Kitkatninja

Have you thought about seeing if any tech's from secondary schools in your area have done either a migration or transition to 2010? As they may be able to help (on site). You say that you're having problems connecting Outlook to Exchange, have you either opened the required ports on the firewall on Exchange or turned off the firewall? Have you installed SP1 for Exchange 2010? As that has resolved some connectivity issues. Also did you use the Exchange Deployment wizard and the Exchange Calculator to help with your planning and deployment of Exchange 2010? -Ken

To be honest, it really does depend on what technology you work with. If you work with 2003/XP then go down the MCP/MCSA/MCSE route then do the upgrade exams. If not go down the MCTS/MCITP route. One other thing, the MCP route/certs will not expire or retire so if you gain the MCSA you'll always be a MCSA. However the new MCTS/MCITP route/certs do retire, so even though you may have passed the relevant exams once that credential retires (eg MCITP: Enterprise Support Tech), it retires... -Ken

Yes, we do. We have an Exchagne Server, so really for us it's a "right click" job for us to do it -ken

Does this mean that we can get credit for the Open Univeristy if we have the Practitioner and Advanced certs? -Ken

Good luck with that, let us know how you get on. Just wondering at just short of £600, any reason why you went for the ITIL v3 Foundation (which btw is a level 3 qualification according to the BCS) instead of FITS lvl 4 Practitioner certification (it is also based on ITIL)? -Ken

Hopefully this will do what we what it to do, I'll try it out on Tuesday. Thanks -Ken

Beat me to it -Ken

Sorry, not so much a question, rather information regarding the MS licensing program. Licensing changes for schools - there's good news coming at BETT Over the next few months, we are going to introduce some big changes to school licensing. It will make licensing simpler, and it will make it significantly cheaper for most schools in the UK. The big announcement of all of the detail will happen in January at BETT 2011 in London, but we're publishing some of the information a little earlier, so that you can think about it in your planning for next year's budget. What changes are we making? From the 1st March 2011, we are introducing a new licensing scheme for schools, called Enrolment for Education Solutions. Or EES for short. This is a (better!) alternative to the School Agreement subscription scheme. •EES works on a single annual subscription payment, based on your Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) staff count, and what products you select. You can optionally license computers dedicated exclusively to one student, or computers owned by students. Today's School Agreement works by counting all of your computers. •You have a choice of software that you can license across all of the computers, including Microsoft Office*, the Windows Upgrade, and the Client Access Licence (CAL) suites. •You can then license additional software on some, or all, of these computers - eg Visio or Project Why is it good for schools? Firstly, costs will come down for most schools who use School Agreement, because you'll be counting staff, not computers. And in England, there's about two-thirds less staff than there are computers. We'll be able to tell you more about costs at BETT. Useful links: Licences for Schools Enrolment for Education Solutions (EES) -ken

What OS will you be using for these two people? If it's Windows 7 Pro or above, you can install Office 2010 on Windows 7. Then install Office 2003 in XP Mode, that way Office 2003 can be used side by side with Office 2010 - no conflicts on the machine and it will appear in the start menu. However it does depend on how the system is configured/set-up. Just an idea... -Ken

You don't need to have Windows 2008 r2 for Windows 7, however since Vista/2008 we've upgraded the servers (the back end infrastructure) before deploying the newer clients to take advantage of the relevant newer enhancements. As for upgrading 2008 to 2008 r2, provided the 2008 is the 64bit version is is possible to upgrade. Most of our 2008 r2 servers were a clean install, however a couple were upgraded. The servers that were upgraded kept on crashing - however after a lenghtly investigation we found it to be a combination of the hardware (CPU version), Windows 2008 r2 and Hyper-V rather than an issue with the upgrade itself (by that time we had already wiped and re-installed fresh). -Ken

I believe Motorola has released one with this in mind, the DEFY. Just not sure how much it is... -Ken

It's a best practice methodology aimed at Education (you can see my comparison between 3 here). Based on ITIL, so imo it is an added bonus especially if you leave education. The level 4 qualification "Practitioner" sits at the same level of a HNC/HND (both sit at level 4, not to be confused with it being equal to them - due to the amount of modules/credit). The level 5 qualification "Manager" sits at the same level of an unclassified degree (not to be confused with it being equal to them - due to the amount of modules/credit). -Ken

Congrats on pass the courses. The answer will be no, those are courses not qualifications (similar to Learndirect - statements of completion rather than qualifications themselves). You will have to pass the required MCTS/MCITP exams. -Ken

Congrats on the passes -ken

Come on, the real question is who is going to replace Megan Fox? -Ken

The education sector has different prices and can different features, however the type of license that you'd want to look at (as you're a small business) is Microsoft Open License, see here. You can go for that as long as you have at least 5 machines. You can check out further documentation regarding licensing here. I'm not a licensing specialist, so contact your local MS License reseller for specific info for your organisation -Ken Edit: Double check, you may need to utilise the Home Use Program (HUP) from Microsoft as the machines themselves aren't the property of the organisation (which there is a small fee for). But like I said, I'm not a licensing specialist.

Excellent -Ken

Head of I.T. (Ref 823) - Tresham College, Northamptonshire 37 hours per week Salary circa £40,000 per annum This key management appointment will enable the college to have the ICT systems, applications, infrastructure and support services needed to achieve excellence in supporting the IT environment for staff and learners. Not much detail currently, see here for the advert on Jobs Today. Use to work there as one of the Software Technicians about 6 years ago. Found the place to be good to work for, especially when it came to CPD. -Ken

I don't know, you could contact your local colleges/Uni's as some have become Microsoft Academies and offer training, sometimes cheaper than dedicated training organisations. However if you want to ease into the Microsoft certification, you could self-study the MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician 7 (for Windows 7) or the MCITP: Enterprise Support Technician (for Windows Vista). Then make a decision if you want to go down the route of class-based or self-study based learning for the higher MCTS/MCITP's certifications. You could also check out Certforums, a forum dedicated to Certifications for more info (I'm there under the same username, as well as a few others here). One thing about the CCNA, is that it is also geared up towards Cisco equipment and that it has to be renewed every 3 years, otherwise you lose your CCNA status. -Ken

First of all, it really does depend on your experience. From a technical point of view, yes the MCSE is a great cert to have - do you/have you designed AD forests and domains? Or do you support and maintain the environment? If it's the first, then the MCSE will suit you, if it's the latter then the MCSA would suit you better. If you work with 2000/2003 then the MCSA/MCSE range of certs is a good route. If you work with 2008/2008 r2 then the MCITP: Server Admin (if you support/maintain) or the MCITP: Enterprise Admin (if you design) is a better route. You may find it useful for some best practice certifications, not only for your current job, but any future job - something along the lines of FITS (which is based on ITIL but for the education market) or ITIL or even MOF. You're a Senior Tech, do you supervise staff, etc? If yes, see about doing some sort of supervisory or management cert like the NVQ 2 in Team Leading or the NVQ 3 in Management. If you work on projects, take a look at Comptia Project+ or Prince2. That should get you started, hope it helps -ken

If you're going to integrate a handful of Macs into a AD environment, take a look at the Apple Certified Associate certification and the prep guide to go with it (Mac Integration Basics 10.6). It shows how to join Macs individually, however if you're going to roll out more than that I've been told that having your own OS x Server is the best route from a management point of view. -ken

I know the IT Manager over there, he's a good guy. And the school is only a stones throw from our school -Ken

Try a calibration and like already mentioned get a maintenance kit. -ken

Just wondering, you want to be a qualified programmer with the .Net framework? As that's what the MCPD is (not sure if you know that already). If you don't already have proper programming experience (added to that the MCPD will not teach you the basic's of programming with the .Net framework), you may struggle getting a programming position, unless you can find a junior/trainee position. I had my C&G's in Programming, my NVQ in Software Creation and at that time part way thru my HNC and I was getting next to nothing when it came to replies to programming positions. As for Computeach, I haven't used them personally, however one of my mates used them quite a few years ago to gain his ONC and he enjoyed it. -Ken P.S. I have only said the above assuming that you don't have a programming background

That's something I haven't had for about 15 years -ken