Sirbendy

Ours did have, but deemed it too hard. So I wrote a script to do it for them. All they do is get kiddies in question to type in their login name into the box and press enter - resets to 123456, and unlocks their accounts. Much quicker than our old MMC console, and pretty teacherproof..

We're just implementing TopDesk helpdesk...and we have radios which are rarely used. We each have a phone, and there's a "log a call" button on our intranet for staff to drop a mail to us both simultaneously about problems. We're going to push away from the so called "corridor mentality" and make people use Topdesk for calls and requests. I personally am sick and tired of "can you justs" and not being able to walk the corridors without someone grabbing me. Both of us have Windows Mobile devices with Wifi for mail on the move as well. It's not too bad - if they call and can't get through, they mail. I've given thought to forwarding my phone (Cisco 7912) to my mobile as well. My last trick is that I've set my outlook to forward to my googlemail for home..I'm reachable unless I'm asleep, pretty much.

oh yes...kiss thy bodywork goodbye.. This is why a friend of mine uses his prized Suzuki GS550 in the summer, yet in the winter brings out the Black Pig, his prized Reliant. Warm and pretty salt proof.

rarely with kids, infrequently with staff. I had to go into a room and bawl out a class of year 11 who'd reduced a cover teacher to a wreck and who'd then left them unsupervised. It's so rare that I give my voice full reign that they all stopped dead, and were ever so good for the remaining 30 minutes while I sat in the room and filled in. Staff though..gah. They run in and shout at you while you're on the phone..that upsets me. They can't control the kids and leave the office door open so we get swamped..that annoys me..and they can't plan for toffee, and that REALLY annoys me. I still rarely shout..but they get the message. I've only ever gone bursar at ONE staff member, which was when she let a kid on the system as her, and we caught her out because he was playing games and surfing for inappropriate material..she was justifying her actions, refused to acknowledge any fault, "you shouldn't block them then"..etc I explained the filtering needs, the security reasons, the reason everyone has an account, differentiated filtering etc..she still argued. So I got up, locked the door, and I just let rip, including calling the LEA and throwing her the phone so she could justify to them. NM had to hold me back and have her removed in hysterics. I got a written complaint about it, and tore it up in front of her. With my HODs backing.

You have PM..

Ach, just need to bootdisk that, she'll be right.

MX04? I have the serialisation hotfix if you still need it - we use it here. Got the issue for us..

I have a set of dixie airhorn if you're game for that.. They came off a Reliant Robin. Used to stall the car when used, as they overwhelmed the electrics and the alt.

SWS?!?!? You poor, poor man. Our LEA used it, we retired our in house one in sheer annoyance and switched to Bloxx. Still got it on the network somewhere..such a bag of spanners. I had me and the NM set up through our e-smith box pointing directly at the upstream server, bypassing SWS totally..my god, the speed difference was scary. I'd never switch back now. I thought SWS had died a death as a product..

I was going to do one (still might at some point) consisting of a PC all connected up and running in exploded form stretched out on a board so that all the parts are visible, with a possible Bootable CD/DVD running a display on it, using an attached CRT. A lot of our kids can't tell the difference between hard drives and "memory", and are forever saying "what's this?" as they grab components off my desk. An exploded system, colour coded components all labelled up, actually running an informational display might look quite nice and be curriculum relevant, I feel. Plus it'd look good in our display cabinet on open evenings running a "Welcome to the ICT Suites" photostory. I did "behead" an IDE drive and plexiglass the lid for a proof of theory. The other thing our art dept did with a load of dead kit was make us some HUGE 3D "computer bugs" using cardboard frames, and keys for shell "scales", wires, LEDs and the like for features etc. They were ace..I must find out what happened to them.

7/10 - and one of those was me never seeing an IBM portable..but I do remember the original Compaq heavy ones...heh. They didn't mention the IBM 5100/5150!! Sacriledge! (I still know of a school with a Commodore PET )

At this moment, I'm drowning in boxes and junk. Usually fairly clean, but I'm reaching my patience limit and eyeing the window.

I've only ever hit one motorcyclist..and he quite frankly asked for it. Sat at a roundabout, car in front of me. Off he goes. I pull forwards to the line. Look right, left, right, left..gap approaching..look right again to make 110% sure it's all clear, throttle down. Bang. Silly basket had snuck up the inside of the car and pulled in front of me, over the line. Of course, smack into his arse with considerable force (1.6 auto), he got a flying lesson right over the roundabout and into the flowerbed. I got out, I damn near throttled the stupid git and just raged at him with regard to rules of the road, and his chances of walking away before I reset the impact cutout and finish the bloody job.. He apologised profusely, and when I said "I want your details, boyo..." he jumped on the bent bike and shot off at speed. Picked up the fragments of bumper and light, drove home with prolonged murder on my mind..swapped the bits off the spare car, good as new.

we use Bloxx, and Policycentral Enterprise as our "eyes and ears", and NetSupport to monitor and "local ban" on a class by class basis. Every week, the NetSupport URL lists get imported into Bloxx.

some of the miniclip content is perhaps a little close to the line, I would say...we've banned it here. TBH, kids have stopped attempting games sites now. Suits me. The little sods do try and embed the flash in their docs though, or on the shared area, or their user areas...

look at the scripting guys in google.... I've just deployed a simple password resetter using VBscript for AD manipulation, and there was a lot about finding recent changes, given passwords and the like.

Possibly one of the Nano-ITX/PicoITX "PC on a board" setups? They look rather cool. Failing that..an old MB, built in a box with a compactflash to IDE converter and a 4/8/16gb flashcard? I've just bought an 8gb and converter for my laptop for..about £20. Something like this: http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=756 and this: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10309 plus RAM, a CF card and a PSU..bish bosh, less than £70 all in.

CTRL+f1 if memory serves. Go into BIOS as usual, hit CTRL+f1 and see if that does the trick. Found it in the manual for my home duallie when I was having PITA issues.

worrying..we've got a 4250 here getting a daily hammering..been in for 12 months or so, no issues so far.

in what sense? We virtualise here in a limited way - our "auxilliary" servers (print, personnel, ghostcaster, accounts) and our VMs for teachers to allow them to Netsupport control their rooms, change passwords and manage printers are all VM based. As are 2 or 3 "VPN" remote terminals for staff access, and a Windows 03 server for french testing software. We just buy the dirt cheap Dell base servers (1 dual, 1 quadcore at the mo), bump up the RAM, give it an extra disk and install VMWare Server. No hassle whatsoever. In the new building, all the servers will be virtual, ESX3i based.

IIRC, we're 100 now, going gigabit soon..LEA provided. The entire town (Telford) is carpeted with Cable courtesy of Blueyonder, and we run on that infrastructure. As to PCs on it..numbers in the thousands with all the schools and public buildings. Not counting IP Phones. 200ish PCs here, plus..ooh..say 50 IP phones. Every public building (again) has IP phones as well, so it's effectively free to call school to school/council. It goes, not to put too fine a point on it, like the proverbial off a teflon coated shovel.

I grabbed an ancient (1997) one that was being retired a few years back...still runs fine for basic bits and bobs (Inspiron P3). I've also been offered an HP dualcore. My "main" rig is currently a handbuilt (overclocked to the max) Sempron64 3000+..underpowered for some stuff now though. I'd be tempted to turn the HP into my "main" machine, give this Sempron to a teacher, and keep my Inspiron for home..I've just kitted it out with an IDE-CF converter and an 8gb CF card for the sake of robustness and portability. I've also got 2 Ergo Ensis P4/2ghz laptops sat on the desk..ex LFT jobs. Bit battered, but useable. I call them "hot swap" systems..

We've got a little Terastation Pro...heh..works lovely.

Hah. We've had kids openly bare their arse to our CCTV in the corridor outside IT..shame we were in the office (all of IT) with the deputy head (a lady)..talk about laugh.. We put it in the end of year 11 presentation for his year...we only hold a grudge until they leave.. Got a HUGE laugh..

We had CCTV in the loos. All came out 2 years or so back. We've had them smashed, torched, flooded, used as a knocking shop (by a few students), smoking shelter and communal "base". Now we've got someone on guard there full time, it's no issue. Getting the cameras out was GRIM...metal enclosures, toiletrolled into obscurity in the roof..soggy, smelly, all in all yuk. The girls was by far the worst, surprisingly. We have quite a few kids here who don't really want to go home either..or who want to come in during holidays to escape.