TechSupp

Been doing it for nearly 6 years now, its an ever changing environment. I do teach as well though (half the week in bits, just ICT) so I do get some kind of break from technical all the time. Found time just flies by...oh except when things go badly wrong!

You are not alone! I look after 4 primaries and decided to do something about our PC's being out of date, so just set up WSUS at one school and sorted out what was needed (with help for EduGeek) and now I have all four with their own WSUS setup merrily keeping everything up to date. Its fairly easy to set up and only had a few minor niggles so far, pc's reporting they have not contacted the server for x days but know full well they have at some point, but as I say only minor niggles and far out weighs the fact that they were out of date before.

Which Ruckus AP are you using? Been reccomended that they will be the way to go, but know SimpleSi has had issues although we will be using XP Pro not Home. Ooops! Just read it again, Ruckus ZD!

Had to clean that one of a heads home PC before and it was a right pain to do, can't remember now how I did it but think it had installed it somewhere in a non descript named folder hidden away, begger to find but did it in the end.

Yes just phoned tham and " a very nice man" was very helpfull. They are going to exchange the projector noo problem. One thing I did find out was that the projectors that we wer sold as being 'educational' are not actually educational, still have three years lamp and projector warranty but the educational one includes an engineer to come and take down and fit the replacement. Was told it was an educational warranty but at least I'm still covered just means I'll have to take it down which is no hardship.

I have a Sanyo projector (plc-xw57edu) that has stopped working due to overheat I think, although the image was getting very poor and the bulb is not near end of life by a long shot, anyway looking at the warranty (apparently we should have registered the bulb warranty min 90 days after purchase! its now 12 monthe old!) but as its not working the real question is as its an educational version what is the warranty as I can't see from the website anything about it. Does the educational warranty cover a swap out, RTB or what? I can see where I contact Sanyo for a bulb warranty but not for projector warranty? On a side note just read the warranty details of the bulb, must not be on for more than 5 hours a day ffs! its a school!!!! Wish they had included some info in the packaging about 90 day register limit!

I work accross 4 primaries and when I started I thought about doing an online fault report sheet, was told "that will not work"...they were right, even trying them to fill in a fault report book does not work, best I've found so far is a white board and dry marker, so things can be just jotted down and I mark it off when its done. Know its not much diferent from a book but it just seesm to work. Other than that its the usual catch me in a corridor or a child is sent to report the problem and I mark it down. Can't see much point in being fussy over what works with staff, just rather get on with fixing the problems etc,,,thats what I'm paid to do after all and we all get along just fine as I'm allowed to manage the jobs myself no matter how they are reported.

Just been asked (primary school setting ) if there is a Textease like program available (as per usual free!). They are wanting a simple text program that young children would just be able to drag and prop a photo onto a page then just click where they want the text and type a description next to it. Nothing much fancier than that really. I know Textease does that but no money as usual and Textease is a bit of an overkill for what they want at the moment. Suggestions ,most welcome!

Got a similar problem with a Sanyo PLC-XW57, anyone found out if these have a similar thermal reset switch/trip and if it can be reset in the same way? It just powers up with fans running for a while then just goes to power led red, no lamp light etc. Teacher had been reporting it was tripping out on overheat but the filters were being cleaned very regularily because of this. Image had started to become dull as well although the lamp hours are very low (checked last week ehn reported that the image was not as bright as it used to be).

Just been told we might possibly have to have a reverse proxy set up to use our learning platform when it gets finally setup, excuse the maybe simple question but what would that involve, another box in school? or just setting change on the server? Heard the terminology many times before but never looked in to it further than that. We won't have to do anything just would like to find out a bit more info. Di the usual google but fraid it just left me more in the dark! Simple answers please!

I'll try that reg fix, Thanks

Had this reported before half term and thought it was just an isolated incident untill I saw it myself today on a separate PC. Internet Explorer had been misbehaving for a couple of pupils so I exited the program and tried restarting IE..simple task except when I double clicked the I.E. icon it just created a shortcut on the desktop!!!! no matter how many times I tried it just created shortcuts! Shut the PC down in the end and of course did not get the chance to go back and see if it was fixed (thats tomorrows first job). Anyone come across behaviour like this before. Not a specific mouse problem as on a different PC to that it was first reported on, if it helps they are running XP Sp2 with IE8 and all the security patches and updates.

Thought it was me! I had the same thing the other day, update on server to install WSUS and it took ages, then suddenly it was finishing install. It gets there in the end. Can it be downloaded separately as I downloaded it via the Microsoft website and it still has to download it during install which is the slow bit.

Title says it all..Awesome!...hod does it achieve directional travel thopugh, can understand vertical travel but now how he achieves directional movement?

There was something similar to this at BETT, a series of blocks or cards (can't remember) that when scanned showed a 3D image on screen.

Started to use Google Chrome but have found that its extremely slow loading and displaying pages now, thats even on a new PC install, all temp files cleared etc. Googled it and found others have the same issue. Anyone on here had this and have they solved it?

Thanks but I think I'll leave it untill tomorrow now and start of with an image from a similar PC and take it from there.

Though as much, recovered files before from a formatted drive but the whole drive, think I was clutching at straws really Oh Well, we live and learn, at least thats sorted out what I'm doing tomorrow morning anyway!

Well I suppose I had top do it one day or another by not concentrating! Built a pc ready to image it on to a usb disk and instead of formatting the usb disk ready for the image I formatted the drive I had just installed the software to and set up! Doh!!! I think I know the answer, its just bite the bullet and rebuild the drive but is there a way to unformat a drive so its usable again? Most things I've googled just save the data to another drive. I've not used the drive since so is it possible to reverse what I have done, if not I'll just have to bite the bullet! Just a bit of extra info if it helps I did it using gparted, selected the drive, format, instantly job done...unfortunately!

Yes, we are similar in that most things are locked down, redirected desktops, locked profiles, no control panel etc etc, but I can see where Si is comming from. We dont generally get children messing (unless its as the case with Si the very young ones) and so its only the adults that mess things up generally. Locking things really down does have its downside especially blocking acces to c: drive with some of the primary software. Got around some of the restrictions using RunAs. As with most things GPO's in primary have their pros and cons but in general I'm in favour the more I have used them.

Use gparted quite a few times but never tried it on the server.

Only if I had 2008...which I don't. Anyway thanks for the suggestion, managed to clear up enough space anyway to save messing with the partitions. Should last long enough now till we eventually go over to 2008 and a new server in the next year or so.

No not found a real fix as of Yet, even tried to use the RunAs to run the program and it complained! If yiu map out the users home area to a drive letter, we use that and its OK, it just did not like opening up from the redirected (same folder) My Documents. Would love to find a solution though.

Hi, Would someone send me a quote for the following: Ruckus MediaFlex 7811 Been reccomended on here that it would be a good choice for our situation, single access point for some netbooks. Not in a position to go to a managed system just yet. We have to prove they will use the stuff first. Thanks Please PM me for address if you need to email the quote

There are a couple of options but I did the following (key to success though is lighting the backdrop evenly) For the backdrop used a green plastic tablecloth from The Range DIY store (very cheap) Filmed it and loaded the film in to WAX (Google it and you should be able to download it, its free) In Wax (Google for instructions how to Chromakey using WAX) load the background and film, then decide what the Chromakey colour will be) Export the finished movie out. Hey Presto, chromakey on the cheap (and I mean cheap but not on the quality if you get the lighting right. Done a couple using WAX and the tablecloth, reading the news etc. I tried the movie maker methods but found they were too specific on what coulr is used or it messed up Moviemaker. With Wax you can play around with the chromakey settings to get the best balance between shadows appearing and a clear background. For Primaries which I am in as you are Si nearly good enough is usually OK for what its used for. Ever though of Live performance using netmeeting to 'broadcast' the weather to the class? Remind the teachers its something they should be covering now in the new curriculum.