drdos256

Looking for a recommendation for a contactless card reader please? We have been using a small Sum-Up machine (linked to phone on WiFi) but we are now looking to have a 'till like' system that can be used for evening events such as catering for shows, uniform sales etc. for the PSA to collect payments. Must be WiFi as mobile data coverage is awful here! Any recommendations? Many thanks!

We were using MDT 2013 for Window 7 installs but we are now we are using it for Windows 10 - if it helps anyone we had the UEFI rollout challenge on some new Dell Latitudes and needed a quick solution, we had to disable secure boot, enable the UEFI stack and boot off the network with the UEFI IP4 option in the boot menu. In DHCP we changed option 67 from Bootfile=boot\x86\wdsnbp.com to Bootfile=boot\x64\bootmgfw.efi and Windows 10 installed ok.

"Apparently they had the same issue with someone else the other day, then today with me. Probably worth giving them details of your setup to see if they can find a link, as they haven't seen this issue before" it might have been me - 15 characters is our limit - installed on a 2008r2 server...they hadn't heard of a limit before!

Reports today of "slow internet" .... is it just us today?

Reports of slow internet today .... any suggestions for alternative providers? (we have Smoothwall if that helps...)

Latest from SWGfL - "We are currently completing work that will further improve the performance of internet browsing through our proxies. Early indications from the changes we are making show improved performance. Using our proactive monitoring we will analyse the impact of the full change in the morning, we will then follow up with schools directly to see if the changes have improved browsing experience."

I'm seeing the odd slowdown...and reporting it back to swgfl...

Still not right ... web pages slow to start with but once loaded the sites seem reasonably quick. Problems with Certiport where half the students had to try several times to login - managed to work eventually.

We had this update from the service desk this evening:- "SWGfL Service Desk update - SWGfL proxy performance As a result of information gathered from our monitoring system and direct customer feedback, we have identified an issue where some customers are experiencing intermittent browsing performance issues. Our engineers understand the root cause of this issue and are working to resolve it. We are going to undertake a series of planned works, starting tonight (08/07/15) to resolve the problem. As we progress with the work we will provide regular daily updates through email and support call updates." If anyone finds out the "root cause" and the end date of "series of planned works" I'd be keen to know .... hopefully it will all be fixed before September....

The Internet has just gone slow again here .... pity .... as it was faster earlier ....

Seems better today but I would not say it's fixed - had reports of GMetrix not connecting at all for a class (unheard of as even when it was bad we would still get a few on), slow getting to sites etc... occasionally seems to be back to normal but then goes slow again...

RM have published this on their status web page:- " Intermittent browsing issues through RM proxies Identified - We have identified an issue relating to a slow performance degradation over time which has been affecting certain proxy servers. We will be rolling out a patch to all of our proxy farms by the end of this week which will resolve this problem. A workaround is place to address the issue until all proxy farms have been updated. A second issue has also been identified and we are investigating a variety of potential solutions in order to best resolve this issue. Investigating - We are aware a small number of customers have experienced intermittent slow browsing speed issues through our proxies. We have put a temporary workaround in place to help mitigate the cause of the issue whilst we are working on a permanent resolution. " We are one of the "small number of customers" that have been suffering over the last week....

Not sure if this helps but I seem to remember we had to manually add a DNS entry for an install of Ranger 8 - entry was 'RangerCentral' it's an Alias in the forward lookup zone and points to the FQDN of your Ranger server. What is the OS of the server?

We are looking at installing Aruba with Clearpass - just wondering how are you getting on with it ? Anyone else using this as a BYOD solution ?

Nice to have a work around - well spotted thank you. Is there a way to have this box ticked for all users as default?

We have installed Ranger 8 on our network and one Windows 8 test PC (rest is 7 & XP)- managed to get a standard desktop etc. but no plans going to Windows 8 just yet. Ranger 8 downloadable from your RM account if you have upgrade subscription.

TMG 2010 test server installed - all works fine except the automatic redirection to youtube/edu - do I need Iains ISAPI webfilter or is there an additional config setting I need ? Many thanks !

We have had the option to use TMG, but have not had the inclination to implement it..... until now ! Appreciate that it's "discontinued", but I need something before justifying the cost of purchasing Smoothwall in next years budget. Many thanks for the info, I will do a test install next week !

Excellent - many thanks

Hi, We are looking to do the same (no staff proxy, configure youtube access though an ISA type box), I have youtube edu with ISA 2006 / header redirection working BUT enabling youtube via swgfl also enables the https connection to all of youtube, which I can't seem to block unless I enter an IP range ... which causes more problems as they are shared with Google.... Does TMG enable you to block https traffic to the https youtube url ? (without the need to install a firewall client?). How have you got this working for your school ? Many thanks in advance for any tips ! (Before I commit to a Smoothwall demo!)

Hi Steve, Thanks but trying to avoid staffproxy ...

Ok, so I'm sooo late to this party but ..... managed to get youtube.com/edu working with the header mod (thanks to mrbios's post), but I'm now stuck with the https problem where all of youtube is open. https appears to be needed to logon to approve the videos/playlists, so I don't think I can block https traffic to youtube's ip address range as it looks like it compromises the workings of the site (and logging on to google) .... we are running ISA 2006 and are with SWGfL - any suggestions ? Should we be looking at ditching ISA and going with another vendor such as Smoothwall? Is Edu working for other schools ? Thanks in advance for any help ....

@MarkArmstrong - Mark, we are also a Ranger school (7.2.03) looking at Win 7 - if you can send me any details of 7.4 and Win 7 support that would be much appreciated.

There is a thread on the CAS group (see GrumbleDook's post above) for those interested in the detailed discussion – plenty of helpful opinions from teachers and IT pros. Wiki’s are also being developed that may help :- A-level Computing/AQA/Python - Wikibooks, open books for an open world A-level Computing/AQA/Java - Wikibooks, open books for an open world A-level Computing/AQA/VB - Wikibooks, open books for an open world http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A-level_Computing/AQA/Pascal (no notes yet) Python & VB.Net are being looked at here for the course. Python is very popular but you need to be clear on which version to use. Python is free and is cross-platform and "it is the scripting language used by the animation tools in Blender (3D design package)". VB.NET is also popular, but there was a warning about limitations with students who have Mac's at home. Pascal is "still considered good for programming structure / concepts" and Java is "likely to be used by students if they go on to higher education or into industry" & "one of the most popular languages on the web". VB.6 is "a bit old".... So the list is narrowed down for us - next step download, install and see if there are any security worries! Thanks everyone!

Good idea - will see what I can find out...