Jamman960

I'd get a bell system in for starters,don't think I've ever come across a school doing it THAT manually there are a few out there which are basically just timers with bells attached, you program the times and they ring etc As for syncronised time keeping across classrooms I'd replace the current clocks with Radio controlled ones. Not very technical solutions but as you say theres no need to spend too much on it all.

I would estimate around 11 working days for the work you've described provided your confident and have a full plan in place for the config, I know you didn't want a break down but I find it easier to estimate by breaking it down so thought I'd share -Setup a new domain on a new server, building all new GPO's from scratch -- 3 days -Migrate existing system, including all users from 2 seperate domains to the new domain -- 2-3 days depending on data volume -recommission the old server(s) as member servers for the purpose of running Print server, AV server etc - 1-2 days -rebuild the existing curriculum network pc's, approximately 50-60 of them to the new domain (rebuild required as not done in a while, as well as being based on winsuite currently) - 2-4 days depending on size of image to be deployed, 1 day building, half day testing followed by the rest deploying. This is assuming that you won't need to spend half-1 full day copying files from cd's to a server etc

Myself and our Director of Studies/Head of IT have implimented Sims Profiles for the first time this term, we've almost finished this reporting session(reports go home next friday) but we're less than impressed by the endless number of features lacking within Profiles. The report writing side of it isn't too bad however once sessions go into review a complete lack of workflow appears - there is no way within sims of highlighting errors without allowing staff to change the formatting and if a report is set to "Not Approved" it goes back to the original writer without any form of notification - if they write reports for several years/classes spotting the returned reports without being notified in one way or another means the teacher has to go through every session/class individually on a regular basis. Once a teacher finds the reports that have been returned and corrects them there is no way to mark the report as being corrected, it simply stays in a "Not Approved" state until the person doing the reviewing is notified or realises that the report has been corrected. I don't see why staff should have to chase each other around to get reports corrected or to find out whether its already been done when sims already has an internal messaging function and adding an option to re-submit a report for review should also be fairly easy. We've resorted to sending emails out notifing staff that they have returned reports to correct and have told them to email the form tutors once the reports have been corrected. Is everyone else in the same boat or am I missing something? I can't imagine this working well at all in a bigger school.

Now that our new system is in place I'm also the phone man... its pretty much the same as IT - if theres a fault staff will whine and moan about it for a while until I over-hear a conversation in the staffroom about a phone on the other side of the site that isn't working Its so much easier being able to make small changes myself rather than having to log a call with our provider and waiting for it to be actioned. It also came with some CTI software (OIP Server) which I'm having fun messing around with.

I'm guessing the site will never be unblocked by any of the RBC's so it'll die off eventually anyway, I know I certainly have no intention of ever unblocking it here and hopefully the head will back my suggestion to ban teachers downloading the resources at home and bringing them in.

If we're talking about having a computer re-tested because its had its psu removed and put back in then I can't see how anyone can insist on a re-test, even if the psu has been swapped for another previously tested PSU I'd still query the need for a re-test. you'll be carrying out a visual PAT test while installing it and it'd have already been declared electronically safe. As long as your happy that it looks ok and you've not dropped or have any reason to believe that it may have been damaged then it should be safe. If you've replaced he PSU with another untested/brand new PSU then I guess you'd need to treat it as you would any new bit of kit, either insist on pat testing before it goes out or ensure its pat tested on the next cycle.

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We do pretty much the same thing, print out am/pm lists and stick them in a box outside. Are you looking to automate the process or something else? I guess you could setup a scheduled report via your MIS and then have the resulting file printed to a dedicated printer in a "safe" location near the meeting point at set intervals, obviously ensuring there is always paper and toner in said printer. I guess its probably one of the few things that are best kept as simple as possible, at least if someones printing it manually each time and putting it in a safe location its definatly getting done, the last thing you need is to find that whatever you have in place failed that day when theres actually a fire.

Your probably better off sorting it out via GPO rather than telling whoever owns the ap that whatever they call their network shows up on the laptops in the school down the road... if they're tech savy they could simply claim its not them and then have some fun at the schools expense. disabling access to all network related settings and disabling tooltips/notifications should sort it out

As an ex-employee(briefly tech support, then as an on-site engineer) I'd say their workstation quality is usually pretty good, my favorite were the Enlight cases they previously used. The cases used before those(pre 04/05 I think) really weren't all that. Their newer cases are built for them and are still pretty sturdy & well built cases. A lot of work goes into ensuring the cases used are both quick to build and sturdy. They only use intel boards/processors, obviously the cheaper workstations have "value" boards but they will always be intel branded. As for the network setups they use intel server boards/chassis's and processors. The normal setup for an NS network is pretty much vanilla 2k3 server(possibly 2k8 now, I left at the end of 07) along with a custom user creation tool and an mmc snap-in providing links to the usual useful tools. To be honest if setup correctly a vanilla network will work just as well any other - routine tasks such as password resetting/user creation can be sorted out with custom MMC snap-ins if you need to pass those tasks onto end users. While I was there the majority of customers were happy, most problems came down to scheduling clashes which led to projects not getting completed on time. Based on my recent dealings with them as a customer they've improved their internal processes since I left I haven't admitted to having worked for them on here before but thought I'd offer an alternative viewpoint, they have some hard working people there especially in technical/production & onsite support... even sales aren't all that bad(wouldn't normally admit that, they've got big enough ego's already ) its a shame to see their hard work put down so much when some of the negative opinions floating around are based on past dodgy sales tactics that often took place pre 2006, things change and NSO is actually doing pretty well despite the never ending stream of negative rep they tend to get online. [/rant] James

I've just blocked this on both of our sites until I can discuss it with my line manager. While I fully understand why this info couldn't be released into the open there should be some way that independent schools could be warned in such circumstances.

Congratulations!

Not quite sure how the whole process works but having well selected Meta Tags setup really helps, I belive the H1 & H2 tags get picked up fairly quickly too. Getting your site linked via other sites also has an effect, I'd try and get a link on edubase as that may result in your site getting crawled qucker. James

woke up at 5:30ish and realised that no more snow had fallen, waited at home till 7:30 just incase the head phoned to get the website updated but it didn't happen now at work boooo

Cant quite remember what system we use at school but it looks similar, we use software called Weather Display and Weather Display Live which is basically a flash front end for the main program that can be uploaded to the web and updated as frequently as you want. would post a link but I haven't got it setup at the mo. Will find out what the hardware is tomorrow. James

Working till the 23rd then return on the 4th, I had planned to take the whole lot off but I've got to be around for our phone system install :/

That price seems pretty fair, its likely to take a fair amount of time to do it and they wouldn't get it fixed cheaper anywhere else. I tend to diagnose and fix for free if its only going to take me 30mins or so, any more and I start charging. In the past I've found that some people will happily abuse a free service for any and every problem they have

I've ended up using Bullzip recently as it can embed fonts... most of the free ones I found previously couldn't do it.

What UPS is it and how many servers are hanging off it? Also what does powerchute say regarding load etc? James

PowerChute should also give you an estimated runtime, if the time given is enough to shutdown the servers(probably 15mins+) I'd say your ok with the UPS you have.

I'd imagne with that load you'll get very little run time, probably not enough to shut down the servers. Have a look at the load LED's on the front, I'd imagine most if not all will be lit. SmartUPS 1000: Typical Backup Time at Half Load 20.6 minutes (335 Watts) Typical Backup Time at Full Load 6.1 minutes (670 Watts)

"The Dude" is pretty good, it can be setup to send email alerts when devices are down etc. Its also free. James

We used Techlogic after being messed around by DNA IT Recycling during the summer. They agreed a date via email then upon calling at 4pm on the day of collection they claimed no such booking had been made and we were booked for that friday which was no good. After that they called randomly one day to say that someone would be in the area in around 2 hours, 4 hours later I called back to be told that the van was full already and they'd gone back to base. I'd avoid them if you can... techlogic sorted it out very quickly and turned up when they said they would.

We currently use Smartfilter for content filtering on our two sites, we were previously paying anything between £8.50-£9.90 per client but now that its been taken over by McAfee the price has rocketed to around £35/client in the first year followed by around £7 for the following 1/2 years, that and the fact that the program hasn't had any patches/updates since January 08 has led me to go in search of alternatives. Ideally I'd like to stick with ISA and find another bolt on filtering package. I've been looking at GFI Webmonitor 4 which works out to around £6 per client(presuming we can still include all pc's on both sites on one licence) Is anyone using GFI Webmonitor ? and if so is it any good? One of our suppliers has mentioned going for Sophos Web Security as we already use their AV/Email products but as far as I can see it'd need us to purchase one of their appliances for each site.

The current systems aren't quite in my remit but I've pretty much spec'd and ordered the new system being installed when we break up for xmas myself, The school lease the phone system over a 7 year period(about 5k/year for 2 systems)... I kind of volunteered myself to take it over as know one else had a clue about that sort of thing and the lease had been allowed to lapse without us getting a new system.