Gaz

That issue resolved its self anyway but its more the point that they never got back to me that bothers me. Yeah I read the post about getting more support staff, in fact I predicted it due to the increase in support renewal, which will go towards new staff wages. I look forward to some more pleasant experiences with Smoothie. I am on my 4th account manager in nearly 3 years though lol, but I'm not sure if thats them or me.

Agreed on the helpdesk front, its a complete waste of time, I ended up closing a support ticket that I made because i became so disheartened waiting for a reply, my account manager asked me to email her if I didn't get a reply in a few days, so I emailed her and she never replied to me. I really liked Smoothwall for the first year we used it, the support staff were nice and helpful and my account manager would call me up to see how I was getting on but now, I get the impression from the comments I read that they have forgotten about the end users. I just want Smoothwall to go back to the old days. We are due for renewal very soon and I have been paying close attention to this thread for an alternative, but I just wont have the time to try anything new so we will be with Smoothwall for another year, I really hope they get things sorted.

There are some good ideas and thoughts being thrown about here. Core - > Edge -> User << that was the way I had this planned in my mind, it depends how big the building is going to be I suppose, where they decide to locate the rooms etc etc So do stacked switches use the interconnect to communicate between each other? at what speed does that operate at? I found this video quite interesting.

I wouldn't mind looking at the links you have found so far if you care to share.

Arh yes, thats kinda what I suspected.

Redundant links has been mentioned and so has core distribution. Normally redundant links would be used if there was a switch in the computer room, but if theres no switch in the computer room because theres a core distribution then where are the redundant links placed? Sorry again if that sounds silly but I've never been asked to do this sort of thing before. EDIT: Cheers Rob.

We don't have a lot of equipment at the moment and we are due to expand. We currently have 2 servers, one of which would be the content filter as I plan to stay with Smoothwall despite the shoddy support of late, the other could play backup. I'd like a new server for the AD, DNS, and other such things. The switch that we currently have may be used somewhere but probably not up to the job of a core switch (Cisco SG300) The Computers would come but the older ones would be binned so we would need more to make up the numbers, each computer room would have 16 PC's in it, there would then be an office with ~10PC's in it. We have 20 machines that we could bring over so we would need around 38 more, 28 workstations and 10 SFF office PC's around 50 in total, not including users using their own laptops.

It appears there is more to this than I bargained for, but all this info is useful even the criticism. Its sounding like this could be a shared building so BMS will be out of the window as that would be done by the site owner, so would things like trunking. I would get to choose the core of the networking gizmos that would be needed such as power, switches, ups, routers, cabling, racks, servers, etc etc @twin--turbo can you expand on this. Why is it perfereable? >>Gigabit switches for computer rooms with wall mounted cabinets Avoid this if you can, central distro rooms preferable.

So that option was ticked on the other printers (working)? If not that may not be the cause but it may be a work around. So its sorted?

I'll change it to desktops then. I am making a provision for BYOD. I just though laptops would be a better solution as most of them use their personal ones now anyway but they are off the domain.

Thanks.

Wifi is on the list^^ IP phone system, I'm not too sure about but its always nice to play with new tech isn't it? If the switch powering the IP phones dies do we lose the phones? Office computers will be laptops but that is assumed, they will run off the wifi network with ethernet in the room as backup in case/when the wifi plays up. Forgive my ignorance but whats BMS?

Yeah its probably better, because I don't know how big the rooms will be or how far from the server room they will be fibre uplinks is probably the better choice. The move wont happen for another 2 years but the planning needs to happen now.

Arh yes good point. Not too sure how its going to be wired, i.e. if all the wiring is going to go back to the server room thus no need for cabs in the rooms We'll probably have 3 computer rooms and about 7 classrooms (with ethernet but only for IWB) Is it better practice to have cabs in the rooms or have all the cabling go back to server? sorry if thats a silly question but I've never been asked to design a network of this level.

Not too sure what you mean by "Other-side-of-school" backup room etc Fibre backbone? Is that LAN or WAN? I actually forgot about the internet

I've been asked what we would need if we were to move site into a new building, what IT equipment would be needed. The building isn't yet constructed so treat it as if we have free reign. So far i've put down. Server rack with sufficient power for all appliances such as servers, ups, switches and routers. Modular Layer3 core switch Firewall and content filter Rack mounted servers with storage array RAID6 UPS Power supplies Air conditioned room Ethernet cabling to latest spec Ethernet sockets in computer rooms Workstation grade PC’s to run CAD/CAM software Wifi Network – Next generation specification Interactive whiteboards Printers in computer rooms Office for IT staff for network monitoring with multidisplay computers. Backup NAS drive in separate room Hi-speed internet (fibre) Fibre backbone for LAN Gigabit switches for computer rooms with wall mounted cabinets Is there anything I'm missing?

Have you contacted Target Tracker about this issue? maybe its a bug in their software that only happens under certain conditions. In the mean time this may help... http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/214N63V%2BlEL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Facebook are big on clamping down on fake accounts and such so its highly unlikely you could send an update from an email address thats not the one that your facebook account is registered too.

Also with BT (business) and although I've never called support so I can't say how good that is, the connection has always been stable.

They could setup a filter on their personal email at home to forward facebook email to their school email but I doubt they do the reverse of that at school if they can't access their personal one. So they could get the updates but not send anything as facebook wouldn't accept an email update for that user from a different email address to avoid spamming.

There must be a difference between the one that works and the one that doesnt work. Try and find a common link between the two PC's/Printers. Could even try an image of a working PC to a non working PC.

Cheers for that Localzuk I had completely forgotten about Academia, we've used them before in the past but they were a bit useless.

Yeah that sounds like a right pain. We mainly need something to edit PDF's now that we have loads of documents that are PDF's since I told the staff to start scanning to PDF's on the photocopier, the forms was just a bonus. Thats a shame about the licensing I guess we'll have to bite the bullet and pay the full price, but I shall still trial them both out. Cheers.

Arh I didn't know that. Thanks. Hmm using the word "create" is a bit misleading, at least to me anyway. So If we made the form in Word/Publisher etc etc we could then import it into Adobe and then edit the form? Its not too likely we will be using it to make forms but its probably better to have the functionality now rather than buying another piece of software later so we can edit forms. Nitro PDF Pro is an alternative we are looking at half the cost for the same functionality. I guess I will trial them both and find out. Does Adobe do academic licensing?

Firstly sorry if this is in the wrong area but there isn't a section for general software and everything about this section appears to be Microsoft Office based. Does anyone know if Adobe Acrobat XI Standard can create forms from a blank canvas? This buying guide is a little confusing as it doesn't actually state that it can create forms apart from one bit where it says "NEW Create new PDF or web forms in minutes with the included FormsCentral desktop app" but that is only included in the Pro version. It says a lot about being able to fill out forms but not actually create one from a blank canvas. Buying guide | Adobe Acrobat XI Pro