robdaglish

While you'll pry my iPad from my cold,dead hand, I've been looking at Android tabs for a project I've got going at the moment. I've been very impressed by the Galaxy Tab, but for my money, the HTC Flyer is incredibly impressive, but does cost more Other than that, I liked the acer A500. Motorola seem to be upsetting a lot of people with lack of support and patchy releasing of SW upgrades.

Hi All, I'm currently playing around with vmware esxi and some Linux vm's. They live at the end of a 2gb connection to a 48 port switch. At the end of another 2gb connection to the same switch is a netgear readynas2100, and all 20 or so workstations connect to the same switch. users home folders need to be on the nas for ease of backup, machine swaps etc. I'd like some thoughts on the following scenarios: ReadyNas is set up with user authentication and users PCs connect directly to the nas. ReadyNas is set up as an iSCSI target, and one of the linux boxes runs samba to share the home folders. I've got LDAP running to do user auth for email/web/proxy servers, and i'd like to use the same accounts for my home folders ideally. If I do go with scenario 2, am I better to vlan the connection to the nas from the server and use the 2 "spare" network cards in the server to team into the connection to the users PCs? I had all this planned in my head, and now I've bottled it slightly!

Be aware that part of Sky's T&C's is/was that you use the router that they supply and no other. You will need a password as well, it isn't your sky account password, but one that is generated based on MAC of the router - a quick google or look at the unofficial sky user website will give you a site to do that. I used a draytek ethernet modem on my sky connection, then passed through a Juniper SSG5 (I wanted to keep my network separate from my test systems and the various machines that people ask me to look at) and onto a TimeCapsule for wifi access, and it worked very well, and gave me sterling service whilst I was on Sky - but then I moved and couldn't keep my 7.50 a month 20MB connection although I still use the same setup on my new provider.

Hi Guys, I'm looking for suggestions for things I may have missed here: One of the schools I look after recently purchased 105 HP Mini 210-1001SA laptops (1 per child in Y3/4/5). I've created a W7Pro WDS image, and applied it to each one of the laptops, and they've all worked fine apart from 6 or 7 which have been causing me major headaches with their wireless connectivity - they'll either connect for half an hour or so then drop the connection,or they'll report that no wireless connections are available. Other laptops in the same location report the school WLAN and a couple in houses nearby, even when those 6 or 7 stop. So far, I've done: Swap Cards between duffers and Known Good Laptops - still N/G Reinstalled Drivers - still n/g Reinstalled Windows - still n/g Disabled all Power Management - still n/g Upgraded BIOS on laptops - still n/g Upgraded firmware on WAP - still n/g Tried different WAP - still n/g Networking works fine if I plug in a cable, and the affected laptops can use a USB wifi dongle OK. I'm thinking if I put *nix on a pendrive and see if they work that way it might prove it's the cards. Any suggestions gratefully received, particularly as to where I can buy the cards from as HP's response is "Oh, you've put your own OS on? Well, your warranty is void then..." and to put the phone down on you! Guess I won't be buying any more kit from them, so suggestions as to nice netbooks, desktops and servers as well please! Cheers, Rob

Hmm. Perhaps I should have made that clearer Alan - I was proposing LDAP integration for user accounts, and file storage on your existing servers, not the new mac server, which I'd envisioned as being there only to let you do the restrictions - basically, Snow Leopard Server has three main components as far as networking is concerned - Workgroup Manager, which despite the name is the bit that lets you setup domains and is the only one I can remember (it was christmas when I last setup a Mac network), a security profile manager which broadly does the job of Group Policy Manager, and a third one which I think is server manager which lets you configure the services running on your server, eg SQL, IMAP, POP etc, which you tend not to use once you've got everything running properly! That said, you could quite easily setup a Time Capsule if you wanted to go all Mac, or some other sort of NAS box to store the files on which would give you more space? The alternative, and what I'd suggest for 150 concurrent users (how big is your music department?) would be to buy a great big Mac Pro and a separate copy of SLS, and stack it with oodles of disk space.

Hi Alan, I'm a Mac user most of the time, so I can try and give a little advice: first, the easy stuff: SIMS does not run natively on a Mac. You can use Parallels or other emulation software to emulate windows and run it on that if you wish, but you'll need to have appropriate Windows licenses etc - that said, my MBP will run Win7 and EuroTruck simulator quite happily in Parallels. As far as restrictions and setting home folders goes, go, you'll pretty much have to put in OSX Server, but if you've got decent network connections, you can buy a Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server on for around £800 less the VAT (remember to ask for the educational discount) and use that to setup LDAP authentication which should then let kids use the rest of the network fileshares. Just my 2p. Rob