MrsGrinch

I don't see ANY kind of power indicator on the board. there seem to be two usb connections partly concealed behind a plate inteh upper corner, and there are cables in them. I fthey want to hide them that badly, I'll leave them alone! This is starting to come together in my head now, and it really isn't too different from a smart board. Michele

Hi. Thanks -that is the way it is setup, and the way I would expect to see it. I'm just a little confused as to why there is a set of jacks on the wall maked "PC audio", when the amp is clearly hard wired to the speakers. And I have learned the hard way to make sure the aux/cd/dvd/phono knob is in the right position. How many techies here have swiveled the knob into the correct position and blown the class across the room with that tinkly theme music from abacus? Michele

And thanks for the advice on the amp. This is the way most smartboard amps are wired (unless the head has been trying to "help") and I didn't think it needed anything else. I can hear the laptop with or without headphones, so the jack on there is working. I think I can hear a bit of click when I twiddle the volume knob, but there is no crackle off the connectors or anything. No one can remember the speakers ever working. I tried bypassing the amp and going to the sockets on wall marked audio (I've sometimes got them to work this way) but nothing there, either. I once flailed around at another school for an hour, only to get up a ladder and discover that the decorators had yanked the wires out of the speakers. Michele

Thanks. I think this is a newish board. As I have the vga cable for the display, what would the usb port be used for? The pen? Michele

Hi. Thanks. There is in fact one lonely pen with it. I knew about the pen thing but I wasn't sure what to call it! Pen sensitive? The teacher who uses the board said "It's lost its touch sensitivity" and as he is new to the unit, I wonder if HE realises. So what is the printer usb port on the wall for? To print directly to an attached printer? Michele

Thanks, Chris. I had a spare usb with me and whopped it in, but as the drivers wouldn't install I couldn't tell if it did anything. When the drivers go in, do they provide you with a utility for orientation and so on? Michele And I meant "imminent" in the first post. I wanted to be an english teacher, but that was a long time ago.

Hi. Sorry if this post sounds like it is coming from a complete numpty, but I am dealing with my first Promethean board. I have been troubleshooting smartboards for years. When any sane person reads the problems below, they would say GET THE INSTALLATION COMPANY BACK but that's not going to happen. An ofsted inspection is immenent and I'm all they have for now. 1. What model board do I appear to have? It has a white trim border, rounded corners and only one pen in a clip on the side. I think it's an Activ2. The tag with the serial number was torn off. 2. This board was moved from one building to another, and in the process lost all its cables and laptop. The speakers and amp made it, but are slightly damaged. My main problem is the cables. We scrounged up a VGA cable which can go from the laptop to a plate on the wall and it's projecting. (Wrong size image, but an image.) 1. The promethean help line were excellent with the serial number problems. I downloaded the standard activeboard drivers, but they won't install on the spanking new compaq win7 laptop that appeared. I get the error "This software can only be used on a X86 machine." Someone suggested that really new laptops can be 64 bit - is that it? I work in primary IT - I'm more used to laptops that archeologists have dug up. 2. There is a port on the wall plate for a USB printer cable. I can't get my head around how touch control works on these. Is there another cable I should know about? 3. We found an audio jack to get the laptop connected to the amp. The amp (a promethean one) has four skinny wires hardwired into a plate on the wall. The laptop is producing sound, but not the wall speakers. There is a set of audio jacks on the wall marked PC Audio. Do I need another set of cables from the back of the amp to the wall plate? Many thanks - any bits of this jigsaw will help. I have unsnarled smartboard audio before, but usually I at least had all the bits. Thanks. Michele

Hi. Does anyone have any idea if there is any way to recover lost data off a digiblue camera? One of our year 6 kids took about 60 assorted pics on one. The camera switched itself off with low batteries, and when it started back up it was showing 0 files. Usually they hang on to them even with the batteries out. All the data recovery software is for removable media or drives. I don't know much about how Digiblues actually work, so if there is some fundamental reason why the pics couldn't be recovered, do tell. The PC sees them as a DMC device. Many thanks. Michele

Documentation? You mean, like, stuff written down? Books? Notes? I've never seen any of any kind in a primary school, especially concerning networks. I often have schools ask me install to software they already have, or I end up giving the IT coordinator a session called "Meet your equipment." One school recently had their wireless network re-done. My handover consisted of a pile of empty boxes and a post-it note. This is my biggest worry about re-doing anything. I don't know if I can get them back to where they are because I don't know where that is! Michele

Hi David. I need to lie down with some paracetemol after even reading that. I have no experience building servers, or using virtual machines, unfortunately. There is an awful lot of redundant kit (including servers) lying around schools - I may see if I can mooch some of it to practice on! Did you learn by going on training, or just diving in? Michele

Been there. Had that. Wound up screaming in the art supplies cupboard. I heard about a techie who once did really take a server home over the weekend!

Remove eight sheets of paper so tightly compacted into the fuser of an okidata printer that I had to do the last four with tweezers. That, and the magenta and black catridges were in the wrong slots. They hadn't minded the modern art all that much until they tried to print union jacks. Michele

This is the coordinator who wanted me to "kick off all the smartboard software on all the teachers laptops to download the full gallery". Over wireless. Mid morning. Do you think he'd see the problem? Michele

Maria - how nice to see another lady techie! That list of steps alone will be enough to silence him. I've heard from my boss in the meantime. He said that the school willl have to book two people for a full day if they want the server re-built. This is a common problem - people who can cope with the pc at hom e think that a school network is just more of the same. The schools I have at least are the ones who realise they need some help. On the local grapevine I hear about schools where the head is going it alone, only for the next successor to be left with a train wreck. I heard from one refugee teacher about a school where they just locked the door on the IT suite because the last computer finally died. Michele Did I tell you the one about the teacher whose whiteboard sound hadn't worked for two years because the audio cable was in the wrong jack......

Thanks, guys. All your answers support what I THOUGHT was true, but I was caught slightly off-guard by how casual the request was. (I do get a bit flinty-eyed whenever psuedo-techies start chanting "we do this all the time".) And did I say two hours a week? This school is two hours a month. It's the 330 kid school that has extravagantly shelled out for two hours a week. I think in my twenties I would have gone in with all guns blazing and said, "Of course, sir, whatever you want , sir." Now I'm 48. After an initial confidence wobble ("Should I not know how to do this? What if I'm incompetent?") I start becoming my mother. That is, I starting wanting to say, "Who gave you that lamebrain idea and besides, you can't pay me enough anyway." Cheers. Michele

Hi. Thanks for such a quick answer. It's the sole server, surrounded by a bunch of badly behaved classroom pcs, decrepit printers and old laptops. I've just had another techie suggest that you can delete the primary partition and re-install back into the same space, but you have to re-do the network client connections. I would assume you then have to redo all the service packs. He also said you don't call it "re-installing windows" - it then becomes "re-building a server." Michele

Hi. I have had a head/It coordinator in one of my schools (I'm a roving techie) suddenly ask me to "wipe and re-install windows on the server - when you have time". My slot is two hours at this school. I haven't yet had a chance to ask him why he thinks this is a good idea. I think this server was originally an Ergo one but somebody managed to club it back into being a vanilla 2003. I suspect it needs a clean and a defrag. Can somebody help me explain why this is bad idea, if it's even possible? The last time I re-installed windows out from under a system was on an ancient windows95 clunker where it didn't matter if it failed. As far as I know - windows is an all-or-nothing proposition. You get knocked back to the stone age if you re-install. Cheers. Michele

I have teachers who don't understand the idea that there are folders other than My Documents. I have to help them find things that are on their desktop. Michele Most people just use a bit of discipline with storing their plans in nested folders.

I can't leave the country - but I might be leaving my mind! Michele

Thanks, everybody. So there aren't any good ones hiding in the woodwork, then. Now, if someone would just replace target tracker...... Michele

Can anyone recommend some Primary Curriculum Planning software? I have a school who wants to dump Curriculum Complete - they're finding it buggy and complicated. Another school uses the Interactive Planning tool off the DFES site but aren't exactly ecstatic about it. Abacus Evolve has been recommended, but it's only math. They want something that does lesson planning, but also ties in assessment per child. (I know, and world peace and a replacement to fossil fuels.) Cheers. Michele

I had a first go-round last week with the viewer and some pre-made games. I couldn't get it to run at all on a set of machines with one particular graphics card - the renderer wouldn't run despite the fact it's a 3d gaming card. Loading the pre-made games frequently made the machine freeze, but randomly, and it didn't seem to matter what size the game was. We had a terrible time getting a copy of the "Fairy Detective" to run. When they do run, they are really good. And for a graphics development package, it's reasonably priced. Some primary juniors had been away to an activites week and came back with their games on disk. They really didn't get much done in a couple sessions. I think they'll be disappointed in what they can come up with, compared to the professionally developed games they're used to. It could be useful with a small group of patient kids with good concentration (T&G or a computer club maybe) who have some extended time. It could keep me away from useful work for DAYS. Cheers. Michele

Hi. I'm a tech in Colchester. One of my schools is contemplating buying some Macs, and it would mean integrating them (or not, or partially) into the existing cc3 setup. Anybody know of a school in Essex or Suffolk that has that mix which might be amenable to talking to us, and maybe letting the head have a go see? Many thanks. Michele

Hi. I'm trying to install collection 2 (the one with the literacy package, which is what I'm after) of the 2simple big collection boxed set on a standalone laptop. I'm getting a deployment error, and it appears to be looking for something on a server. I would put the exact error except I'm home now and the error was on a teacher laptop this afternoon. I've also had a long week and this is a case of an extremely senior moment, feel free to point and laugh. Any ideas? Thanks. Michele

Many thanks, Strawberry. That is exactly what I needed. I may even be able to sort this out now. Funny that you pointed me at Virginia Tech - I think I've used their stuff before. There were some useful bits in there. An ancient and battered laptop started complaining that it didn't have TCP/IP. I thought maybe it was beyond repair, but I'll have a go at re-installing. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off into the ether I go..... Many thanks, everyone. Michele