seawolf

I've been able to block the Android app for Snapchat, but not on iOS. Looking at the network traffic associated with the iOS version of the app it appears to be routing data through the APN servers and/or Verisign. All to intentionally fight around web filters. I've reported my findings to Apple because I believe this would be a violation of the APN terms of use, but we'll see if anything happens. I'm doubtful.

...And stacking is where stackable switches are connected over a dedicated interface (Gig, 10GbE or proprietary datalink) to provide a unified system. So, rather than having multiple switches to manage separate it they are managed as one large switch essentially. The use of the stacking interface between them also preserves all of the ports for use on the network rather than trunking several ports to connect standalone switches. Stacking is only really relevant where you need to use a large number of switches in the same network cabinet or need enough ports to fill more than one data cabinet in the same building. Generally, it is going to be much cheaper to use a large modular chassis switch rather than stacking a large number of 24-48 port switches together (although cable management is easier with stackable switches).

That's called trunking.

Why are you setting static IP addresses for laptops in your DHCP server? I'm not sure what do you hope to gain by that, but it will likely be only pain. You're probably getting IP address conflict errors because the DHCP server has handed out some of those IP addresses to clients prior to you setting static exclusions for them (assuming you took those IP addresses out of the pool by associating the chromebook Mac addresses with the IPs). If a client already had a lease for the IP it wouldn't just hand it back over because you statically assigned it to another client. Nope, it would cling to it for dear life until the lease expired or you forced it to release it. Don't do it this way. Just let DHCP do its job and save yourself lots of trouble.

Many (not all) of the schools do issue teachers with laptops. My observation wasn't hard data, but it is indicative of a what I believe is a profound change occurring in the technology used in Education at least in Australia. Unfortunately, I find that a lot of the opinions on iPads, etc. that I see from Sys Admins at more "traditional" IT schools is the hint of anxiety that the world around them is changing and they don't like it one bit. So, resistance sets in and they become obstacles to be overcome by the schools to make the changes they want to make to enable the changes in pedagogy that are occurring. This can only end badly for either the school, the techie, or both. I see and hear of it all of the time, and some IT people in schools are being fired as a result, or if they keep their jobs they are merely frustrating some of the teachers who want to introduce new technology into their classrooms. Some of those teacher know exactly what they are on about too and have a very good understanding of what they are going to achieve with the new technology. Some don't, but you will always have those who think the "next thing" is going to be the silver bullet they've always wanted.

As this thread was now getting well off topic, but it is I believe a broader topic worthy of discussion, I have created a new thread with a starting point being the last couple of posts. I have posted a reply on there. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/123638-discussion-education-tablets-mac-win-nix-chromebooks-etc.html#post1056273

This thread is an offshoot from another thread that started to go off topic and deserved it's own thread because its a valid discussion and not just an and/or situation. An extract of a couple of posts that are the starting point for this thread are below: Yes, it has gotten a bit off topic, but I believe the original question was answered. And, since you've added an opinion I'll make one last "off topic" comment in response.

Yes, it has gotten a bit off topic, but I believe the original question was answered. And, since you've added an opinion I'll make one last "off topic" comment in response. You've certainly made a valid observation about business in general. Many businesses are still running XP or will run Win 7 for the next decade and are largely stuck on Windows whether they like it or not due to legacy software or Windows-only software solutions for their industry. On the other hand, the world of Education is changing extremely rapidly. Last year at the National Education Conference in Sydney I scanned the Wifi network to see what devices people were using. I was amazed. Out of the 650+ people on the network at the conference (mostly teachers) over 80% were using either iPads or Macbooks. During one of the keynotes about the future of DER funding and BYOD in schools the presenter asked for a show of hands from the audience regarding how many of them were using their own device and not the one they were issued by their school. The majority raised their hands. That means that when given a choice, most of the teachers in the room from public and private schools across the nation were choosing to use iPads or Macs. Now, as an IT Manager in the Education industry that means I and many other schools had best be prepared to support and integrate these devices and not do it kicking and screaming or else we will all be gone. I know a couple of schools where this has already happened. IT people in the education industry in Australia must be prepared and capable of changing or they had best go get a job at a bank where they will still be using Windows 7 in 2030. Get prepared and re-skilled for it, or it will be time to move to another industry or career. At least in this country. BTW - "AppleTalk" has been dead for a while. AFP is not AppleTalk and it has some advantages over SMB (metadata and search) that will hopefully be added to SMB in the future. Also, NTFS and SMB aren't the same thing. Only Windows runs on NTFS and there are free or cheap solutions to allow Macs to write to NTFS (NTFS-3G) and PCs to write to HFS+. If Apple were to change it's file system I would hope they would move to ZFS or a similar modern, robust file system rather than NTFS! It would be fantastic if all vendors could decide on a standard file system such as ZFS or an open source equivalent, but I'm not going to hold my breath!

Now, I remember. I bother because some people need to be reminded of reality. 1. Average wages are not high enough to be even close to making up for the difference in costs here. But, I digress. 2. There was a time not too long ago when just about every computer in Australia was at least twice as expensive as in the US. Apple was no exception. Every company was doing the same thing. Prices changed pretty much in line with exchange rates and price drops in the states. Many products are within 10% of the cost here as in the US now. Account for the GST and the higher operating costs (rent, labour, red tape) for doing business in Australia and you're at par in pricing. Price drops don't come immediately with changes in exchange rates because only time can determine if the changes are going to be persistent and not transitory. Also, prices themselves are like wages and are "sticky". Once you've dropped them it's hard to go back the other way. Kind of the opposite to wages. 3. People are looking for something simpler because (1) they are less skilled, or (2) they're tired of fighting their computers to get them to work properly. The best system is one that doesn't require any or little training for the average person to use. Apple got that, and they've been rewarded by mostly happy consumers. Which, of course is why every PC company on earth is now copying Apple. [sARCASM] I know, I know - stupid PC companies - Apple is lametastic and makes horrible products that only morons buy. Why would they want to copy that? After all, I just don't know why Apple keeps planning for the future when their products are so obviously wretched and the company is totally doomed. [/sARCASM] 4. Although the interface is simpler, the Mac is running on top of Unix. So, power users are completely catered for as well. Unless you think Unix is for morons and simpletons who don't have any skills?

Oh, why do I bother? But here we go anyway. The Mac Pro? Status symbol for most, and some of the price difference in Oz was I'm sure due to needing to support a very small number of them in the country comparatively (Economies of Scale and all you know). Annoying, yes. But, it's a luxury item so, not nearly as annoying and certainly not as unethical as everyday essential goods such as food, rent, and clothing being 2-3 as expensive in Australia as comparable economies. I SO wish the government would investigate THAT, but they won't because governments love higher prices as it means higher tax revenue. The price cuts you referenced in 2010 were due to the swing from the Aussie dollar being worth about $0.60 USD to getting near parity (and then above). Let's see, a company changes it's pricing due to dramatic swing in currency exchange rates - it's a conspiracy!!!! So, you had a loon with a personality and hardware that was a distinct outlier on the bell curve of the average Apple customer. I have an IT teacher here that we have had to replace just about every part on his Dell laptop including the keyboard (twice), speakers, speaker covers, screen, screen bezel, battery, power pack, and logic board. I honestly think he must use it as a hockey puck based on appearance and failure rate. However, he still won't own anything other than a Dell even though out of the dozens of staff using MacBook Pros and Airs here only two of them has stopped working in 4 years time, one due to a hard drive failure and the other because of smashed trackpad (only one I've ever seen I might add). Now, I've had good experiences and low failure rates out of many Dell products and IBM (before Lenovo bought them), and some bad experiences with some lines as well, particularly those made in the mid 2000s when Dell shipped all of their manufacturing to Foxconn and others before those companies had very good quality control. I know because I worked for Sanmina-SCI for a couple of years and we used to build most of the Dell desktops in our factories before they cut a contract with the cheap Chinese factories back in 2001-2002 and the quality quickly went downhill. And, you're forgetting that the "Apple faithful" are not the ones who have been buying masses of Macs, iPhones, and iPads over the past few years. Most of them are people who'd never bought or used an Apple product before other than an iPod. So, you've got two options here (1) everyone instantly becomes a mad, drunken Apple lover upon the first time they purchase an Apple product, or (2) you are a "Professional Apple Hater extraordinaire" and therefore think everything with an Apple label on it is as lametastic as a product could get, and everyone who willingly buys an Apple product is a Steve Jobs, kool-aid drinking moron. I'm placing my bets on option 2.

80% markup on hardware? LOL. The investigation that was done by the Australian Government questioned Apple, Microsoft, and Google mostly over the cost of software. Now, if only the government would question Woolworth, Coles and all of the other retailers to find out why we pay 3 times as much for everything else (such as food, clothing, furniture, etc.) in Australia than in the US we might be on to something. Asking MS why they charge 30% more for their software in Australia - please...

Except multiple independent surveys tell a different story. But, hey your profile and tagline says it all "Professional Apple Hater extraordinaire." Hardly an objective opinion. I'm doubtful you've ever even touched a Mac. Oops, back to reality... Some of us have used a wide range of equipment and Operating Systems including Macs and have some years of actual field experience with the them. Apple isn't perfect when it comes to servicing Businesses, but if a business is going to an Apple Store for service they don't have a clue what they are doing. That is why Apple has authorised Repair Centres, many of which cater to business and education markets and can provide faster, onsite service under Apple Care warranty. And if a machine is under warranty it will almost always get repaired and repaired properly. Unlike some of the on-site Dell repairs I've seen where they have to keep coming back.

Some webfilters such as the iBoss have this built in, but try blocking 'feelinsonice.appspot.com' and this should block Snapchat.

Well, it is Novell...

You wouldn't happen to be running SUSE Linux or Novell Open Enterprise server would you. Both of these appear to have this problem, but it looks like it can be resolved http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7002606 https://lists.isc.org/pipermail/dhcp-users/2007-May/003588.html We use Ubuntu 10.04 as our DHCP server and don't see this issue with PXE in our environment.

I see. So you're crippling the usefulness of the iPads for the people who use them for the sake of maintaining "standards"? You must be very popular. We haven't needed to make protocol or port exceptions because we don't allow the AirPlay traffic to traverse VLANs, there's no need to. You just put the AirPlay devices and iPads on the same VLAN to control the traffic.or, you could use one of the bonjour routing techniques (http://nicolas.vanwambeke.net/wp/2011/05/08/bonjourzeroconfrendezvousmdns-across-multiple-subnets/) or the bonjour "gateway" solutions from the various WiFi vendors. But hey, if you're able to maintain your employment by just saying no to requests and keeping the status quo, that's great. But I wouldn't expect it to last. I know of more than one school that's dumped all of their IT staff and fully outsourced because all they ever got from them was a big "we can't do that" whenever they wanted to do something like print from iPads or access file server resources from their iPads (or Android or Windows RT tablets). You might just "standards" yourself right into the unemployment line.

And why would you if you don't have iPads or Macs?

We have 40 AirPlay devices running on our network (Apple TVs or Macs running AirServer).

That would be naive, but then you're just being sarcastic. I suspect the iMacs in question have been subjected to abuse or they were sold non-Apple refurbished models (the bit about 1 year warranty from supplier mentioned, rather than saying "from Apple"), or they have been the unfortunate recipients of a bad batch off the assembly line with faulty drives or GPUs (neither of which are actually made by Apple). Apple easily beats all of the other computer manufacturers in reliability and customer service in independent surveys - http://www.macworld.com.au/news/survey-apples-mac-line-up-still-tops-consumer-satisfaction-and-reliability-80440/#.UjUnLMsaySM Also, the supposed "ridiculous amounts of money" suggested as a premium for Macs was the case 6+ years ago, but with the move to more "PC" x86 components that difference has shrunk and shrunk where the difference in price is small and only due to higher quality controls and build quality, in some cases technical differentiation (Thunderbolt, Retina displays, superior SSD performance, battery life, better trackpads, Magsafe, etc.), and better service. When PC manufacturers have tried to match Apple with like for like (e.g. top-end Ultrabooks) the price difference amazingly disappears. The one exception is the Mac Pro, but people pay as much for the status symbol of them as for the performance. Kind of like paying 2-3 as much for a Lexus when it's really just a souped up, kitted out Toyota.

If you'd taken them for repair prior to July '13 the repairs would have been free despite the "1 year warranty". However, they are now outside of 24 months and without AppleCare to cover that third year you are likely going to be charged unless its an issue covered by a recall.

http://www.edugeek.net/showthread.php?t=121363 Check this link out or the many similar topics where this has been discussed at length.

1910s are fine for an edge switch (I use one for that purpose), but as a core switch for 650 clients - what the...

If someone has sold them a 1910 as a core switch they definitely need to be fired...after asking for a refund.

The answer to your problems is to hire someone who knows what they are doing to come set up your network. It's obvious that whoever you've paid to set up what you have now doesn't know what they are doing. So, get on the horn to an actual HP ProCurve network engineer in your area and your problems should be solved in a very short time and you'll have a network that performs very well.

Actually, with the Mac Minis the reason for the 5400RPM drive is to keep the unit cooler. A 7200RPM drive generates more heat and in such a small case with a small fan heat is difficult to dissipate. The fan would be running hard a lot of the time. In the laptops it is as much about battery life as heat. The Mac Mini isn't that hard to upgrade, you just have to go slow and careful. I upgraded a mixture of 32 of the 2009 and 2010 model Mac Minis a few months ago with SSDs. Dramatically improved overall performance as would be expected.