Bromcom_John

I cannot believe that in a thread about 80's cartoons that no-one has yet mentioned.. Around the world in 80 days, with Willy Fogg!! Another one with a classic feem toon. ps. Not as good as Cities of Gold though, that was classic! Got the tune stuck in my head now too..

Actually, according to the DELL site the delivery is free on this offer. Not inc. Vat though, so the actual price is about £113

How about "Who will buy?" From Oliver. That way you can have a theme tune and also a cringe worthy dance number with all the staff, trolley boys etc... Course the lyrics might be worthwhile changing a bit.. "Who will buy my wonderful bog roll...finest wipes you ever did see.." or some such.

Not in it yet (because it isnt out yet) but as there is finally a release date for "SPORE"... How many on here are expecting to see their busy September being overloaded by this games appearance at the beginning of that month..

So when do you normally celebrate your birthday? or do you insist that your only (actual age/4) years old? ie. 7!

@Rhyds - It occurs to some degree or another when any third party is involved with communicating to the SIMS System. We can make efforts to reduce the communication frequency with which our software communicates with SIMS, but I will of course need to know which school you are at If you wish to retain your user anonymity then please drop me a PM. This can assist in reducing the rapidity with which the log files fills but ultimately you will still need to regularly enact a SIMS System Manager backup to reduce the Log file size.

The advisable way to reduce the Log file size is to execute a SIMS Sytem manager backup. This should truncate the log file along with the backup process.

Not sure if it will help or is even related but.. the SP1 for Vista does mention "improved driver support" in its write up.. So it could well be, and this is without any other documented evidence, the drivers missing fom the current Vista build.. Have you tried the SP1 update or still on Vista out of the box?

There are other ways to do it but the simplest way should be 1 - Either locate the target RTF file via Windows or create a new one and save it to your desktop (if creating a new one make sure you save it with an RTF file type). 2 - Right-click on the file on your desktop (or where ever you saved it) and select Open With... 3 - Select Microsoft Word from the list (you may need to browse to the applications directory if it is not immediately available in the list) 4 - Ensure you check the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" tick box. 5 - Click OK. This should restore the association between the RTF file type and Word. For a more detailed description (for windows 2000 but its generally the same process) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320033

Thanks you for the compliment, I'll pass it on to the Northern Support team. I thought I'd add a little bit of new information to the discussion.. This is an excerpt from a circular distributed from BECTA on the 18th, from Dr Stephen Lucey, Becta Executive Director, Strategic Technologies. "Recent high-level security breaches concerning loss of personal and sensitive information have highlighted the need to update information security guidance. Suppliers – particularly management information systems, technical support, connectivity and learning platform providers – have an important role to play in helping schools to meet their responsibilities for data security. This may be simply to reassure school leaders that appropriate security mechanisms are already in place and make sure that they know how to use them to greatest effect. They may also ask you to review their security mechanisms and policies, and recommend or implement any necessary improvements. " So it looks like the debate on adapting 'flat networks',Admin-curriculum seperation, opening servers SQL port or 'port 80' to curriculum network etc. and the risks (or lack thereof) has definitely spilled beyond Edugeek (As if anyone had any doubts that it hadn't )

Absolutely correct. The system is ground up designed to utilise wireless technology and has the facility for offline Firedrill which does not rely on a current connection to what could be a burning network. In fact the whole spectrum of associated registration tasks (Markbooks, Behaviour monitoring, off site registration) can function with little or no live connection to the network. Heck, the newer products can take your classes register while your in Florida if you are feeling so inlcined (and have taken your tutor group on a field trip to the Universal Studios) The PDA's can be set up to run via a dedicated Radio network or Industry standard Wireless networking. @Localzuk - Sorry to hear you've heard less than stellar news. I'd love to get the chance to defend our side but this thread is not the place (theres been enough offtopic derailing already )

As Tiger dropped my name into the conversation a couple of times I thought I'd best at least chip in a little bit. There are quite a few different ways to securely provide information access across Admin/Curriculum networks that do not involve merging the two domains. Our solution is but one method of implementation and wouldn't, as Ric_ mentioned, prevent you from utilising any other web portal for parental data sharing (this does of course wholly depend on 'what' you are using for said portal). A properly configured/developed/designed solution should fulfill your school needs without causing any undue increase in Admin workload. Ideally the whole thing should be, once implemented, effectively invisible to all but the highest level admin user. Our own cross network solution is, to the teaching staff, completely invisible and restricts access such that only those processes that are relevant to attendance registration are capable of utilising the 'tunnel'. Nothing is completely secure however and, as others have already said, any system is only as strong as its weakest link and this debate will go on and on and on..

There is a very funny video about this floating around.. http://www.digg.com/xbox/Xbox_360_Ring_of_Fire_parody Is just one example

Having just skim read through the Admin manual for this product you may want to ask for the same report to be run asking for Hits rather than time. If your top site lists a low number of hits then that would lend strength to your banner ad argument. Think about it, how many websites do you know that can actually keep anyones attention for 30 minutes solid without having to request new data, refresh content, navigate to a second page etc.. Websense considers a "hit" as one request for data from the listed URL. A banner ad or pop up is most likely going to ask for this stuff once and then just sit there. Whereas reading a news web site will list multiple hits for your one visit as you browse different news articles etc. Also the Browse Time value is in itself a seperate report. Ask for the drill down data from the suspected adserver duration values. If it is an adserver then the information from this should lend weight to your "it was on and was left on" argument oh and server.iad.liveperson.net is in fact a cookie which is used in quite a few common third party chat clients. If a regularly visited site uses one of these components then just visiting the site may very well install and activate the cookie (without actually initiating the embedded chat compnonent). More info can be gleaned from http://www.liveperson.com

If you substitute the date in the above example with GetDate() it would use todays date rather than having to manually edit the date value each time or if you want it to always show the particular date use the above as written. There are a whole slew of Date parameter variables (exact syntax depends on version of SQL your using) that should allow you to get exactly what date format you want too.

Can't really help with whether its been fixed in SIMS (maybe Phil or one of the other SIMS guys can comment) but can advise you that alternatives are available. All the Bromcom folders act perfectly well with offsite registration ie. call it up on the folder on site, take folder off site, mark it, return to site and send it back. Then you also have the new M-Reg option which lets you take your register and send it back "live" from anywhere that you can get a Mobile phone signal(down the road, 30 miles away, field trip to Germany!) and the data packets are sall so its reasonably quick too. The data retrieved can then be pumped from e-Reg back into SIMS via the existing software interfaces. If you want to it can even be pumped back into Serco, Phoenix, RM or a whole plethora of other systems. I know it doesn't really answer your query but its food for thought nonetheless.

Nah, Shatner's moved on.. Nowadays he is a Tauren Shaman. He hangs around with Mr. T's Night Elf Mohawk!!

Red (Normal) Saw (Abnormal) Maybe I like cutting things more than I like hitting things? How obsessed with DIY would you have to be to answer with something like multi speed hammer drill

Firstly I would like to say thanks to Vikpaw for that exhaustive reply and also a thanks to Histman for actually asking the question in the first place. I wholly agree that some of our handheld products are a "bit dated looking", they have always been built with a long term usage ethic. We have some customers that are still using the same folders they bought 8 years ago. The school environment (at least that encountered in the classroom) tends to be a bit wearing on some new technology, so robust is seen by us as a good thing. Not to mention the very real danger of, as Vikpaw put it, the newer looking kit being "bit more likely to get stolen". The Winfolder software product is compatible to most new kit as well though, we had it running on one of the new Asus EeePC's at BETT. One thing that I would like to correct Vikpaw on is his usage of the term "defunct", little bit harsh . While Winfolder2 is most certainly "not" the latest incarnation of that particular product, it is still supported. We appreciate that school's budgets (especially ICT ones) are spread very thin already and this is one of the primary reasons we keep support for the older products going. Schools can upgrade to take advantage of new product features but there is no pressure to do so in order to avoid obsolescence. Obviously it does happen sometimes but we try our hardest to prevent it. As for demo's, by all means contact our Customer Care or Sales teams and they will be more than happy to arrange something. I'm sure you already know the number

I only really had time to do anything (other than man on our stand) first thing on Wednesday and when I walked past the Edugeek stand you all looked extremely busy (but this was before 10am). Looked like a nice setup though.

Wish I had seen this thread sooner. We had one of these on our stand at BETT with Windows on it. Some of you could have got a chance to see it running with the higher load operating system on it. We see it as one of those tailor made little devices for mobile registration. Nicer than a PDA but not as bulky as a laptop. With regards connecting them to a network, I must say that at the BETT show the auto detection of the network was getting a little bit overwhelmed by the volume of choices it had. It would display different numbers of available networks from attempt to attempt. That may not be indicative of usual operating conditions as its not likely to have 15+ networks to choose from in the usual school environment.

I heartily recommend the coffee chocolate bar on the Espresso software stand, its to the right and slightly back from the SIMS stand as you come in the hall. Our most popular freebie (Apart from pens and bags which zoom out every year) was the fact we had a water cooler on the stand Although we haven't had the gentleman trying to fill his empty 2l Coke bottle yet this year.

Well I still look like me...and have even sent the PM to prevent image based identity theft Not that anyone would want to.. See you all at Bett (at least those of you that may be attending tomorrow anyway!) as Wednesday is my day for being exposed to sunlight and the fierce glare of face to face customers!

More invigilators may also help.. and, correct me if I am wrong but, I think that the next round of workforce reforms is going to suggest usage of non-teachers for invigilation purposes. Don't know how its going to work but it includes the possibility of getting parents to do the task ie. cheap labour!

Our own registration product Winfolder allows teachers to view the pertinent student information (which will be retrieved from SIMS in a school with both systems) Home address salutation SEN details Medical needs etc. But comes equipped with a facility to hide the information to prevent embarassing (and potentially DPA breaching) scenario's with projectors etc. It also runs the communication through a non-standard port to the Bromcom server, which is behind the firewall, and the SQL comms goes from there. That way you aren't holding the SQL ports open to attack. As Tiger states there is always going to be a concern with the opening of ports for the communication of said data due to the risk of malicious attack. Make sure you look very carfeully at the configuration of firewalls etc. to minimise the risk.