bclarke

Would recommend Stormfront to buy anything Apple. They offer discounts and have fantastic account managers. They supply some brilliant storage/charging boxes too. For management, would recommend Meraki. It's free and works brilliantly.

Just re-read your post, probably not what you are after but is good for network printer deployment.

Here is a script I use (This bit all on one line) rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /c\\computername /n\\servername\printername sc \\computername stop spooler sc \\computername start spooler Change the computer name, server name and printer name. You can add as many as you like as long as there is a gap between each "start spooler" command. To remove a printer just change ga to gd in the script. This will add or delete the printer for all users.

You need to also look at your own value added. What extra do you involve yourself in apart from tech support? For example drama productions. What about report writing or timetabling. How about a teaching and learning aspect and staff training. Your own cost cutting for example printers and copiers or the phone system and mobile phones. Bringing new technology to the classrooms and supporting staff on how to use it. How about after school clubs such as school radio or TV channel. It all helps to make you a valuable department and not just a tech support department.

Would love to see an iOS app for this one day. Also, we have a strange timetable every Wednesday where we shoehorn an extra lesson in. Can the booking system cope with a 5 period day and then one 6 period day? Also, off topic but Nick, could you point me in the right direction for instructions on how to update to a new version? Thanks

Apple TV was my first option when we decided to roll out iPads to all our teachers. I then came up against the problem of internet access as it needs to authenticate on our smoothwall. I tried jail breaking which worked and then they bought out Apple TV 3. I couldn't achieve authenticating at the time and it meant anything streaming from the iPad like youtube wouldn't work as the iPad seems to hand over to the Apple TV. It also would have cost several thousand to equip our projectors with Apple TV and this seemed a shame. I then found Reflector App which allows Airplay to a Windows PC. This gives us the facility of mirroring and Airplay for a fraction of the price. The software can be deployed and the bean counters are happy because of the savings.

Reflector App is another. Works on all platforms, deployable and very good pricing.

@MEdwards that sounds great. I will be in touch shortly. I would appreciate the chance to chat face to face about RM Books.

@MEdwards Thank you very much for your response. I think these changes will make this a great system. I can then see our librarian, who is wondering where the future of librarians is going, managing the overall system and being able to lend out books as needed in the knowledge that the book will be delivered to their device. Also, if you can convince more school publishers to come on board with text books that would be brilliant. Once the app is updated I think I will take a serious look at using this system in school, but I will keep looking to see how it can fit in now. It could be great for teachers at the moment who all have iPads so they can show the books on the board easily. Out of all my gripes with the system, I think this one is probably at a better stage than others.

Here is a script I use rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /c\\computername /n\\servername\printername sc \\computername stop spooler sc \\computername start spooler Change the computer name, server name and printer name. You can add as many as you like as long as there is a gap between each. To remove a printer just change ga to gd in the script. This will add the printer for all users.

It does look like a great system and has potential. I was surprised that the app doesn't synchronise with the books that are lent out to the users, in fact I am not quite sure of the benefit of the RM app as I can just download the book into iBooks. Pricing looks good too and class sets of books look competitive. I will keep trying it out but a suggestion would be to have the books synchronised with the end user. Also, how do you know whether the book is removed from the end user when the time has finished and also, how do you know whether the book has been distributed to multiple users without using your system?

Our Deputy Head came back from a conference with some nice info on RM Books. It is an ebook system where you can rent books which also includes text books. I took a look and it was free to sign up and start using their library of free books so I signed up. It looks nice and useful, some interesting publishers too. Five minutes in and I can read a book on my PC, but I find it better on my iPad. For some reason it doesn't activate the account no matter what I try. I called support, boy the numbers are hard to find on RM aren't they and all their call logging stuff needs an RMID, which I don't have as it is a free system. The nice lady on the phone tells me there is no telephone support for this as it is free, although I can upload credit, real pounds, to rent ebooks, I have to use their self help stuff to find the problem. The nice lady took my details, syll-a-ble by syll-ab-le until she had the rather lengthy error message written down correctly. Is that normal? Anyway, not a great start and is putting me off already but the system looks like it has potential to be really good. Does anyone have any experience on this yet, good and bad. Also, what could be the problem with my iPad app, I have tried all sorts of username combos. Thanks

Take a look at 3CX. We are just looking at changing our old Norstar BCM50. A company called Trilan-IT are very competitive with installation and support and are very knowledgable. SIP calls are very reasonable too and the whole solution is set to drastically reduce our call costs. They have several large education establishments as reference sites too.

Reflector App is great as apple TV alternative. Can be deployed and is cheap.

We have Aruba. Works really well and never any problems although I would probably take a serious look at Ruckus as it has some great features.

We have had this virus. It is spread by memory sticks. First, you need to break the cycle of infection by disabling memory sticks otherwise it just keeps reinfecting every time someone plugs one in. The virus copies two files to the root of a share, if I remember correctly one was an autorun file and other had a random name with exe extension but looked like an msdos logo. You need to delete these from the drives, and depending on how you have set permissions up, it could be everywhere. You may see them pop straight back in there, this is the reinfection and you can look at the file properties to identify who created it and deal with those computers separately. To make your files visible again you need to open a cmd prompt to the folder which is hidden and enter the following command: attrib -h -r -s i:\*.* /s /d This is taken from this website but there is also a tool to help with this mentioned on the site. I didn't use that. You will need to change the drive letter and path of the command. It was a bit of experimenting but I got there in the end. http://techlogon.com/2011/06/07/folders-and-documents-hidden-by-virus/ I hope this helps. Ben

A good point enjay. I am looking at the teaching/classroom use initially but the technical aspects play a huge part too.

Hi We are thinking hard about BYOD in the classroom for students. I have some ideas already such as research and voting but I am wondering if any schools have already gone down this route and whether it was successful or not. Any information would be great on what your teachers do in the classroom with BYOD and what policies need to be put in place to promote it and prevent abuse. Thanks Ben

Hi I am looking for an alternative to Alice that doesn't cost the earth but gives the usual features of a library system that a school needs such as user import, cataloguing, lending, fines etc. It would be great to have a system which also has a lookup system so cataloguing books could be made easier than doing it manually, so barcode reader to look up the ISBN details etc would be great. Oliver looks great, but so expensive. Under £1000 would be brilliant. We are only a small school so the Library isn't huge. Any recommendations would be brilliant. Many thanks Ben

Thanks Nick. I have had partial success. I think my problem may be that we use Week A and B instead of 1 and 2. Is there any way to change this? I have used the sims import to varying degrees of success and the file contains this R1 Mr H Solo Ict 1Mon:3 Year 12 I have changed teh 1Mon bit from my output of AMon, but don't think that should be right or does it take a moment to propegate?

Just thought I would throw another in for good measure, the static bookings don't seem to show on the calendar either.

Sorry to be a pain here, just need an answer to my original issue. I initially had a problem with the booking system. Nick, I added each individual user to the "show to" section to get round the users not seeing the calendar properly. This works for now, but isn't scalable when new users need creating. Is there a way groups should work in this section, or am I missing something?

It seems that if I add a username to the "show to" section of the resource in the Booking System setup it will then show that resource line to the user. I can't however when I add a group to that it doesn't show. Would I need to add users individually or can I add a group. Really starting to get there I think. Ben

Nick Thanks once again for a speedy response. This worked. I adjusted the file and just typed in the AD group name I wanted to get access. The user can now access the booking calendar, but they only see one line on the calendar and no detail, such as resources, rooms and free/booked rooms. What would I be missing now? Thanks again. Ben

Hi I have had a lot of success with the setup now. Users can see their home directory and other shares which I setup. I am now having some trouble with staff accessing the booking sheet and helpdesk. I can access it correctly, but when I log in as a staff member and click on one of the links for booking or helpdesk it just goes to the login page asking for a username and password. I have tried adjusting the permissions in the setup to various different combinations with no success. I am missing something, I know, just don't know what, any help would be greatly appreciated as I am hoping to move to this booking calendar after half term. Many thanks Ben