BaccyNet

We have this happen randomly here as there are a bunch of schools sharing one public IP (countys upstream proxies) Oh what fun it was trying to explain to year 7 that they can use the Internet and no there isnt a virus on the computers

Most of the time our IT labs are locked, but there have been a number of times where students are left in a room over lunch as they are 'trustworthy' and 'doing homework'. Usually if we remeber or hear anyone in either lab next to us, they get turfed out unless a member of staff is watching them. We do have staff letting the kids back in again though as loads have keys to the rooms:rolleyes:

Have come accross an issue a while ago where with certain print drivers (mainly Microsoft standard ones) which would cuase the server to get a message telling it the printer was 'offline', although the printer could accept jobs and worked fine in all other aspects. It seemed to be solved by making sure the exact, manafacturer drivers were installed. Turned out that the printer this happened on was going into power-save, was telling the driver but the driver thought that meant offline:D May not be your problem, worth a go though.

From the looks of it (not used SurfControl) it looks a lot like someone has tried to send an email to a Hotmail user but your Exchange server cannot deliver it (thus the multiple queries to different servers, it can DNS but not connect) As we dont have Exchange (yet;)) I cant say how you would find this out.

I dont have a laptop for my own use from the school, we do have a HP unit milling around that we use for presentations and the like but it lacks things like serial ports that make switch fault finding that bit easier. I do have a desktop at work though, and a decent desktop at home so apart from possibly having a proper VPN into the office I dont really see the need for a laptop of my own:)

Sad to report I am yet to get a stick here either:( I'm just thankfull that I didnt tell any staff about this, I could hear the complaints now....

I ended up doing both my A+ exams in one go, was a long day but worth it:) As for a target, my target was to be an MCSA by August but that hasnt happened (failed 70-291) so my new target is to be MCSA'd by Jan. I found the A+ book I had was a bit in-depth regarding hardware compared to the exam, which was mainly troubleshooting questions (like user A wants to do something on computer B but it gives an error. What do you check? etc) They did change the exams after I've done it though.

I'm currently studying towards MCSE (currently one off MCSA) MS books can be quite broad and a few that I've used have focussed too much on stuff that wasnt in the exams. I've been doing mine through a training provider (paid for by me, school hasnt paid a penny towards it!) who host workshops at their centre but also have regular online discussions + email etc. I'll post up a list of the books I've used so far if anyones interested. The exam I'm doing now (70-291) is a bit of a mare though so you may want to get more than just a book for that one:)

We would be using Citrix (which is installed and working internally) if someone higher up would change router/proxy settings to let it work

We have setup a load evaluator that basically always balances logons to a different server, thus meaning we can still RDP onto it and users dont get any weird messages. Cant remember off the top of my head what the settings were, if anyone wants to know I'll gladly post them up for you:)

Just signed up too just to see what happens:D Does say that the embedded resources/files 'cannot' be deleted as they are 'securely' placed on the memory stick. Sounds more like a challenge to me... Also mentions something to do with channel partners so I assume it has an autorun style item on it that will download advertising or suchlike, but then if it is wiped its not going to do that!

We are currently in the process (started in March on this one) of introducing Citrix Secure Gateway for use by staff/students. That way they not only get their files but can also use school software. Still waiting for the external access though:rolleyes:

I would love our school to be a licensed test centre for computing exams, would give me less to travel:D

All our switches are setup with static IP's at the far end of the range (excluded by DHCP) I dont add them to DNS (personally dont see the need) but do keep a record of their IP on a label on the switch as well as in a spreadsheet. Makes things easier when needing to change port VLANS:)

The only safe I know of in this building is one in the finance managers office. We're not lucky enough to have one

Sounds to me either VLAN'ing issue or subnet mask issue. For example,I'm guessing that PC1 & PC21 have subnet masks of 255.255.254.0 so they can see each other. As you mention that you havnt seen 10.60.30.* until now this would sound possible. Has the telephone system been in long? Do you know if you have a seperate VLAN for phones? Do you have a router your able to change configuration on?

I currently have two C8237A paper trays for a HP OfficeJet 9130 printer. They are both new in boxes and are of the 250 sheet variety. Currently looking for offers, they will need to be collected from Swaffham,Norfolk. May be willing to trade, let me know and we'll see what we can do. Steve:)

TBH I'd rather not give our staff another medium to tell me that everything is rubbish, they already moan to me enough as it is (strangely they dont do the same to the NM though???) Having said that if I know the person is going to give me a decent answer (i.e. one that isnt just a bashing of the dept) then I try to find out what things we do well and not so well including things they might like to see us do/offer. (Yes its been another one of those great weeks )

Strangly enough I've just come accross this with an OCR course we are running this year. There seems to be a whole load of stuff the kids need to do for evidence but we have disabled it (and have done for years now) One member of staff has decided to be creative with it to help us out (i.e. so we dont have to change any policies) but this seems to be becoming a growing issue. Unfortunatly with my current happiness with this school, I'd rather give everyone admin access just to stop the constant whinging:( (and no, we are not overally strict with our policies)

I have to agree with Ben on this one. We used to send out emails detailing whats going on, post copies on the Intranet (front page) and place paper copies everywhere yet they still dont read them. Most just say they're not interested so dont bother reading it (even though they are the first ones to ask why something changed:doh:) We tried different layouts, a single simple message and even tacking it onto staff newsletters! I've had staff sit in my office at a time convenient to them to walk through something and as soon as I start to walk them through it they mutter "this looks too technical so I wont listen, it'll be alright you can do it for me if I get stuck!" I dont mind sitting down for hours on end explaining something, I dont mind if I do it over lunch, start or end of the day or anytime inbetween, but if your not gonna listen to me when I try to explain (and believe me, It's not even technical stuff as the Yr8 I explained the same thing to got it?!?!?) then I dont see why I should then waste my time getting them to come to sessions or even one-to-ones! I know it doesnt sound right as we are here to help (and its something I try very hard to please everybody) but it does get very frustrating at times. /rant over

Get on really well with the caretakers at both of the schools, I think its mainly for the fact that we are one of the only people who can relate to the problems they have and we show a bit of respect for them too! I agree with Matt, the first thing I do when working with a school is get to know the caretakers. Handy people to know and have been known to get us out of some situations. Of course the favor was returned in fixing of computer equipment:D

We have a similar arrangement as Richard mentioned above. We only support a single primary (on top of the high school and the sixth form) between the two of us. The primary have commented many times about the level of support we give them compared to the previous people as we try to give as fast turn around as we can. Usually once they are set, the only thing that would normally need doing is adding/removing users and installing new kit. We did recently redo their server from scratch ready for their new building (old server was getting on a bit) so that took a bit of time on top of our normal summer workload. It also makes a nice change to visit a primary once in a while, sooo much different than a high school:D

I've had some strange issues with VGA runs over 15m here in our 'new build'. You would either get no image (like what is happening here) or we got a really dark/grainy image. Placing a booster on the end seems to do the trick. Its not ideal (and its a bit hit n miss as to which rooms the run is longer) but it seems to work for us

Hey all! Hopefully someone can help me with this, its driving me nuts:mad: Got a Citrix farm running PS4.5, all of the clients are HP T5530's running WinCE5. Now the school has decided to create a 'virtual science lab' and want to use their current datalogging equipment (12+ year old Philip Harris DL+ 32's) Wonerfully they use serial to connect to the terminal. Whatever I do, I cant get the datalogger to connect in a Citrix session, I have only managed to do it in a single RDP session as Administrator (and that only worked once, wont work again:confused:) Plugging the DL+ straight into the server works fine everytime as well as a 'standard' workstation, so it cant be the DL+. I've enabled serial on the T5530, ensured that disable serial mapping has been switched off in Citrix and have even got down to trying to map manually to the comm port using the command line. Anyone done this? It's probably something really simple but I 've searched everywhere and cant find it! Your help (as always) is greatly appreciated

Cant comment on their AV stuff as the last one I had done by them was years ago. Havn't had any problems with them, in fact they even managed to give us a fantastic deal on 48 machines recently (which we would have loved to go with if internal politics hadnt have gotten in the way, sorry Peter!) We've been lucky enough to have the same account manager ever since we started using them 7+ years ago, great bloke who actually quotes what you ask for and doesnt phone everyday to hassle you (unlike a certain other supplier who doesnt understand that when the IT purchaser is on holiday, it's no good ignoring me and phoning everyday anyway:rolleyes:)