TechSupp

I know its been asked before but we have just been offered a deal on a new printer/copier for the school to replace our small HP1015 mono laser and Xerox Phaser 6180 Colour laser. Been quoted at 0.049p per print mono and 4.9p per colour print (plus the quarterly lease fee). Are they good prices? According to my calculations based on actual prints done (19k B&W, 39k colour) and total costs of toner, we are at that breakeven point where benefits of a copier/printer over a colour laser printer come into play.

Just done a job (well a year ago anyway) of converting all my father in laws slides, about 300. I did'nt want to pay about 50p a slide for someone else to do it so I managed to buy a seconhand Minolta DimageScan IV Slide/35mm negative Scanner (wich be careful if getting one, drivers are only available for XP). It did a brilliant job, about 5 slides at a time. It came with a version of photoshop but googling around the best scanner softwrae to use was VueScan. Really easy to use and all sorts of options to play with on colour, dust removal etc. I dodnt have the knowledge to fiddle with image settings so I just left the defaults and was very impressed with the quality for slides that were between 40 and 50 years old, stunning colour on most of them. If you have XP you should pick up a reasonable one. I paid £70 second hand and when I had finished ended up getting £130 on ebay for it!!!!!

What script is this as I'm due to remove Sophos and install the latest version. Any chance of a copy or a link to it?

Have a look at TightVNC, sure I saw something on there about a VNC projector that would project a screen to single or multiple PC screens over the network. Link TightProjector: Broadcast Screen Over the Network

I had to shake my head when my daughter told me of the change your picture on your profile thing. Though she had done something good, but tried to tell her the reallity is that it made no difference at all unless people as mentioned follow it up with a donation etc. but as usual its just a feel good factor thats empty. Its about raising awareness she said....no its not...its about doing something that makes a difference, putting your hand in your pocket not changing a picture and feeling better! Totally agree with Synaesthesia. Wasnt there some 'stars' a week or so ago that were stopping posting on Facebook to raise awareness or something? Would have been better off just digging into their pockets and doing something solid. Slaktivism! Perfect!

Excellent!

I know that there is a film out there called Nativity but just wondering if anyone can remember one that was on TV in which all the childrens characters were played by adult actors/comedians? It was brilliant but just cant remember the actual name of it and then the quest to see if it can be found anywhere.

@ianh64 - thanks for your comments. Nice coolwall examples there. A bit out of my league but who knows. If I stick at it.... as for 'layers, standards and paper space' - are the layers the same idea as photoshop? standards - are these standards and conventions I should follow? Paper space - phew - I assume it's trying to fit it all on a piece of paper - or screen. If wrong - I look forward to being enlightened :-) PaperSpace! Forgotten all about that! Dont bother with it, it just leads to more confussion and really only comes into its own whe you are dealing with different scales on the same drawing. There are other things you can do to avaoid using it yet still have diferent scales. @techsupp - a floor plan is the first idea. One of my house to start with before hopefully turning it into 3D. It will take a while but this is the major project. A good project to start with, got mine on CAD now as I needed to plan out floor layouts for tiles etc. Dont dismiss AutoCad, tride TurboCAD myself and could not get on with it. As for training documents a quick google found these :AutoCAD Tutorials for free, Lessons, Videos - a Complete Course

Trying to install a Samson Q1U microphone (which I know works and have installed it previously) on my PC but I get the above message. It uses no separate software, only that that comes as standard with windows XP (running service pack 3). How do I find out what INF file it is using so I can see what is incorrect or what update has microsoft done to corrupt it? Seen comments on various sites to suggest an MS update is required but when I try to install it, it says I have the latest version.

I used to be a CAD draughtsman using AutoCAD but it was version 14 and LT98 so a while back. Did all the C&G courses and ended up working for a short while for a building services software developer doing a small bit of development and support. AutoCAD is not too bad to get used to and as said, just find the basic commands and start trying to draw a project, then just reseatch the bits you need to do as they arise. Dont do what I did which was read the manual from fron to back when I started (sad I know if you saw the version 10 manual!). I can still use it when needed and comes in uite usefull for all sorts of DIY and home improvement jobs. Get 2D fimly sorted first then attempt 3D.

Can you not load the software on both, did do that with v1 and v2 cameras so any could be used on the PC. Just needed to start the correct version first. What are you wanting to do with the cameras? Video or animation?

How do I change a Sandisk U3 memory stick into a normal one that only takes one drive letter and does not make a sudo cd drive or start U3 programs run on the task bar, oh and stop it annoying the life pout of me. All I want is a normal memory stick (cant you tell its monday and I'm cold and not feeling on top of the world!)

On the subject of Iphones, anyone got one thats broken they dont want?, dont need it for the phone caperbility or to play music, so not having sound is not a problem just need its screen working (even scratched is not a problem) just really need to see what I'm doing and to be able to use the GPS facility.

One for the Christmas party here, just come across Lucky Voice. Had a txt from Tmobile for 24hr access and I'm hooked (and now found the whole family cant sing!). Brilliant Karaoke online lyrics and music. Not bad price for a christmas party for a days access at £1.99, load of song, even ones I didnt think would be there ie just had a bash at the Sex Pistols God Save the Queen! Unfortunately no Jethro Tull :-( maybe in time..

May have a look at that at some point. In the mean time I just created another profile and sorted out the problem I had, Thanks.

There was me thinking I had it cracked! Any more detailed info on how to do that?

I want to create a copy of our default user profile folder so that I can do some testing and tweaking, but I know I cant just copy the folder (I dont think so anyway) as I want to keep all the existing permissions etc on the folder structure so I can just quickly redirect a test user to using that profile instead of the default one. Whats the best way to create a copy keeping all the permissions and owerships etc. Just tried doing one myself using copy and altering the permissions but seem to have missed something somewhere as at first it would not save any changes and now it gives an error when it tries to load it. Good job its only a test

A better way is as suggested, get rid of them. I needed some cameras for doing animation, so instead of hireing the DigiBlues (too costly to by a full set) from the local CLC I bought a set of 18 web cams (£2.99 each from Currys) and use Helium Frog free animation software, brilliant. Plus the cameras also work in Movie Maker. Ok I can't take them away from the computer but we have other normal digital cameras that take movies as well as stills or I could just connect them to our netbooks. Saying all that I did talk to a teacher today who was loving these new DigiBlues (presume she means the Snap onces) but not sure they run them on a network.

Be interested in that myself, have the same problem of kids just dragging folders everywhere, not malisious just poor mouse skills. So from what you say if I set there permissions to not able to delete they cant accidentally drag folders around? If thats true then job solved as if they want to delete something (which is rare) they will have to ask for permission for someone to log in and do it for them. Could someone confirm the above? or open to other suggestions as per DEvans

Sorry, tried USBDLM and no joy, not in Drive manager as a networked drive either, logged on locally so just basic PC drives. Even tried using Ubuntu on a CD ad it did not appear in the Computer window which shows floppy drives etc. Maybe its just had it?

Wish you luck and if you fix let me know! I have nearly the same thing on one of my schools netrworks (three out of four no problems) with MS Photostory, loads projects back up from a mapped drive fine but from the same location (but a redirected My Documents), gets permission errors! Saves fine to My Documents just cant open the projects up once initially saved.

Got a strange problem, memory stick inserting PC, windows recognises new hardware and reports working OK. Check Device Manager and its there with no errors, but does not appear in explorer or in Disk Management? Any ideas how to get it to appear as a drive so I can get info from it?

Yes, a very straight forward profile setup, with just one for every class the same :-)

Hmm, not though you could do that, I presume its just a straight copy and paste of that compete default user profile folder I created. I have set the permissions so that I can edit the extensions of the file already. Sorry if this seems a daft or simple question. Just getting over the shock of being allowed to go to BETT for two days!

Set all our classes to use a default mandatory default profile I set up a while ago (following the wiki article on here :-) ), but now with an upgrade to media player its asking for it to be set up each time they log on. Can I set this not to happen via the GPO or whats the best way to change a mandatory profile. Iknow I need to change the extension from man to dat but can I do it with people logged on the system or do I have to wait till all using that default profile are logged off it?