spc-rocket

@Tony, Thanks for the info - i'll give our LA a call to see what they are doing. @John, The SharePoint portal server is a tad bit expensive especially when you consider the CALs for sharepoint server. I don't know if its needed for our place as WSS with SQL server should do the trick but i need to find out on WSS and see what the limitations are i guess. Thanks. Ash.

Hi ICTNUT, We are looking to move our VLE to sharepoint and have recently installed sharepoint services 3.0 and so far its looking good. Still waiting for some of the templates to be released by MS which should make it easier but it seems that WSS does offer a real great interface and lots of flexibility. We currently get the SIMS support through our LEA, do we need to contact them to get the webparts or can we get these directly from Capita?. We don't mind the read-only aspect of webparts as teachers don't really (at the moment) need write access to, if they do they can fire up sims.net from their laptops and away they go. Do you mind me asking you how you obtained the sims web parts?. Also does the sims server need to be on the same domain as the WSS server for it work or does it only require the SQL connection? TIA, Ash.

Come on Russ, Hmmm don't see any comments by Russ, where is he? Ash.

You should be able to do a trust between windows 2000 domain and windows 2003. I do recommend that on your windows 2000 domain raise the domain functional level to windows 2000 native i.e. no pre-windows 2000 clients. Thsi should allow you manully configure the trust. I'm not sure if NetBIOS is require or if its kerberous based. What i would recommend is that you carry out a test using vmware first i.e. install windows 2003 server with AD in a forest and anothe VM with windows 2000 domain in a completely new forest. I would also recommend that you create a secondary zone in Domain A (forest1) for the primary zone of domain B (forest2) and vice versa before configuring the trust. Ash.

I agree with CyberNerd, I simplycannot see any advantage of using vista or longhorn server (its not even out until 07/08 - for the sake of testing let hope its out on 08 than in07!) because the windows server 2003 / XP pro combination is very good and its stable and both of these products have matured to a SP2 level. Investing brain time and also licensing and money on vista is just waste of time and money in my opinion. MS will not drop support for windows server 2003 or XP for some time now esp. Vista server will be out in 07/08 as i said ealier. Seems to me that people like to play around and jump to the latest system without actually justifying the reasons. Its all great having on your home machine/test networ etc. but for god sake wait fro the proper documentation and deployment guides!! Ash.

Hi, Right just spoke to someone at Becta and they said that the intrim report will be available during the BETT show and also on their website - sometime ins January 07. This will be the intrim report and will contain other stuff as well i.e. learning platforms recommendations for suppliers as well as users, school, lea etc i think Ash.

Hi, HS Dataline is also very good, have used the many times and foud them to be really good. They are based in Birmingham. http://www.hsdataline.co.uk Ash.

Hi Ric, I'm assuming you want to block sites by using the site's IP address i.e. http://www.bbc.co.uk --> 212.58.224.115 You need to create a computer set called say Blocked Sites By IP and then add entry for each website's IP. The create a Deny rule at the top which goes something like this: Deny HTTP, HTTPS from Internal, LocalHost, etc TO the Computer Set you created ealier i.e. Blocked Site by IP. This will then block all access (on using protocols HTTP, HTTPS) to the IPs specified in the Computer set you created. Another way to do its to create a host file on the isa server and then in the host file enter the sites' name i.e. http://www.bbc.co.uk followed by few spaced and then the ip address 127.0.0.1 so it will never go the website. Also the isa server queries the host file first before using the DNS. HTH, Ash.

I doubt the £100 is doing layer 3 routing but then again you never know. As you trying to extend your vlans TO the Netgear switch? What is the uplink to the Netgear switch, is this doing the tagging. I hate managed switches that likes to do things for you automatically i.e. smart ports etc. I like to just telnet and manually set them up so at least i know what i configured and what has changed. To be honest VLAN interopertability between vendors had become quite good in the last few years so it should work. Ash.

Hi, Have you checked the encapsulation i.e. 801.1q. Its needs to be the same on both and also the native vlan should be the same as well if its a trunk link (sorry cisco terminology). So you are saying that you have a VLAN 2 on HP switch and also a VLAN 2 on the netgear SW. The uplink that connects these two switches must have the same tagging mechanism (802.1q - IEEE) and the same vlan. To test connect a pc to a VLAN 2 port on the HP SW and then connect another PC to VLAN2 port on the netgear switch and see if you can ping. HTH, Ashok.

We are trying to sort this out with UKERNA at the moment so essentially bypassing the RBC layer as JANET /NEN is managed by UKERNA. What you have to remember is that some counties have opted not to be with any RBCs at all so they will need some sort of entry into the NEN. I can't remember where on the Becta's website i saw a list of counties that are not with an RBC. Ash.

You guys may also want to have a look at PaperCut NG --> http://papercut.biz Looks good and reasonably priced as well. Ash.

Thanks for checking it out. I guess we'll have to wait till January 07. I suppose if they are adding vista findings then this is better as many people will also want to know how much that should cost etc. Thanks! Ash.

Hi All, Didn't really know which section to place this so aplolgies in advance if this is in the wrong place. Just wondering if anyone knows a link to where i can find the Becta's Report (intrim-report) on MS licensing and wheather it is value for money. I think Becta were going to look into this at the start of the year were going to publish some kind of report in June 06. Ash.

Hi, I'm having issues extracting zips as well. Using Geoff's mirror. Probably try it a bit later. Ash.

Hi, Oh yeah i forgot to check the Ramesys site, we used them for most of the license purchase , the pugh website is the first one come to mind so i quoted them directly there. Tony is right it is slighly cheaper if you are spealist school. Ash.

Office 2003 Pro under Student Select License - £68 not bad in my opinion. http://www.pugh.co.uk/studentsandstaff/microsoftselect.htm Ash

I don't know about the vista prices, but the office 2007 prices are not bad under the SELECT agreement. Office 2007 Pro Plus.---> £58 http://www.pugh.co.uk/products/microsoft/officepro-plus2007.htm Ash.

I thought the the RBC can only deliver services if they are accredited by Becta as they usually cover a lot of areas/schools. Great another inconsistency with RBCs and it seems different RBCs do things differently - there doesn't seems to be one consistent process. BTW, 10mb for £2000 is not bad for a leased line. Ash.

Hi, Don't know about this really, Becta does try to provide frameworks and guidance to schools but some practices may be out of date. The problems is that the recent thing about Birmingham's Council's linux project doesn't help the situation. Its bad press for open source and when people actually see this kind of problems they tend to take that to heart and not look at it seriously. Problem I have is that although open source software is great many of the really great packages are not available for the Windows platform and usually its things like BSD, linux etc. I know the free office and star office but they are not enough. I think the developers should have a platform-independent mind when designing open source software so that anyone can use it without having to worry about the platform. I do understand that this adds to the development time (porting etc) but it will truly bring the Open Source software into the limelight and then i guess the likes of Becta will give full attention. I think with the recent thing that Becta complained to MS about educational licenses you would see the prices of Office suite drop quite a lot - in my opinion MS should give away the office for free or at a max £10 per copy Ash.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39284683,00.htm Ash.

Are there any problems with using NFS. I've heard that with tera station it doesn't support >2Gb ? I haven't lookeed too much into this so i'm not sure. I would probably need to update the firmware. Just wondering about the hacked firmwares - do these still have the support for AD?? Thanks Ash.

Geoff, How difficult is to change the file system? say to NFS?? Any suggestions. TIA, Ash.

Hi Guys, Here's few scripts that were posted in the communities forum (RM). They have a logon and logoff script which basically records the user's logon and logoff information. You need to modify the location of the access database and have i believ write permission on the db. There is a help file (PDF) which tells you how to use and set it up. I found it it to be really useful and very easy to setup. Ashok. logonrecorder.zip

Hi there, If the firewall service is not started the isa server will go into lock-down mode and will not let anything pass at all. This is why you can't pint the server as well. I think this is a security design implemented by MS. There may be ways to exclude some services when the firewall services crashes so it doesn't lock them out but i'm not too sure how to go about do this. Try and find out why the firewall service crashed and how to get it back online again. You should find that once the firewall service is back up all other things will works again. HTH, Ash.