIO drivers, it'll be pretty bad, but most Creative cards (or other cards with device-specific, custom drivers) have decent ASIO performance. Once you have that, you can set the latency to be much lower in the ASIO setup panel thing (s'been a while since I used Cubase...!) 10-20ms should be acceptable. 40+ and you'll notice it if you're playing VST / virtual instruments.

Thank you Fatmas, that's now my Facebook status!

Tee hee hee! :-D