LosOjos

Thanks all! (and @GREED for the intention )

There's no way I can see in SIMS of calling up enrolment status history... if it's stored in SQL, then it should be an easy patch for Capita to apply at least! CR opened, please vote! 1404-1297995

No, she's a woman, prepared for anything! It's a standing joke in the family that my mother-in-law must buy her handbags from the same place as Mary Poppins. To date, she has managed to produce from her handbag, on my random request, a torch, a screwdriver and screws. She's a very handy woman to have around!

We're a bit of an odd school in that we don't have an IT dept. run Intranet. However, as Data Manager (with a keen interest in IT) I have developed an Intranet of sorts specifically for the school's data. I can't provide screenshots for obvious reasons, but it includes a digital version of the OFSTED recommended "war room" (I'm struggling to find the OFSTED document detailing this but it's essentially a display of student's current performance measures grouped by key cohorts, with photos). This was written in C#/ASP.NET, simply because I hadn't used them before and wanted to give them a try. It pulls all it's data from SIMS to it's own SQL DB nightly. I also have a traffic lights on the homepage showing the status of key services, such as SISRA, our school website, email and SIMS (simply pings internal servers or checks the HTTP header of external websites, displays green if OK, amber if the ping time is excessive or header is anything but OK, and red if it fails to communicate) Finally, it has a link to my helpdesk (used for requesting changes to student details or reporting problems with SIMS) I plan to expand it as I'm slowly rewriting the various Access DBs I have to run on ASP.NET, just a selection of analysis tools I developed to help me over the years that are now being opened up to the rest of the school (I really need to hurry up with this, Access is fine for a single user but quickly becomes a nightmare when others start using it! The backend is already in SQL but I need to rewrite the front end for each Access program)

That has to be intentional

It's one thing to do this for a laugh with your family, it's quite another to post it on the Internet and sell it on iTunes... That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they make a small fortune off people buying it on iTunes "for a laugh" or even to shove on family member's iPods... Actually, this might be bloody genius... *rushes off to pen "Winter is Wonderful"*

On TouchWiz (Samsung's implementation of the Android Launcher), you can slide your finger any direction you want to unlock the screen

Before I create a CR, is anyone aware of an existing one covering this? Can't wait for the new Customer Portal with usable CR search engine! The title says it all; if you change a student's enrolment status, there is no history associated with it. Aside from being useful information to be able to look back on, it causes no end of headaches with census when you have to make sure your students are down as dual reg until your census has been approved, even if you know they are no longer dual reg (as there's no history, census submits current value) If anyone knows of an existing CR, please let me know it's number and I'll up-vote it. If not, I'll create one at the end of the day and post it's ID here.

I agree that the system stinks. In the US the problem is two-fold; an incredibly flawed "sell to the highest bidder" patent system combined with a CEOs obligation by law to do what is best for their shareholders i.e. make the biggest profit (I know it's not that simple in practice but it's more often than not what it amounts to). What I disagree with is Apple actively suing others when they know they're not the rightful owners of some of their patents, they were just the bidders with the most cash/best lawyers. It's one thing to buy patents to protect your company, it's quite another to take legal action over those patents.

OK but they are all more complex than simply swiping your finger across a screen (with the exception of not locking it at all which no manufacturer has made default since *at least* the Nokia 5110 [only name that phone as it's the first I remember owning with a screen lock]) My point is it's ridiculous to expect to patent something so fundamentally obvious and necessary that there is no practical way of doing it any differently.

Exactly, the amount of ideas Apple 'stole' (using Jobs' definition of the word) from Xerox is untrue, including the GUI that Apple later tried to sue MS for... astonishing. It also annoys me that they sue for the most ridiculous things, such as the current case against Samsung which includes action over "swipe to unlock" - how else are you supposed to unlock a touch screen phone for $deity's sake?! EDIT: here's another good one made all the more interesting by the above email, Apple filed a patent for the Notification Bar despite the fact it's clearly 'stolen' from Android

The Term In Tor - High school IT tech spends entire school term browsing Tor, throws self in lava pit.

I *believe* we have some Pis knocking around as our previous NM (a mate of mine) used to run a coding club here and he was big on the Pi (it was when they were first released). If we don't, I'll set up a VM and run Raspbian inside that to get them used to it until I can either get the school to buy a batch of Pis or the kids themselves convince their parents to buy them their own! As for keeping Python interesting, did you have a look at that teaching Python with Minecraft eBook? this worked really well with my daughter, as you are essentially creating your own mods for Minecraft using Python, so as they're learning new elements of Python, you then get them to apply it in some way to a mod. For instance, we made an "auto build" mod which using arrays and 'for' loops built a structure in front of your character. To get to that point, my daughter needed to understand data types, how to use arrays, the flow and control of a for loop, how if statements work, how functions pass and receive data and so on. Sounds like a lot of work, but that book builds the student up slowly, expanding each step from the previous. Now I'm not saying that will be interesting to all the students, but I hope it will be to most as it gets them interacting with a game environment without having to worry about complex graphics rendering routines. PyGame is great and I'd certainly like to get them using that eventually but I think only the most gifted of students are going to get to a point where they can do anything interesting with that by the end of the first year (I'll only be seeing them once a week). That may be something I reserve for those who return for the second year... This could all change of course once I get started. I've been dropping in on some KS3 classes lately and it's clear some students just 'get it' while others really don't. In one class, the Scratch programs ranged from scripted animation with no interaction right through to a fully functioning game with high score list. I imagine only those kids who really get it will turn up to an after school club and those who aren't doing so great will at least want to understand, so they should be a good group to work with. What I really need to do is layout a progression plan ahead of time so that I can tailor it to the individual, i.e. spend more time in Scratch with the weaker students and 'fast-track' the gifted ones in to Python. I'm keen too to get the better coders helping out the weaker ones, we do this at YRS and you can see the weaker kids feel motivated by the stronger ones and the stronger ones really cement their knowledge by explaining their work. Education by stealth!

Just ordered the IT Crowd T-Shirt, I'm also a bit of a NES geek so double awesome! How have I never heard of Qwertee?!

Would you recommend it? It's exactly the style Mrs LosOjos has been searching for since Timpsons butchered the last watch I bought her (it was a leather cuff like the one above and they sliced the leather to bits, if she had told me about it I'd have marched in there and gone mad!)

The only reason I could see it not working is if it's not capable of maintaining 2A of draw, but batteries don't usually have that problem... will buy one on pay day and put it to the test (will be handy to have as backup for my mobile anyway!)

That looks like might might be perfect for powering a Raspberry Pi on the go - have either of you tried that? (sorry to slightly derail the topic!)

I'm looking to start a coding club after half term too. As a lot of our kids have not done any programming yet, I'll be starting them off in Scratch: Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share I'm planning on first of all getting them all to make a short animation just to get them used to the software and the idea of stepping-through code, then we will make a Pong clone to teach them about variable, statements and loops. I am undecided whether to then move on to something more complex in Scratch, such as a Space Invaders clone, or shift to Python; I'll judge the kid's abilities at that point and decide. When I get to the point of showing them Python, I'm planning on first of all running them through some basic "Hello World" type programs with a bit of user feedback, just to get them to apply what they learnt in Scratch to Python and so that they can see how the basic makeup of a program is the same, only the structure/syntax changes. Once they feel comfortable with Python, I'll probably start working through the "Teaching Python with Minecraft" web book - my daughter really enjoyed this, she's 10. Python Programming with Minecraft Pi: Early Draft | arghbox I'm not planning on really having any limits as to ability levels as I want this to run more as a club than a lesson, so I'll have materials ready to go through with them but largely leave those more confident coders to do their own thing and encourage them to work on some sort of project, obviously with the added benefit of being able to help each other out and also ask me for help when they're really stuck. That's pretty much how we run YRS and it seems to work well. Of course I'm also planning on doing demos with Arduino and similar tech, anything I think might create a spark in some of them or inspire an idea. EDIT: meant to say, R-Pis are great for clubs like this as it means you can let them loose to experiment without fear of them doing any serious damage (you just re-image the SD card if it all goes Pete Tong!), plus they're cheap enough that most kids can get their parents to buy them one to use at home if they really get in to it. Having GPIO allows you to show them some hardware programming too, again on a device cheap enough not to be a total disaster if they short something. This is what the R-Pi was made for!

If it was my £20, I'd probably buy an Arduino Uno or a Raspberry Pi

bring it back!

With Solus3, SIMSload is redundant so you'll be fine. If you wanted to run SIMSload "just in case", you can simply change the script above to: @ECHO OFF IF EXIST "%ProgramFiles%\SIMS\" GOTO X86 IF EXIST "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\SIMS\" GOTO X64 ECHO "SIMS.net not found!" GOTO EOF :X86 "%ProgramFiles%\SIMS\SIMS .net\SIMSload.exe" "%ProgramFiles%\SIMS\SIMS .net\pulsar.exe" GOTO EOF :X64 "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\SIMS\SIMS .net\SIMSload.exe" "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\SIMS\SIMS .net\pulsar.exe" :EOF

Return it! For $deity's sake man if you're going to spend that kind of money on a gadget then you take full advantage of the after sales care! I wonder how Siri responds to such requests?

Here is the script you need: @ECHO OFF IF EXIST "%ProgramFiles%\SIMS\" GOTO X86 IF EXIST "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\SIMS\" GOTO X64 ECHO "SIMS.net not found!" GOTO EOF :X86 "%ProgramFiles%\SIMS\SIMS .net\pulsar.exe" GOTO EOF :X64 "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\SIMS\SIMS .net\pulsar.exe" :EOF Save it as a BAT, create a shortcut to it, replace the icon of the shortcut with the SIMS icon and your users will be none the wiser

Define 'better'. Personally, I'd be quite happy with sitting a small BAT file on each machine that opens the relevant pulsar EXE, then having a shortcut to that BAT in place of directly to SIMS. How do you envisage a 'better' solution working?

I would argue that this is because kids get excited about new "stuff" rather than any actual preference for Windows 8. that said, it's a good sign that kids still get excited over a new OS, I remember a similar situation when I was still at school in an IT suite full of Windows 3.1 machines fighting for the Windows 95 PC and before that, in a DOS suite fighting for the new 3.1 PCs. Encourage their enthusiasm!