JMB

That's great, thanks! Just let me know what you'd like in terms of donation! :-)

So far my suppliers have drawn a blank...I assume as it's a SMART cable I'm limited on outlets. But I do have a number for a chap at IDNS so I'll drop him a line.

Thanks for getting back to me! This is the kind of thing I need. I've bought non-SMART branded serial to usb leads, but they just don't work. It seems it needs to be a proper SMART cable for it to communicate with the PC. :-/

Hi all...we're in need of a SmartBoard branded usb to serial cable...had a look online and they're about 50 notes. So I wondered if anyone had one they're looking to part with! Thanks :-)

Intriguing! Do tell :-)

We're in the market for a couple of Smart Boards, but obviously don't necessarily want to buy new if there are second hand bargains to be had! If anyone is the market for selling one (or two), please let me know. We will need projectors etc too but I'm happy to source those elsewhere if we can just lay hands on the boards. Thanks!

PM sent :-)

Hi, I work in an SEN school and we're looking at introducing an ICT BTEC for some of our higher functioning students. Is there anyone already doing this that we could chat to/visit? :-)

Hi there - we've just been gifted an old Dell Inspiron 6000 from a member of staff, but it needs a new battery and keyboard. I've priced them up on Ebay, but wondered if anyone by any chance had one floating around that they no longer want or need? :-)

Thanks for such swift replies, guys! I didn't realise C# and C++ would be so different. Not sure what I expected, really! As an analogy, I wanted to learn the piano, so at Christmas I got a full-size keyboard with weighted keys, because I figured that would translate better when I come to play an ACTUAL piano (rather than learning on small keys and having to adjust my fingering etc. on a real piano keyboard). And that's worked...there's a little difference in the actual width of the keys and the weighting, but basically anything I can play at home (which ain't much!) I can play on a proper piano. So I suppose in terms of programming I'm after the same thing. A language I can get reasonably proficient in, and which will give me a foot in the door with other languages if I need to adapt later. The W3Schools site looks amazing! I will definitely have a poke about on there! Thanks again, both :-)

All these photos only tell me one thing: I ain't got enough monitors on mine.

Hi everyone, hopefully some people will see this before the autumn! Basically, I want to learn some coding - and I'm a total beginner, no experience whatsoever, beyond typing in pokes on my old Commodore 64. Glory days. So I'm wondering if anyone can give me some pointers. With such a strong emphasis on coding in the NC, particularly at Secondary school, I want to equip myself with the knowledge to support that in school. I've looked at various forums and Python seems to be quite popular in schools, although I've recently been reading a book on C++ and the structure of it is starting to make sense to me. I think if I did all the practice exercises in the book the bare bones of C++ would begin to fall into place. But really, how can I get myself to a point where I could sit down and code something from scratch? Is it just a matter of reading books and practicing? Will that really give me the skills I'd need? Also, can anyone in Secondary Ed' clarify if I ought to learn HTML/CSS as well? I'm familiar with the very, very basics (making text bold, that sort of thing), but I couldn't sit down and code a website if my life depended on it. I know there are no shortcuts to knowledge and it's probably hard for people who have been coding for decades to signpost a total beginner, but ANY advice on gaining some skills would be really appreciated!

Fantastic, thanks so much! Any leads or signposting is massively appreciated! :-)

So, apologies first if this is a retread of endless other threads on the same subject. My reason for posting is that I'd like to bone up on the requirements of the new Computing NC. I realise programming has been on the NC since the 80s, but there's obviously a greater focus now and I'm keen to up my skills. Unfortunately, my programming skills began and ended on my brother's Commodore 64 and amount to this: 10 Print "hello" 20 Goto 10 So - can anyone who knows more than me point me in the direction of useful books, suitable educational apps and software, or anything else that will help me develop? I'm aware of educational toys that can be programmed using a set of commands to move around etc. But what if, say, I wanted to develop an iPad app? Or a create a small program with a GUI etc.? Is there an idiot's guide to that sort of thing? Thanks!

That's true, the issue was logged with ScoMIS and they did respond - but they didn't fix the problem. Although ScoMIS did restore an Attix backup for us, there was nothing in this backup as it had been incorrectly configured to capture data from a different hard drive. After restoring the backup, ScoMIS could offer no further advice, and I needed help as quickly as possible, hence why I posted here. The issue was actually subsequently resolved by me.

Thanks, @seawolf, I've downloaded BackupAssist now and will give it a go. I think my main issue with Commodo is that once you configure a backup, you can't then see it in a list and configure it. So it's not clear if, when adding a new one, you're not actually just overwriting the settings for the first. Pretty poor. Free, but poor. But I shall try BackupAssist with renewed hope, thanks!

I found this threat at just the right time! I'm looking at improving our disaster recovery capacity by investing in a secondary server and NAS, so that in addition to the backups I run on alternate nights, I have an ongoing incremental backup in another building. I also intend having that backup copied to removable drives so that one can be kept in the safe and one off-site (rotating roughly each month) as an extra precaution. Does that seem adequate to you guys and girls? And is there a particular backup software you recommend? I've tried fbackup and Commodo but they both seem a bit...woolly. Commodo in particular. Thanks!

I'd offer a thumbs down. Nothing but trouble with it since we had to reinstall it, now our online system isn't working and their support has been absolutely awful! It's been a MONTH now and they still haven't fixed it. They promise to call back and then don't (this happened THREE times last Friday). It's been horrible.

I wonder if anyone can help. As part of our eSafety policy, I tried to set up the "Account Lockout" in GP. Settings were for 6 attempts, and the two time parameters were set to 60 minutes. What actually happened is that locks everyone out. I can unlock them, but if they log out and try to go back in, they're locked. I've since changed the policy back to "not defined" but it's still doing it. Can anyone offer any advice as it's becoming VERY annoying! Thanks! :0(

This is a long shot, but I thought I'd ask. So, we have an admin PC. As far as I can tell, it's set up to share its C drive as follows: the whole C drive is mapped as F, the "public" folder in the C root is mapped as G, and other admin PCs across the school access this G drive. There is a script in the startup menu that seems to perform this action. Last Wednesday, the PCU died on the admin PC, so I swapped the HDDs into a working PC. Simple. I had a spare of the exact make and model, so that just seemed easier than dismantling it to get the PSU out (it's an old Viglen). However, when I booted into the PC and logged in as the Finance Manager, the contents of the "public" folder were gone (apart from a couple of stray files). So, I rang ScoMIS and got them to restore Wednesday night's Attix backup of that PC. The "public" folder is still empty. Utterly baffled, I got them to check all the backups since last September, and that folder shows up blank in all of them. My thinking is that either a) that folder has never been backed up by ScoMIS, and someone somehow deleted the contents on the PC and so we're left with nothing, or b) the G drive was never on that PC to begin with. Does anyone with any knowledge of standard ScoMIS admin PC setups or just weird data loss problems in general have any ideas? I've scanned the HDD and searched it for various things I know *should* be on the G drive, but I'm coming up blank.

Thanks HilcrRWise, I'll give the Blue Room a try, thanks for linking me up!

I wonder if you can help. I am the ICT Technician in a SEN school in Devon. I am working on some drama with our FE students, who would very much like to put on a short version of Aladdin for the younger students. I have done some digging around, first on the Disney website, then on MFI, and then finally on the UK Josef Weinberger site, and it looks like permission for us to do a small show under the banner of “Aladdin Jr” would cost us £420. This is quite a bit beyond our means! We have a PRS licence that allows us to play music in school...I've emailed Josef Weinberger to plead for a discount, but can anyone with experience in this sort of thing give me any ideas that would enable to put this show on? I'm looking for loopholes, calling the show "Aladding", that sort of thing! :-)

Thanks, guys. We're a special school, so we have students from reception to FE ages. We don't have a BYOD policy, although obviously we have acceptable use/internet policies. But since iPads present such unique problems (mobile internet access, cameras, etc.), we've been looking at establishing a policy in line with our eSafety policies. I do wonder if a BYOD device policy is the way forward - a blanket, catchall policy that covers ANYTHING.

We've got a fairly modest number of iPads in school, but they're growing all the time, and students are now starting to bring theirs in with them. Does anyone have an iPad use policy? Ideally one they won't mind me "borrowing from", and also ideally in an SEN setting. Thanks!!

So, our telecoms provider has told us our phone system needs updating at a cost of over a grand, and that we need to do it ASAP because of the mounting threat of phreaking. My question to you all is this: how many of you know of schools that have been phreaked? Is this threat as real as he says, or is it mostly sales patter?