Tapiochre

Take a look at DPCalendar - Joomla! Extensions Directory I Use DPCal all the time and it does link to Google and pulls iy in nicely - if that's what you need. C

Hi there.. Did you ever get a response on this one? Cris

I would echo sonofsanta in the idea of working at the same level as the students. Direct them not to look at the camera but to just get on with their work. Here are a few more tips: You need loads of light so open the aperture as much as possible to get as much light as you can into the lens. Try to use natural light if poss. If you have to have lights on, be sure to set the white balance on the camera to the correct setting for the lights in use. Careful though as mixed light (daylight and fluorescent can give unusual colour casts). If you must use flash, try to bounce the light up off the ceiling or, as others have suggested, diffuse the power of the flash with tissue paper or similar, otherwise any colour on the children's faces will be blown out by the power of the flash. Focus: if you really want to wow them, take your time and get things as tightly in focus as you can. Beware that with the aperture wide open (i.e a low F stop number like F4) then the depth of field (what is in focus) will be small, so objects near the lens and far for it will be out of focus while only the subject will be in focus. That can make a nice effect in some circumstances but may be less desirable in others. Shaky shaky: if a tripod gets in the way, you might decide to hold the camera by hand but this can be a good way to introduce camera shake, particularly if light is poor and shutter speed is slow (anything longer than 1/200th sec could end up presenting a blurry pic). So, see if you can lean hard against a desk or cupboard to gain stability. Even better, try and get hold of a monopod, a single leg adjustable prop that will help you keep the camera steady. Backgrounds: I was taught always to consider what is in the background of a shot before I take it. A child at work maybe a good subject but if the background is full of mess and crud it will detract from the overall effect. Picture size: remember that a jpg off a digital camera might well be several thousand pixels wide and high. For example, a Nikon D700 DSLR may well pump out a shot that is 5000px wide, huge in size and many MB in data size. These are not what you want to add to your webpage as they are far too large. So use something easy, maybe MS Office Picture Manager (or its Windows 8 equivalent) to crop, resize and export to something sized better for a web page. Given most web pages are no bigger than 1600px wide (generalisation), then this should be your max width. Slotting a pic into a story in a page therefore, you might find 250px wide is enough. Take time therefore to do some thinking and editing to suit the different places where the pix will reside in the end. Thankfully, many web platforms can crunch images automatically but they might cry a bit if to you throw a D700 image at em. Responsive themes might be able to auto size your pix to ensure that they will fit and display correctly on diddly mobile screens vs huge iMac 27" pro monitors... Check what your theme can do... If it can't auto size images, then you may well, have to be sure images are small enough for iPhones as well as desktops. And finally, and MOST importantly, Child protection: Always always always check which children might not be photo subjects. Never take the memory chip out of school and ensure any images used are safely and correctly disposed of or securely stored if needed again. Never take copies. Never move them to optical or memory sticks... Any medium you could lose is a risk to all concerned. I've been doing this stuff for years now, I hope my experience helps you. Chris

I see you are unhappy with the underline when hovering over a link. If you are able to edit the theme style sheet, why not add a new rule such as a:hover {text-decoration:none!important} Add this at the end of the style.css file for the theme; the !important property should force all links not to show underlines when hovered. Hope that helps. Chris

Try DPCal Pro. It is the natural successor to GCalendar. They have a free version and even their pa I d versions are cheap as chips. They eork beautifully and they sync perfectly with Google. I use their Pro version on many J! Sites. Good luck Chris

I have to say that having moved a handful of IIS based webs (some static, most CMS), the helpdesk have been superb, the OH team have excelled and the service is blinding. Having the Linux level of flexibility is a major boon to developers. Just be sure you follow the right process: 1. Request an OH Hosting space and indicate the school it will support (this will create ohisp.schoolname.county.sch.uk) 2. Use your preferred means to deploy the site and build it. 3. Test it to death 4. Document the site plan for future reference (in case you get hit by a truck) 5. Request that the DNS for www be directed to the OHISP IP addy and check the MX is done too 6. Wait 24 hours 7. Go to the pub HTH Chris

I'd be dead keen!

Hi all, Having spent a number of evenings fighting with the permissions logic crossover between Joomla (both 1.5.22 and 1.6.0) and the EMBC server setup (Joomla is a bit of a pig), I have finally come to a good setting that seems to be both secure as well as being a set that "works", allowing the installation of Joomla, plugs, modules and components. It involves a number of interesting FTP settings, as well as the generic permissions for files and a couple of folders. There are still a couple of anomalies but I'm pretty much there. If anyone wants the 'BlueBook' that I am currently setting up for my installs, if it will help you, let me know via a PM and I'll get a copy to you. Chris

Have identified that CMIS is integrated with LP+. Nice.

Yeah - Joomla here too - though permissions are a nightmare... Plesk does most of the changes but when you get to installing "extensions" or "modules" etc, ownership seeming to raise some nasty obstacles!

Interesting I can also recommend netpivotal.co.uk (or .com) - their hosting is great, and they appear to offer more bang for your buck. Support is very good too (they purchase the domain inclusive in the hosting fee)

Thanks for the detail. Good luck Ian!

Are you using your school's website and did you have any difficulty setting up DNS changes to get Google Apps to cooperate? Vis this link. My head teacher was worried about security as well.... what is your take on it so far?

You raise a good point Simon, and I know a great number of primaries who not only have few PCs, they have few PCs which can even support modern web content (i.e. they may still be running IE6, with 7bytes of RAM and a 40MB Hard drive (he jested). Seriously though, I know of schools who "want" to support a VLE but often need help figuring out the best way to do it (internal/external/"private"/"public"/free/paid/Open Source/proprietary) and those choices need support and knowledge that occasionally does not reside within the walls of the school.

Can't speak for Frog - though it does look nice - but the LPPlus platform across a lot of schools in Northants has all of the toys that you spotted at BETT. I need to find out about CMIS integration but the SIMS link is all automated and that's great for admin staff who have enough on their plates! The "child-friendly" aspect is a fair comment if you only take what's in the box but, with imagination and support from LPPlus etc. a school/pupil "site" can be engaging and interactive as well as functional. PM me for more info if I can help!

I've seen the LP+ Parental Model and it's beautiful. Its fully integrated with SIMS.Net and is real-time so parents can see the current state of play on attendance and pupil data. What the school decides to present to the parent is down to them, but this one is very cool. As it is integrated into the VLE as a whole, it makes the knitting of (eg) attendance and what the child is doing in class so much easier.

Working with several schools, the message that the Coalition has removed the expectation for online reporting to parents has come as a relief, but you can bet it won't be too long before it is reintroduced in a new guise. This link was discovered, ok its from Nov 2010, but we don't think anything has been found that gives more detail yet. Speaking as CoG at my local primary, having a secure and globally accessible (i.e. Governor, Teacher, Pupil, Parent) VLE should be thought as best practice and we're working out how to to do that this year. As long as its accessible (read 'easy to access, login, edit, and use'), VLE's will gain traction and it should definitely be a top-down driven model. Working on LPPLUS in Northants I'm seeing strong signs of benefiting all of these groups. Once the Governing body see the management benefits and the staff have the right support and tools in place to make life easy, you are on a winner and the kids will use it with their parents (Kaboom! Parental Engagement starts then!)

I'll add Netpivotal to the possible Hosters and Email (Unlimited) service providers. I prefer to use Linux see specs here but they also support MS. Nice news here is they come with a ruck of applications (Worpdress for example) that install automagically. Ok, their WP version is very old, nevertheless the upgrade is painless. Their support is good and they offer the Plesk Control Panel (Parallels).

All vexing points and in Northants my local schools are awaiting details of the actual cost per school. Breaking it down, I have to concur with GD that the price for the copper (or fibre) isn't everything and working as I do with a number of NH schools, the slice taken from a school's budget to pay for the Synetrix helpdesk is very valuable. Technology is important and has its price which can vary depending on the service provider selected. What makes technology work well is the bodies with the right skills and experience to run it to the best benefit of the school. All of these variables make the price go up but without them - ask any primary school - and its a big problem. Not saying 'stay where you are', but simply adding the "management" value-add to the mix. Though - as the Americans say - YMMV (Your mileage may vary) C

Interesting one... just to confirm, what font is it and are you really sure it is installed on both PCs?

Hi Portseven... I've been working in Synetrix hosted websites for some time now so maybe I can help answer a few points, manual-free.. So had a quick look today (only just got access) and just trying to find out a little about what we have got, as their wasn't really any handover documentation. It looks like it is a Microsoft based hosting solution with aspx pages etc. >> I have found Synextrix can offer Linux as well as MS based services. I find Linux is easier to deal with (it's my area of familiarity), that has made rolling out other PHP based applications, alongside the website, much more accommodating. That's my opinion anyway. I have a few questions if anyone can help. Have we just got some space on a webserver somewhere? >> Yes, but you can add other stuff too... On Northants sites, we get 500MB allocated per site... Is there any database capabilities I can use? >> Note "out of the bag", but each school is allocated 2 databases (MySQL or Microsoft SQL) to work with any database oriented application (Wordpress, forums, galleries, Moodle sites e-commerce etc) Is there a CMS? Or am I editing the aspx / html by hand? >> You can upload (for example) a Joomla CMS system which you can then configure and tweak, This eats a database (see above) but this CMS is well recognised for websites. What are the backup provisions? >> Good question. Will have to defer to grumbledook on that one. Are there any other scripting languages enabled? (PHP, Python, Perl)? >> Yes indeed. All of the above. Is there an option to switch to a *NIX based hosting solution? >> Switch? Dunno about 'switch'. I just use it and that's it! I am thinking that rather than doing all this editing stuff myself, maybe just stick a copy of Wordpress or something similar up there and then get the various School Staff to edit their own sections. >> Eminently sensible! I have set up both Dreamweaver and Wordpress on school site sin Northants with success.... I am not a great webgeek myself and so don't relish the idea of hacking asp/html, I am a Solutions Architect in my day job and as such not touched any code for years (sysadmin background anyway) >> Well, that's ok. I have found that the hardest part on (say) a Wordpress load and install is the initial 5 minutes and some initial permissions - which Synetrix will help on if I get stuck! The rest is a breeze. Feel free to PM me for more help if you feel you need it. Chris (E&OE) Error and Ommissions Excepted...