bizzel

I'm not sure is the honest answer. If you do, be very careful that you don't delete any static records, server records, aliases, nameservers or...you get the idea! It'd be a good idea to force a scavenge cycle after you set it up. You could leave it to kick in but that can take up to a week.

That would mean that if you lose network connectivity for a while, you'll have no fonts! I'm not sure I'd want to risk that. How about a script that pulls down new fonts on startup?

Righto then, it's well underway now. I'm going ahead with my port from Java to C# so that I can add extra functionality. Here's the finished spec: Support Suite Features Completely free and open source! Compatible with Windows XP, 2003, Vista Fully AD-integrated MS-SQL 2005 Express Backend Networked Client-Server Model Support requests logged as Tickets Full knowledge base and step-by-step troubleshooter wizard Fully-featured asset management built in (features WMI data gathering) Download centre to give staff easy access to authorised patches and utilities - can be attached to tickets Customisable e-mail notifications Live ticket notifications for admins Component Model Framework Service: Provides SQL connectivity and data transfer for client and admin console. Runs as a service on W2K3 servers. Also provides awareness of client activity for the console, allowing realtime monitoring of events. Notifies of updates and can automatically download MSI packages. Admin Console: Provides a powerful yet intuitive interface for technicians to deal with tickets and provide resources for staff. Client: Simple interface walks staff through self-help diagnostics and sending support tickets. Can be fully configured from the admin console. Human readable error messages! Screenshot for good measure: http://lh6.google.com/p.beesley89/R5C7PNj5CeI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/EWabTgZ_e7Y/s800/ssuitemainwindow.PNG.jpg

Scavenging removes old "stale" records. Assume that PC X registers with DNS and is then taken off site forever. Even though it's not coming back, its record will remain in DNS. The same goes for PCs on site. Let's assume we have two PCs - A and B. A connects to the network, gets an IP from DHCP and puts a record in DNS along the lines of: A - 192.168.1.145 A is turned off for a while and its DHCP lease expires. PC B, which has been off, is then turned on and is given the same IP by DHCP, it then registers in DNS like this: B - 192.168.1.145 DNS allows duplicate entries, which I gather is what you're seeing. Now, as long as PC A is off, it won't get a new IP and wont update its entry so you'll have duplicates. Scavenging will wipe out A's old, inactive record after a number of days which tidies things up a lot. Hope that helps explain what it is and what it does. Turning scavenging on can be harder than it should be, you need to turn it on in several places. *All the below should be done on one server only - you don't need all your DNS servers scavenging if the zones are AD integrated. If they're not AD integrated, do it on your primary.* First, from the DNS console, right click the server icon and choose properties. Go to the advanced tab and make sure that "Enable automatic scavenging of records" is enabled. Leave it at the default of 7 days. Then, expand the Forward lookup zones folder, then expand your domain.internal entry. Right click that and choose properties. Press Ageing. Check the box marked "Scavenge stale resource records". Post the no-refresh and refresh intervals here so we can make sure they're okay. For reference, mine are 3 days and 4 days respectively. Finally, right click the server icon again and choose Set Ageing and Scavenging for all zones. For some reason that excludes the forward lookup zone, at least, it only modified the reverse lookup zones for us. Again, tick the box marked "Scavenge stale resource records" and post your no-refresh and refresh intervals here.

Okay, we've had to sort out something similar recently. Can you try deleting a record that's known to be wrong and then go to that PC and run a repair on the network connection - that should re-register it in DNS. Do you have scavening enabled on both your forward and reverse lookup zones? Also, is DHCP set to perform dynamic updates?

^^ Very good! Okay, here's mine: RM release a reliable product...

Isolate the problem with a linux boot disc. If it works in linux and not in windows, it's a software issue. If it fails in linux too, it's a hardware / BIOS issue.

The HTC shift looks promising but for an extra couple of hundred pounds I can get an HP tablet pc with a full keyboard (swivel-screen type), 2gb of ram and a core 2 duo. It's still a small device (12" screen) but it has much more horsepower. I really want to see UMPCs succeed but right now they lack the power.

"Free" and "stickers", two of my favourite words!

They're impressive little pieces of kit but my only worry is that staff would have trouble reading the screens; the font is very small indeed. Also, the other big problem with UMPCs in general is "where do I put it?" It's too big for your pocket, too small for a case.

Bark! I'll be here all week...

I just set up a nifty little scheduled task tracker today using Google calendar. I thought it was about time we had one unified method of seeing scheduled tasks that were running on our network and so, using multiple calendar overlays, I can now see exactly what tasks are running at what time and on which server. We can then plan around that and since you can turn each server's overlay on and off it makes it really easy to see if anything will confict. Also, we can publish a link to that on our internal helpdesk so we can all keep track and there's no need to login. That's not a great description...cue screenshots! I'll finish populating it tomorrow, 4 more servers to go and, let's face it, it's not the most exciting job to do but when it's done, it's well worth it. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/pab89/gcal.png http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/pab89/gcal2.png

Wow, that does look very nice. Shame you need silverlight to watch the videos (linux client here) but I get the idea. We have a spare server, quite a rarity, so I'll see if I can get the go ahead to get this set up. 1GB of ram for your PDC is too low, imho. We have two and were (effectively) down to 1 gig for a short time when SQL server was memory leaking a gig and that did have a big impact.

I created a script to automate the setup and install of the drivers + the patch. If you want I'll send you it tomorrow.

I had some success creating a package with the RM app wizard which is WinInstall LE (right?).

I have in the past used Access Key and that's worked well. It also supports Access 2007, which is nice. It's not free but the demo version will show the first two letters of the password - that might be enough to jog your student's memory. I'd also look at running it on either an unused workstation or a beefy server overnight since if you enable options like symbols, capitals, etc (and you should) it'll take some time.

We have a similar problem with our RM Classboards (Interwrite boards) that might be worth investigating to see if it's your root cause. The board comes with two Interwrite software applications, labelled as Interactive Mode and Whiteboard mode in the task tray software (the labels might be different on the board itself). If you use Interactive mode, all works fine but if a teacher accidently loads the Whiteboard mode software instead -which is all too easy to do because the hotkeys on the board are right next to each other - the calibration will be thrown out. This is a known bug and still exists in the latest driver version. PM me if you think this is relevant so I can help you more. There's also an RM TEC article - TEC523779 - which is light on details but describes the basic issue.

Once a month as a scheduled task. Happens over the weekend but only defrags C and the user areas.

I learnt that a £100,000 packet filter, monitor + traffc shaper can be largely replicated using open source tools and a spare desktop machine.

I think using VLC in place of WMP fixed this for me, it was a while ago though. Worth a shot. It certainly shouldn't do anything to prevent a DVD from playing on two screens simultaneously, if that's what WMP is doing.

I missed the free mousemats?! There's always next year I guess...

Lee, we use Dell Latitude D620s for all our teaching staff. We find that just using the Fn+F8 combo to switch between internal and external displays works fine using the bundled nvidia graphics drivers - no problems so far! Hope that helps.

Asset management would be great to have and I'll certainly give it some thought. Our AM system in school is terrible, so slow! It has a barcode scanner so integrating with that would be fun. I've discovered how to send mail in C# (it's surprisingly easy!) so that's definitely in. What I'll do next is create some interface mockups to see what works best and work it from there. AD integration will probably be the most time consuming part as I haven't done that before. MSIs are definitely going to be the best way to package it - we're on CC3 so it makes our lives a lot easier too. Once I get some beta quality code you're welcome to help test it. In the meantime, I'd love to hear more comments and suggestions. After all, it's designed for us.

Our laptops switch down from 1280x800 to 1024x768 when switched over to a projector. If you switch back to single display mode, the res goes back too but teachers rarely do that. In fact, so few staff even notice that it's a non-issue.

Thanks for the comments. To answer your question, it'll be beta quality in a couple of months provided my working week stays quiet (everything works, would you believe!). Email updates would be interesting. I'm not sure how to do that from C# (that's what the codebase is moving to) but I'll certainly investigate it. AD integration is something I have planned to eliminate the need to log in, that's another reason to move to C# as well. I really like the status screen idea. How do you think that could tie in with the Known Issues screen? I picture two halves, one showing a traffic light system for major services and the other showing a list of detailed issues. Keep the comments coming!