richardp

The newer Drobopro Elite has two gigabit nics you can use for the iSCSI protocol.

I can recommend the drobopro however it might be a little bit of overkill for what you want to use it for. However it is certainly worth investigating. Approx £850 for the chassis then however many disks you want to put in it and whatever capacity. The number of times lately I have mentioned drobo products I should be on commission 8-). Richard

We replaced all of our student PCs with touchscreen ergo AS1s a year ago, I know not quite the same setup. So long as you keep ontop of calibration they work pretty well and the kids love to use them. You will at least for the forseeable future end up paying more for a large display than the equivalent projector and board setup.

Hi, I know I bang on about them in other threads but I cannot recommend the drobo boxes highly enough. Not sure of your budget so they may be out of your price range but the DroboPro is around £850 for the chassis without disks. Then just add as many sata harddrives as you want / can afford. You get usb / firewire and iSCSI (through the builtin network port) connections so you can plug it straight into your server. Very easy to use, when its running out of space it tells you, you either put another drive in a spare slot or replace your smallest drive, all without stopping the device or stopping people accessing the data. The DroboPro is also certified to work with VMWARE for virtual servers etc... Something to think about however if you take backups off site, for example you take them home, some people have stopped doing it because they cannot guarantee the security of the data. Also at the very least the backup should be encrypted no matter where it ends up off site. Your best bet is probably to have a good media safe on site, some now come with a usb cable on the outside you can hookup to a harddrive inside to transfer data without even opening the safe. richard

Sorry obviously did not make myself clear, the drobopro has a single gigabit network port, the drobopro elite has two gigabit network ports. Add one or two gigabit network cards to your server approx £80 for an intel single port card, and you can connect the drobopro directly to the back of the server using a standard network cable, or to your network switch. This means you can site the drobopro next to your server or pretty much anywhere else on your LAN within usual restrictions on cat5 cable runs. You then install the provided iSCSI initiator software on the server which allows the server to communicate with the drobopro using the iSCSI protocol. You can then create volumes automatically or manually as you require. Richard

Hi check out the DroboPro which is around £850 with no drives and has a single iSCSI connection or if you can find it the new DroboPro Elite which has two iSCSI connections. Both have been officially tested to work with VMWARE. So for your current needs it at the very least provide you with a cheaper backup for the SAN (just add upto 8 sata drives to suite your requirements) or even be suitable to be your main SAN. richard

I have had a HTPC since 2006 (not using bluray at the moment however) and use it for recording tv, music, dvd, video, bit of web surfing etc... And of course all this I can stream to my other computers / consoles around the house. If you are willing to put the time in to building your own it can be very rewarding ( especially when you manage to build something that is nearly completely silent!!) but it can also be frustrating at times. If you want it to look nice it and be silent it will end up costing a fair amount, I have spent approx £800 on it so far but I wanted it to look nice and be quiet. If you use Windows 7 Media Centre you could save some money by using a standard (old) case and loud components and hiding it in the loft or under the stairs etc... and use you xbox 360 as an extender to set recordings and playback media on your whacking great big tv. If you want to go out and buy one off the shelf then depending on spec it might cost around £600 - £800 or so. The thing with bluray is to make sure every component you are using is hdcp compliant otherwise it might playback but it will only be dvd quality. Richard

Also sounds to me like a dodgy keyboard and/or driver however to put your mind at rest why not download one or two of the nix based disk images that a lot of the big AV providers have these days. (Kaspersky, Bitdefender etc...) Boot one of these and scan your whole system and it should find anything that is there. Richard

As previously said make sure everything is looking at the same time server. An Xserve is unlikely to solve your AD authentication problems. Have you checked DNS is working as it should ? To add your domain admin account just go to the Directory Utility / Services / Active Directory / Show Advanced Options / Administrative - then tick the Allow administration by box and enter your domain admin details including the domain eg Edugeek\Administrators or Edugeek\domain admins Richard

Hi, We have 16xiMacs from end of 2007 one of which has an intermittent problem I have not got to the bottom of yet. 14xiMacs from early 2009 which I have no problems with so far. 1xMacbook Air which we have had for almost a year with no problems. And 3xMacbook Pros (17inch) from 2006 which we have had to have the batteries replaced on all three because of the well documented problems. Two happened at the same time and were covered under the extended warranty however another happened only recently and was no longer covered so we just purchased a replacement. Also just this week we have had a power supply for one of the Macbook Pros fail and so have ordered a new one. We purchased 3 years of extended support for all the iMacs however this only covers you for return to base as onsite warranty seems impossible to get in the UK, certainly without spending 10s of thousands of pounds. richard

Hi just something to check, in system preferences / accounts, go into the Login Options and make sure that the option "Allow network users to login to this computer" is ticked. Also click on options and select "All network users" or select "Only these network users" and select a domain account to test it with. Also in the directory utility click on Search Policy and make sure that the Active Directory entry is higher up the list than any mention of LDAP. Richard

Hi, ...mmmm when you said that it "..asks for the local admin password half way through..." by that did you mean the local admin password of the DC or are you using the domain administrator account ? Or have you created a specific account for adding computers to the domain ? This is a bit of a stumper at the moment, never had any problems joining a mac to a windows domain myself other than with the time being out of sync issue. When you get to the login window on the mac underneath where it says Mac OS X it should show the name of the mac. If you click this repeatedly it will show you different info. One bit is "Network Accounts Available" does this have a green sphere next to it ? Richard

Hi, yes if you open up Domain Security Policy on your DC then go to Local Policies then Security Options. Approx half way down you should see "Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always)" by default this is enabled, however Macs cannot do this so it needs to be disabled. Directly below it there is another entry "Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (if client agrees)" which you can enable so that at least your windows computers will still encrypt communications. Have you checked on the macs that you changed the preffered domain controller in the Directory Utility to your new DC ? If not then they may still be looking for your old DC and it might explain the slowness if nothing else. Also make sure your DNS info is correct, on a mac go to Terminal and type host and make sure it returns the FQDN of the DC server. Also are you using the FQDN when trying to bind the mac to the Domain? Have you changed the name of each mac in the Sharing entry of System Preferences ? Richard

Hi first thing I would check is that the time on the macs and windows server is identical. Make sure both of them are using the same NTP server to set the time. Secondly after promoting a Windows Server 2003 to a Domain Controller, you must check the Domain Security Policy and change the "Always secured connection" policy to "only when available". Hope that helps

hi Tyiell to do what you want you need to be looking at PAC files which can do exactly that. Just google PAC files and you should find plenty of examples for you to use. Richard

Not too involved with BSF directly here but it really comes down to the specification document as far as the school is concerned. If they don't get everything included in that document that they need it will not be part of the contract and therefore require payment. Ultimately it won't be the NMs or Techs problem as they will either have been TUPEd and will therefore be an employee of the support company and not the school and will have to stick to the contract that they may or may not have had input into. Or for whatever reason they will not be working at the school at all. It seems to me that there may be a tendancy to treat the advice coming from NMs and Techs (if it is sought) as an attempt by them to "save" their jobs, when in a lot of cases they may end up with better pay and conditions and dare I say it maybe a bit less work to do ? Richard

Mmm sounds to me like you are describing an iSCSI connection? Does the NAS support this ? If so then you need to make sure that the initiator software has been installed on the server ! Richard

Hi Ron, I have never really been all that swayed by these expensive cisco or micrsoft etc... qualifications myself. Just because someone can pass an MCE exam isn't enough, practical experience and the ability to logically approach a problem or project is far more valuable as far as I am concerned. For example before I got my current job my employer got someone in short term to cover the post who had microsoft qualifications coming out of his ears. However he could not perform the most basic of practical tasks such as attaching a printer to a PC, never mind install the software. He had no practical experience at all just theory. However it could always come down to who might be interviewing you in the future, if they have no IT background its often the case that they fallback on the MCE CCNA type qualifications as an absolute requirement and by not having one you might not even get an interview. Do you have a testing environment (network) that you can use to gain experience in installing and configuring server software, domains, virtualisation, clustering, scripting etc... if not then maybe that would be something you might want to consider. Are there any projects coming up or can you think of anything that you might be able to take the lead on, such as a new email system or server upgrades ? Is there any new hardware or software, such as macs, that are due to be implemented that maybe you could be trained in using to then cascade to technicians or other staff ? Richard

Hi Ron, its a very good thing that the school wants to help you develop. However I view it as part of your managers job to help you a bit more than just asking you to guess what tasks you are not doing and come up with the course / qualifications or experience that will allow you to do them. Of course they should enquire what kind of direction you want to take your career and help you to do that as all good employers should. Also giving you the training etc so you can perform the tasks of a network manager is great but they should not be expecting you to actually take on those jobs as part of your day to day work without adequate compensation. I would also assume it would be difficult for them to pay you more without moving you up the pay scale which can only go so far when you are officially classed as a technician even if you are doing everything a network manager does. Dont get me wrong take every opportunity to improve yourself when offered but dont let them take advantage and expect you to do the work of a network manager but be paid like a technician, there is a reason why job evaluations were put in place ! Richard

Have you checked your DNS settings ? If you type the address into safari what happens ? Does it work with the IP address rather than the FQDN ? Richard

Mmmm surely as a "technician" the main reason you get paid less than a network manager, manager being the operative word, is because you dont have to do this sort of management task. They (network manager / slt) should know what a technician role entails and for that matter a network manager. I would say rather than just paper certs and the usual hardware / software experience (which is important) you need to be able to show the ability to manage other people which could include any visiting engineers such as cabling or onsite repair people. Also project management skills would be useful to show you can manage people and resources etc... to a deadline and / or budget with hopefully a positive outcome. Also strategic thinking would be an important thing to demonstrate you can operate at a higher level rather than just at the "which computer do I need to fix today" level. Also to show you can appreciate the needs of the other departments and not always go for the choice which is easiest for the IT department. Hope some of that is useful. Richard

A 2003 vanilla windows network, never used RM CC... but have heard some positive things about CC3 and some negative things about CC4. Also run an OS X Leopard (not snow leopard yet) system on an Xserve with authentication through windows. Richard.

Hi we have a couple of the standard def versions of the flip vid cams and I can tell you that they have the same problem with codecs. What seems to solve the problem usually is to make sure that you plugin the camera to the PC or Mac you will be using to edit the video on and let the builtin software run. This will install the codec that they use to encode the video and you should then be able to use other editing software such as moviemaker or premiere etc... to edit or convert the video. As a matter of course I would normally convert them to flash video anyway if they are to be posted to a vle or website etc... as this pretty much ensures the widest range of hardware will be able to play it and usually makes them as small as possible. Richard

What version of ghost do you have ? The latest version will install to a usb stick straight from the wizard no problem at all. Richard

Dont have one myself but what about a hyundai coupe ? supposedly a good value for money coupe and looks pretty good also.