himji

Head of IT Services We are looking for a Head of IT Services to manage and administer the effective operation of all IT services and network resources throughout the College. The role will also include the support and administration of all IT systems. Applicants will have strong Windows 2008/2012 server administration skills within a multi-domain environment, experience of Microsoft server applications including Hyper-V clustering, MDT, SCCM, SQL, Exchange 2007/2013 and Windows 7. Office 365 experience would be a plus. Strong practical networking experience is also essential. An HND/Degree in an IT related subject or equivalent and Microsoft MCSE in current server technologies are essential. Hours 36 hours/week, all year Salary Band L, points 40 – 42, £42,214 - £44,362 per annum. Head of IT Services Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. [email protected]

Hello, does anybody use ID readers to allow students to swipe and take attendance? We're using some POE IP based readers in classrooms programmed to send the ID card data back to a server where we have a custom app to handle the rest. The thing is the ones we have keep failing. We've been to the supplier who's sent them back for testing but I don;t want to buy any more of these, wondering if anybody has a source for reliable ones Thanks, Himesh

Something about creating quizzes and crosswords which you can then put up on a website

Hi I've had a request to install Hot Potatoes. I've got nothing against it but it's looking a little old now and hasn't been updated since the days of windows 3.1x by looking at it. Does anybody know if there a more modern alternative available? Preferably online Thanks Himesh

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place for this, please let me know if it will be better served in another section. Here's the deal, I'm the lead tech in a small dept, currently one manager, me and three low level techs. The manager is leaving and I'm going to land the manager role, the college doesn't want to replace my role as it was vacant for a good deal of two years and they feel it doesn;t warrant a full time replacement. what they want to push is to call in contractors etc to deal with projects etc. Which is what I'm looking into. I've three things which I'd like to look at costs for (and maybe even argue a FT is cheaper than). #1 Somebody on the end of the line for when I'm on leave. they'd need full system access and knowledge (documentation) of our systems #2 Somebody to call when I have issues which I can't or don't have the time to fully troubleshoot. They'd need a high level of knowledge in the subject (mainly windows as we're a Windows house) #3 Somebody to come in and implement a system/project. Little internal expertise required My best thinking leads me to have a small IT house to deal with the #1 and #3. If anybody uses anyone then let me know whom #2 I can only think of using Microsoft or Microsoft gold partners. Or maybe the software people I use may be able to channel the work. Does anybody already do anything similar? Thanks H

Really? I've been pulling my hair out with GPP printers being so flaky. I thought it was the POS environment I've inherited where AD was just a bit loopy

I'm developing the deployment for Chrome to end users and having an issue with the icons it creates. I'm installing Chrome on a base build PC then using MDT to capture and push out the image to all machines. All the problems relate to the fact that we want a clean desktop out of the box, no clutter on the desktop or taskbar. Once the user gets their machine they are welcome to clutter it up as they want but we don't want to start putting clutter on there in the first place. So Chrome put icons in the following ways 1. Chrome pins itself to the taskbar, I can't see any way of removing this 2. When a new user logs in a shortcut to Crome is created on the desktop, I can't see where that's coming from 3. The first time you launch Chrome, if there isn't an icon on the desktop, it will create one for you. I did find this; Question: Google Chrome Enterprise delete shortcut | ITNinja but it doesn't seem to help I don't want to create scripts and reg hacks to delete any icons created as I want to give the users to create them if THEY want to Has anybody come across these or have any idea where the settings are to create these?

Ok, well I've tweaked WSUS a little (don't look after it but notice service packs weren't set to download). That'll have to do for now. I was just wondering if anybody had a slightly better method

Work. I don't have (no of?) any local authority help in this department. But I've got about ten physical and 40 virtual servers to keep up to date and there's no way I can keep up to date as well as keep things running hence the question. BTW, I'm not just talking Windows, SQL, Exchange, Forefront, SCCM, SCOM etc

After a bunch of searching around, I finally decided to write a script to add wireless profiles and run it as a computer startup script. Sharing it here in case it's useful to anybody else; First of all, you need to export your profiles into an xml file and then hardcode the key into that xml, you can follow the guidance for that here; Kreslavsky IT blog » Deploy wireless settings with Key using netsh script and GPO Once you have your files prepped, rename them to match the name of the wireless profile (important if you want my script to work), pop them into a network share (could store it in the GPO itself) and then change the NTFS or sharing permissions to remove everybody and add domain computers as read. Now you can leave it there with the info in hand but I wanted a wee bit more. I wanted to add a bunch of profiles and then set a preferred order of profiles. Couldn't find it so I ended up writing the script below To run it use it as so "Profile1" "Profile2" Note make sure you read the notes and change the path to xml constant If you're using GPO, add it to the computers startup script and add the profiles in the arguments field with each profile separated by quotes 'Name :WLAN Profile Configurator 'Description :A Script to Create Wireless LAN Profiles on a PC and Set a preferred Order 'Author :Himji 'Date Created :01/03/2012 (British Date Format) 'Revision History : '01/03/2012 :Script Created Ready for Testing 'Notes : '1. :You will need to export the wireless config xml files and store them securely (as they contain the network key). '2. :Ensure the name of the XML file is the same as the wireless network profile name. '3. :Enter the network path the the XML files in the section marked with stars ("***") below '4. :Usage. To use this script, invoke the script with the profilesw you want added in quotes seperated by a space '5. :Usage cont. For example WLAN_Profile_Configurator "Profile1" "Profile2" "Profile3" Option Explicit '*************************Change the following settings here to cusomise the script************************* 'Define Location of Profile XML Files Here CONST PathtoXML = "\\server\sharename\path" '****************************************************End**************************************************** Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002 Dim strComputer Dim StrWLANName Dim CmdSetProfileOrder Dim IntPriority Dim WSHNetwork Dim WShell Dim oReg Dim strKeyPath Dim strValueName Dim dwValue Dim strValue Dim arrSubKeys Dim Subkey Dim Profile Dim Return Dim CmdAddWLAN Dim ArrProfileOrder 'sets the focus of the script to run against the local system Set WSHNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network") strComputer = WSHNetwork.Computername 'CONNECTION OBJECTS 'create a connection object to the windows Shell commands Set WShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") 'create a connection object to connect to the winmgmts ojbect Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv") 'DEFINED VARIABIES 'this is the registry entry to look for wireless NICs on the system strKeyPath = "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}" 'Adds the WLAN Profile to the client Set ArrProfileOrder = WScript.Arguments For Each Profile in ArrProfileOrder CmdAddWLAN = "netsh wlan add profile filename=" & CHR(34) & PathtoXML & Profile & ".xml" & CHR(34) Return = WShell.run (CmdAddWLAN,1, true) Next 'enumerates all the sub keys underneath strkeypath and puts them in an array so the data can be used to find values that match for a wireless card oReg.EnumKey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, arrSubKeys 'This will look for the subkey that For Each subkey In arrSubKeys If subkey <> "Descriptions" Then 'Wscript.Echo strKeyPath & "\" & subkey & "\" & "Connection" 'Error Checking 'this sets the variable to the name of the registry key MediaSubType strValueName = "MediaSubType" 'this will get the value of the registry key 1 = built in NIC 2 = Wireless oReg.GetDWORDValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath & "\" & subkey & "\" & "Connection" ,strValueName,dwvalue 'this will get the value of the registry key name which tells us the name of the network card (Wireless Naetowrk Connection) strValueName = "Name" oReg.GetStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath & "\" & subkey & "\" & "Connection" ,strValueName,strValue 'If the media sub type = 2 then it is wireless so this will be the focus of the IF statement If dwvalue = 2 Then IntPriority = 0 'Sets the profile Order as defined at the start of the script For Each Profile in ArrProfileOrder IntPriority = IntPriority + 1 CmdSetProfileOrder = "netsh wlan set profileorder name=" & CHR(34) & Profile & CHR(34) & " interface=" & CHR(34) & strValue & CHR(34) & " Priority=" & IntPriority Return = WShell.run (CmdSetProfileOrder,1, true) Next End If End If Next Probably not the best of scripts but it seems to do the job well and I hope it helps somebody looking for the same

GAH. I just found out my TMG 2010 is two service releases out of date. I check the web and find SP1. But me not being trusting of a quick search, I then find there's an SP2. Hmmm, not good enough still, oh there's a SP2 RU1. I think I've found how deep this little rabbit hole goes... or do I. Now here's the thing, I know the best way of keeping up with SR releases and updates is to either use automatic updates or to get RSS feeds from trusted community blogs. No way am I letting Windows update decide on what to install and SR's for individual products aren't always available in this way anyway. So I'm left with blogs. Ok, I look after well, I haven't enough fingers to count the number of Microsoft products I look after and I'm not going to subscribe and then keep up to date with all those blogs. Is this a rant??? No there's a question. How do you guys keep up? Is there a good all encompassing blog that gives you just useful posts? Or is there a great wiki out there? Or do you do what I've been doing up to now is just pick up snippets and expect it'll be fine, hell nobody other than me cares which service pack I'm on anyway, well until something goes wrong that is? Thanks

Hi thanks for that. It led me onto realise that my old AD DNS servers were still listed as authoritative and thus still listed in DNS *doh* Not sure if it's fixed the issue that you're describing here and it's very rarely we see this reported as most students don't notice or report it but I'll report back if I get a general feel that it has

We had issues with notebooks and WDS. I didn't work on it but my colleague had to inject the lan drivers into WDS for pxe to work. Hope that helps you look in the right area

Better still, they've compiled a new version for me where you can set the target domain. Top service

Better still. Mod, please delete them.

I've been seriously considering in using remote assistance. I think it can be configured from GPO. I just need to work out how practical it is. Probably one for after summer with my workload tho

Not got the mail. But I'm quite sure it won't work cross domain. I can get the ldap searches to work but it won't reset the password, complains it can't find the object. the mmc option is good, I have that working in our library. But they have had specific training on how to search for accounts etc, I'm not going to train our academic staff to use the mmc, not with the amount of accounts we have in there.... Mind you, now I have them all in one OU it might just work hmmm

Great tool but I can;t get it to work x-domain

Lenovo ThinkCenter M90z. It had what they call a display port and you'll need a special cable/adaptor to plug in your external device. One issue we had with that is the projectors stadard display and the PC's widescreen so we had to output 1024x768 (or similar) to keep the aspect ration otherwise the output looked crap. I find it's a nice piece of kit, I love the fact that the back comes off making it easy to upgrade/repair. It's basically using laptop mobo/parts but a decent sized HDD. Using it as is, didn't come with a seperate stand but has one already built into the back which suffices

We've bought some Lenovo all in ones that have an out port. Have to buy vga converter cable to go with them tho

Hi. I've always used speedtest.net as a rough gauge on if there were any bottlenecks in my infrastructure out to the internet. Thing is I needed a test that doesn't require something like flash to run so I've tried testing a few of the other sites. All of them show very good speeds but speedtest still shows my download and upload at less than half of what the other sites are showing me. Anybody care to comment on this? Is it the other websites not being thorough enough or is speedtest playing up? Should I be trying a better way of testing speeds maybe using some software/hardware tools? Thanks

We charge our students 1p per page printed. It doesn't really reflect the cost of printing, just a token amount to stop them printing half a rainforest for the hell of it. Every term they get £3 in their account gratis, if they run out they can purchase more from the library who will update their balances.

I did a quick search and haven't seen it mentioned here. Just a heads up, if you have two R2 DHCP servers in a split scope configuration, you'll need to install this hotfix; KB981776 - Reservations are deleted incorrectly from a DHCP server that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 (Can't post a link as I'm too new) Now I have it installed, I better go and recreate all my deleted reservations.....