Iain.Faulkner

Afternoon all, We have 1 solitary Macbook Pro in school and I want to give it a fresh install of the OS. So I've followed the instructions in the link below OS X: How to erase and install - Apple Support I've reached the end of point 6 without problem, however now I'm stuck....I've tried various button presses and get different results be they flashing folder icons, error messages (-1007f), stuck on the apple logo. Currently it has an image of a spinning globe and the name of my wireless network on it....but it's been like that for about 12 hours now :-( I've got a disk for OSX Snow Leopard which is what I want to build from (although I will happily rebuild from anything at this point). Any suggestions?

We have a Starbucks on site....there's no way I could give up coffee :-)

Started week 2 last night, can't say it felt that much different to the week 1 runs (now it's 90 seconds running, two minutes walking). Fingers crossed ot being able to get the next two runs in as planned on Tuesday/Thursday.

PC's and Switches/Cabling I think, plus looking at mobile devices and wireless.

I've been asked to do the same! I'm putting together a sharepoint site for use as an IT Helpdesk, and my intention is to take a copy of that and use it for the site staff as well.

Whoop, we're all booked in for Bett :-) Coming down on the Wednesday night, staying over, then at the show on the Thursday before coming home on the Thursday night :-) Fingers crossed Ofsted don't try to come in this time (like they did last year)!

Hi all, Working on getting 10 ipad's configured for a project for our English Department. The iPad's are all configured using Apple Configurator and have appeared in our Meraki Dashboard. What I want to achieve, is the ability to send out apps through Meraki over the wireless to the iPad's, but also monitor the students browsing in smoothwall. As I understand it, the iPad essentially needs access to wireless at all times in order to send out apps remotely. So once the iPad is turned on, it connects to the internet and downloads any apps that it should have. So the AppStore needs to be able to access the internet, without authenticating against Smoothwall. But at the same time, when students are using the iPad's, I need them to login to Smoothwall SSL page so that we can monitor their browsing. Is what I am trying to achieve possible? Has anyone else out there managed this? If not, how have other people dealt with this situation? What should I have for my setup with the iPad's to ensure the best possible end user experience. I want to get this right now (with just a handful of iPads), before we go down the route of 100's of iPad's. Hopefully this makes sense, I have logged a call with Smoothwall but wanted to see if anyone else had done this here as well. Thanks in advance Iain

Thanks for the tip :-) Definitely something I'll need to look at once I've finished the C25K. I'm doing the NHS C25K, but I've also got the Zombie one which I think will do up to 10k, but i'll definitely take a look at the one you've suggested. Can't say I blame you for running in the Gym under those circumstances, I'd be exactly the same. This year though finances are a bit tighter for me, so the Gym membership has had to go so it's road running all the way this year!

Having decided to sign up for the Great Manchester Run (10km) at the back end of last year, I thought I'd best make a start on training. As a starting point I've decided to do the C25K and did my first training run last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it, never been much of a road runner, always been very happy on treadmills. Managed 3.8km on my first run in the 28 minutes allowed, so I think that's quite a good start. Training run 2 is tomorrow night!

Good god man! 12lb's in a week!! Unbelievable effort :-) I had my last official weigh in at WW on Wednesday. Put a pound on this week :-( Not to worried though to be honest. In the last 12 months I have lost just over 5 stone in weight, for the very first time in my life I achieved what I wanted to at the beginning of the year (I've set myself the goal of losing 3 stone in a year for more years than I care to remember, and I smashed through it!), and I'm at a weight of under 15 stone for probably the first time since I was about 15. Just need to maintain it over christmas now, try not to let it all fall apart and come back in January with the aim of getting to a healthy BMI....only 14lb's to go :-)

We've just been given a crate of Budweiser from the Head of Maths :-) That was completely out of the blue :-)

Add to that a large box of celebrations :-)

My contract states that I'm not allowed to accept gifts from suppliers..... We've had a few bits now (I don't ever expect anything, so I'm never disappointed), bottle of wine for each member of the team, box of biscuits between us and a card :-)

We've got brother in law and his wife and children coming up on 23rd (they're staying with the in-laws), staying till boxing day. So we'll spend most of 23rd/24th at the in-laws doing various things. On Christmas day itself, 13 people (Me, wife, 3 x children, my mum and dad, in-laws, brother in law + Wife + 2 children and my Grandma) are coming to ours for Christmas day (I am cooking, love doing it :-) ). Then boxing day, brother in law goes to his wife's family. 2 of our children go to their dad's for Christmas number 2 and the rest of us relax and savour the peace :-) Edit: Forgot to add....finish on Monday and then off work till the 6th January :-) Don't normally take that much time off work in one go (haven't done it since April 2013 in fact), and I'll be bored and grump by the 27th most likely, but at this point in time I'm looking forward to a nice long break from work :-)

I'm finding this thread strangely reassuring, as our own future upgrade plans are very similar to the rest of you :-) 10Gb backbone, completely redesigning the wired infrastructure of the school (putting in new fibre's to some cabs and upgrading existing ones). Rewiring some of the older IT Suites and classrooms. Then we'll look at putting wireless in, and then finally mobile devices (phew managed to avoid mentioned iPads....Dammit!!! ). Alongside this, there will be continuing to turn around school PC's on a 6 year PC replacement program, servers will be due for replacement in 2-3 years, broadband connection needs looking at.

....you start putting dirty washing into the dishwasher....

We're currently looking at doing a similar project with a view to pulling out all the existing, 3com, cisco, netgear switches etc and replacing. We already have a HP 5406zl in the core and at this point we're looking at HP for the edges as well. Just had pricing through for redoing all our fibre as well! I'm not sure the headteacher is going to like the overall cost :-)

Nothing here, finish on the 19th :-)

Well done on signing up @nephilim :-) Good luck with it. I've seen a lot of stories of people who switch to diet drinks and drop weight quickly initially, I think it depends on how much you drink, but so called "full fat" coke and other soft drinks are really just empty calories.

Having seen @calapso do an update on Ergo, I thought I'd provide my own. We logged a couple of calls regarding Ergo devices which we'd had in school for less than a year (5 year on site warranty). We were also asked to send them back, which for us as well wasn't really practical, mainly as we didn't have anything to send them back in. Eventually managed to get them to agree to send an engineer out. Engineer came on site, didn't know how to take the PC's apart (struck me as strange as previously we had a guy come from Ergo who was very good). I showed him how to take the case apart, he replaced the part but didn't fasten it back in properly. Didn't notice this till after he'd left the site, so we had to screw the part back in to stop students poking stuff inside the PC case. Can't say we were overly impressed by the level of service, either in reporting the incident nor with the quality of service provided by the engineer. I've used ERGO almost exclusively for 4/5 years now and am disappointed to say the least. In addition, I've asked for a quote for 90 PC's with a couple of options on them (increased memory and SSD's on the options)...certainly not a small order. Initially I was emailing my account manager (who was always very good at getting back to me). Found out, eventually, that my account manager had left (nobody at ERGO thought to tell us this though and it would seem that no-one was checking her email) and we had a new account manager. They are coming in to see us on Thursday for an "Introduction Meeting"....can't say it's been the best of starts for them though.

I know I'm getting some lego already, so I'm a happy man :-) Other than that, to be honest there isn't much I need/want, I'm much happier buying presents for the our little boy (2nd Christmas, he's already very excited at the christmas lights we see as we're driving round). I don't like the giving of money or vouchers, but this year I have a genuine need for it. Having lost over 5 stone in the last 12 months I am in desperate need of new clothes as I've dropped between 3 and 4 clothes sizes and most of my existing clothes are simply huge on me!

Same as most I think.....unlocked, sometimes open sometimes closed when we're in. Closed and locked when we're out.

Is this another one of the Lego "Ideas"/CUUSOO sets? It does look good but I'm not sure I'll be tempted to buy this one. Whereas I did feel the need to splash out on the Back to the Future and Ghostbusters sets :-) There is also a Jurassic Park set that seems to be doing quite well on Lego Ideas that i'd be very tempted by as well Anyone on here going to Brick 2014 this week? :-)

Normally that would be a route i'd go down but she had some vouchers (from the little man) for her birthday in September and hasn't had chance yet to use them :-( But the idea was a good one :-)

I'm having a bit of a nightmare this year as well. With the little man the wife going part time we're working to very strict budgets this year. Like @witch I like to try and get the wife something that she's not expecting that's a little bit extravagant as well. In general she's very easy to buy for, I can easily buy bodyshop items, scarves, hats, Cd's DVD's etc...it's the one special present I'm really pulling my hair out over :-( In the past it's never been a problem, but this year!!!