Gerry

U-bun-tu buns - like that one! Might try and make an Ubuntu stamp/cookie cutter one day... We won't be giving out any freebies except for a few small prizes. Didn't mean to mislead, I'm not showing Ubuntu as if it will be fully/partially adopted by the college. I'm showing it mainly as an alternative for the home PC/laptop/netbook. Education-wise, hoping maybe they'll see something they can use to teach with e.g. music dept. could use Rosegarden and/or Ardour. Then it's up to them to ask for it. Will also be pushing OpenOffice as a good alternative - fed up with staff/student having problems opening Works documents! Can't believe some people are still using that crap!

Our IT team is holding a "Roadshow" next week for our staff. I'm planning to demonstrate Windows 7 and Ubuntu. At the moment I will show the basic look and feel of both OS's, show off Compiz' eye-candy and Ubuntu's range of free software (focusing on education). Does anyone have any other ideas? Anything I can use to attract people?

The printer has had all new toner and a photoconductor/fuser unit.

It used to be connected via the network. I've taken it away and am printing via USB from my own computer to test. I've also tried printing it's own internal demo page - same result almost every time, though occasionally I see very faint output on a page, probably due to shaking the toner and fuser.... Now that I've said that I'm more inclined again to think it's because the toner isn't transferring to the fuser roller...

Yup, works a treat thanks.

Not so sure about the gap anymore...Think it's ok when toner+fuser installed in the printer. @philterz: Paper comes out warm so fuser must be getting hot. Followed your reset instructions - I think the factory reset was slightly different. Still spitting out blank pages.

Will try this out Monday, thanks.

Anyone?

It's how it's been done here for a while-before I started working for them. Thankfully, we'll be moving staff documents and settings over to a network storage device, but there's been a problem with the hardware we bought and it probably won't be up and running until the end of the summer hols.

Soon we will be re-imaging all the staff PC's, but first we will need to backup their local profiles. We use MS's Backup tool for that. The only problem is that to restore we need the person to log-in first on their freshly imaged PC. If they don't, XP creates a new profile for them called "username.domain". Is there a way around this? Preferably we want to be able to do it without the user being available as they will be "working" from home soon... I though just tweaking the permissions/ownership for the restored profile folder would work, but sadly, it doesn't.

@techie211: Sorry for not replying sooner. The group policy is added to the Computer Configuration. Here it can take up to a few hours for the policy to become active, and as I mentioned our desktops won't install the drivers unless we log-in with an admin account first (we haven't figured out why yet-hoping Server 2008 will sort it out when we switch...) For the odd staff PC that isn't a member of the room's group in Active Directory, we add a shortcut to the script in All Users->Startup.

Was able to do a factory reset, but it didn't help. I'd say it was a problem with the photoconductor and/or toner. Both are new items. Unfortunately we don't have another similar printer to test with and 0844 phonenumbers are blocked by our system so I can't phone Dell support. Anyone know how I can find out exactly what's wrong - maybe I can get a replacement from the suppliers... If anyone has a Dell 1720 could you tell me if you can see a gap between photoconductor roller and the toner roller?

Unfortunately out-of-warranty so I can't ask for help from Dell (not even e-mail tech support for suggestions!). HP wouldn't have minded... Anyway, problem is it's printing blank pages with the occasional incredibly faint test page (and then only parts of it). I've been through Dell's support pages, the toner and photoconductor both look ok. There's toner on the roller even, but not on the photoconductor. I've checked part #'s and they're correct. Any ideas?

"Explode" them with a Dremel? [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elqlj-3RcW4]YouTube - Exploding CD[/ame]

Here's a sample vbs of a script I use: Set wshNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network") on Error Resume Next Printer1="\\printserver\printer_name" 'Deletes all network printers Set clPrinters = WshNetwork.EnumPrinterConnections On Error Resume Next For i = 0 to clPrinters.Count - 1 Step 2 wshNetwork.RemovePrinterConnection clPrinters.Item(i+1), true Next 'Sets up printers WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection Printer1 WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter Printer1 It's saved to the "netlogon" folder. In the GPO it's added into "Administrative Templates->System->Logon->Run these programs at user logon". If your script isn't working, try manually running it after logging-in. Here we have a problem in that we have to log-in as an admin if the printer driver hasn't been installed yet.

Google's special version of the Android phone - the Borg edition.

Ah well, lesson learned eh?

I would like a web-based printer monitor. Looks like SNMP is the best method to use, but I've not used it before. Most of our printers are HP, but we have a few Dell's and some photocopiers. Anyone know of any good guides for SNMP noobs? Any good resources for help programming my own monitor? (PHP/Perl preferrable). Thanks.

I'm trying to put a Bizhub 420 on the network so it can be used as a printer. Only problem is the damn thing won't save the IP address I'm trying to give it. It doesn't have a problem with storing the gateway and subnet mask Even tried via DHCP and reserving an IP for it - no luck. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

Planet in Action - Ships Still a little rough (no land detection yet), and no speed boats either (there is a blimp though), but interesting...

2007 upgrades all around. I always recommend OO as a free alternative for the home PC, especially in cases where I have to convert some stupid incompatible Works document!

Looking for a new cordless twin set home phone for my parents. They're not great with technology so simplicity is a big factor, and so is audio quality and volume. Answering machine not essential. I've got my eye on the Gigaset C470 from Siemens: Cordless ECO DECT phone Gigaset C470 by Siemens but I've no idea if it's suitable. I think it's answering machine capable cousin won a Which? best buy award. I also wouldn't mind if the phone had some geeky functions for me to play with (e.g. ring tone customisation) Any recommendations?

Are you using an ISA server? Ubuntu can't get through unless you install something like this: Cntlm: Fast NTLM Authentication Proxy in C Unfortunately, it's not good for multi-user environment as you need to enter your username and password in plain text in a config file.

I have no idea about the state of broadband dongles and Linux, but you may find some info over at Ubuntu Forums.

Don't worry! My netbooks aren't very good. They use the Via C7-M chip. Yours will probably be running full speed. Potential problems: nothing much, just problems with some drivers and the kernel being recompiled without certain functions to make it quicker. The software you want to install should be ok. There's supposedly a new version of UNR with the release of Jaunty: Download Ubuntu Nebook Remix | Ubuntu Don't know what it's like yet as their method of installing via USB pen drive won't work on my crappy netbooks - I have to use the CD and then add UNR afterwards. Here's a tool you might find useful: UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads Allows you to create bootable USB drive from ISO's (and possibly IMG's).