Iain.Faulkner

Hi, We do it this way.... On the exchange server, navigate to " Active directory Users and Computers". Right click the distribution group you wish to restrict, and select properties. In the properties screen, select the "Exchange General" tab and towards the bottom is a section called "Message Restrictions". Tick the radio button labelled "Only From" and then simply add the users you wish to allow to send to this distribution group in the box. Hope this makes sense. Edit: Apologies, think i've mis-read this

We're also a school who uses SmartBoards, never had a problem and significantly cheaper than Promethean. Can't comment on Hitachi though.

Hi Tony, In my previous school we had a few sets of the Qwizdom Q4's and Q5's. In the original software releases they were a bit of a pain, but once they'd sorted that they were much easier to setup (plus there was a nice little plugin that allowed you to create content in powerpoint). We had similar problems in that only a few teacher's would use them and as a result the sets were permanently located in their respective classrooms, but then this is more a training issue than quality of the hardware.

Hi all, We're currently in the middle of a major revamp of our network, and as part of it we're adding a mini suite of Imacs (and by mini I mean adding 5 machines to the existing 1 that we have for the reprographics lady) predominantly for use by Media Studies, but as a school resource. Our requirements are fairly simple, we'd want users to authenticate on the Windows Domain and have access to shared drives and their own personal network drive. What's the best way to go about administering these machines? Would we be best bringing in a dedicated Mac Server of some description (any advice on this would be greatly appreciated), or would we be ok simply using something like "AdmitMac"? Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Cheers Iain

My School is 3Com across the board as well, as mentioned earlier in the thread, we've never had any real problems. It's reliable kit, and it's costed reasonably as well (certainly significantly cheaper than HP or Cisco).

Hi Vikpaw, Thanks for this, it looks exactly what I am looking for. Just a shame it's 3 hours away :-(

Hi James, Thanks for your reply. I agree with you that Firebrand are excellent (in a previous job I spent a week with them doing a CRM developer course and it was exactly as you described it), they are certainly well worth the money (even at £6500 for the EA qualification), I just don't think I could handle 13 days there in one chunk :-) (plus I doubt the school will let me out for that length of time and sadly this summer is out of the equation to go on any training courses). Ideally I'd like to do the equivalent of the MCP's in order rather than all at once (like firebrand do). What was the CEH network?

Morning all, We're in the potentially fortunate position whereby we might actually have a budget for some training next school year (crazy I know). We want to do the MCITP Enterprise Administrator Qualification (or at least work towards it), but aside from bootcamps (like firebrand), I'm struggling to find anywhere. I'd prefer to do classroom based training (although I know this will cost a significant amount), those of you who have been fortunate enough to attend training courses, is there a particular company you'd recommend? Cheers

I had the same thought when I realised I knew the HP Customer Services phone number by heart

Adding to the numerous other threads on here thanking CP LTD. Thanks to Simon for getting us some really good pricing on some 3 Com Switches and Fibre Modules, I only wish we could have put more business your way. I've no doubt we'll be using you again in the near future.

You're 100% right, that it isn't viglens fault that our school purchased under specced machines.....however, by selling the system to an assistant head and telling him that these machines, with 256mb Ram(!!) three years ago, were top spec smacks of pushing out old kit just to get rid of it. Not the best customer service I would say. 1 year warranties aren't much better either. I do agree with you comment on managed systems, they are by definition less flexible than a vanilla windows system, and that's one of the reasons we're getting rid this summer...hurrah!

I'm going to have to join the ranks of those who haven't had good experiences with Viglen. Our School bought into Viglen about 3 years ago, the PC's supplied at the time were under specced, and required complete replacing after just 2 years (we couldn't afford to do it then, so they've had to last 3) just to allow us to run all the software that we need to run. The servers are unreliable, we've had one server blow 25 hard drives, and when you mention it to viglen, the response has been far from helpful. Plus when we had an issue with running some software, Viglen told us they couldn't tell us the fix over the phone and we'd have to pay £850 for an engineer to come out and fix it. Engineer turned up, spent 20 minutes with a crib sheet he'd had sent to him, and then expected to leave. Very poor. And from my personal experience, I've found classlink to be extremely inflexible. /rant

Morning all, As a few of you might have seen me mention, our school is in the process of going trhoguh a complete network replacement project - we're getting rid of Viglen....hurrah :-). As part fo this, we've decided that it would be the best time to change our username convention so that we reduce the risk for potential duplicates and get a uniform convention across the school. For staff we're going with the relatively simple/standard "first initial""surname" (so for me it would be IFaulkner). However for students it's proving a little more difficult to put something together. We've got a number of potential solutions, involving combinations of year of entry, form group, first name, surname, register etc etc so I thought I'd see what other people are doing? So as the forum title says...."How do you do it"? Cheers Iain

That's what they told me on friday, albeit after they'd passed me round about 3 different departments and I'd spoken to several people who potentially had never heard of Microsoft, let alone Server 2008.

Hi Cookie Monster, I spoke to RM on friday about this, and I was told that because the QCA testing is no longer compulsory, RM are no longer doing development work on it and as a result it will never be compatible. Great news for me, as it means we can get rid of it in the summer :-)

Hi Outpost, We're currently going through exactly the same process as yourselves, as in, we're having our entire server backend ripped out in the summer and replacing all our curriculum PC's. Although I can't be much help with regards showing you an option for your solution, i'd be more than happy to discuss with you the processes we've gone through in order to get to the point where we are.

How fortunate are you guys? We're stuck with ours right up until the end of the exams on June 22nd! Not ideal when you're itching to start revamping all 8 IT suites!

Thanks for that.

I don't suppose you still have the link to this?

Although not exactly hollywood, I'd probably end up with Peter Kay (although the kids at my first school used to call me Neo...so maybe Keanu Reeves would be better :-) )

Hi all, We are currently a Viglen school and as such our group policies are as installed by Viglen. I'm currently trying to play with it (as we're getting rid in the summer ), and I'm trying to give teachers access to one particular tab so i can remove the classlink desktop. The thing I'm trying to give them access to is. In Display settings under control panel, I want them to be able to customise their desktops. So naturally, access to the desktop tab, and then into "Customise Desktop", however the specific area I want to grant them access to is the "web" tab that sits within here. I hope this makes sense, any help will be gratefully received as always. Thanks

We currently provide each member of staff with a laptop which they move from classroom to classroom in order to deliver lessons and also use the E-reg. BIggest problem is the number of laptops we get through, in the last three months alone we've had to buy 10 new laptops due to staff dropping them, generally mis-using them and even just general wear and tear (the number of laptops that have broken simply due to over-use is quite frightening). Our aim over this summer is to replace them with a desktop PC on every desktop for similar reasons as in Ozzy's post. As mentioned, this should reduce connectivity issues with the whiteboard and the projector. Having said that, in my previous school we did have a problem with staff leaving PC's logged on when they left a room and the PC locking. The next member of staff would come in and wouldn't be able to get access without restarting the PC, this would often lead to the original teacher losing unsaved work Having been in both situations, I would say that the desktop PC is the better alterntative, however you must ensure that you have spares that can be swapped straight in when one falls over.

Thank god! I was beginning to think I was the only 1. I bought it on DVD and gave it away after the first watch I was so disgusted with it. I would have had to say originally that Mama Mia was the film I wouldn't watch, but Sony sent me a blu-ray copy and the mrs insisted we watch it. Sure enough it was a awful as i'd thought. No lying from me though, I told ehr straight how bad it was :-) I was sat there wanting to grab Pierce Brosnan by the shoulders and shake some sense into him whilst shouting at him..."you used to be james bond, you were cool, what are you doing, what have you lowered yourself to!!"..... Rant over :-)

Excellent, Cheers for that. I think we're getting somewhere with this now. I'm now able to publish the weekly cover, and staff can access each individual day etc. Just a couple of broken images (top let hand corner), and an issue with moving from week to week. But at least functionality is getting there and it's a big improvement on the paper version we currently use!

Hi all, Just after a bit of advice. I'm trying to publish the weekly cover list onto an internal webpage so that staff can access it through the intranet without having to pop down to the staffroom and checking the printed out copy. I can publish the page each day, but then obviously my link on the intranet site doesn't work and it means someone in the main office has to faff around in order to get it to work. I think part of the problem is that my internal webpage isn't set up correctly. We've just moved to cover 7. Any hep anyone can provide would be gratefully received. Cheers Iain