bossman

@Hefferzzzz: I have a friend who joined the police force when he came out of the RAF and if you were to ask him today if he thinks he made the right choice he would probably say no, reason why is that the police force has changed so dramatically in the last 10 years. He cannot plan anything as his shifts are so all over the place, going away with us on a weekend is such a bind as we have to work around him and his shift pattern. He really doesn't like the way it is heading (Privatisation) which is already performance related and the paperwork is more than ever before. The decision I would say is yours and your OH will also have a say I would think as it will impact on her, Good Luck in your decision

@FN-GM: You not bubbling are you? I was only pulling your leg hehe! Its a little bit of a relief from a hectic week! @witch: now! now! you know me better than that hehe!

@Geoff: You would certainly think so, unfortunately in this world of economics LA's cannot compete against the big boys, we asked this question of our LA and they told us that they cannot due to cost factors beyond their control. Unless they are laying in their own dark fibre if they have the certification and the man power to do so and even then they cannot price match against the likes of BT Openreach and VirginMedia etc etc! Our LA did exactly this and still haven't been able to match the top 5 ISP's for price and service. It is an unfortunate state of play but this is the real world and profits have to be made even in the LA.

@FN-GM Why is it not allowed? Are we not a part of a free society who can talk about anything? Did our Fathers and Grandfathers not fight against fascism? Or are we deluded into thinking this way only because we are told to do so by those who would silence us in case we upset someone? hehe! happy Friday everyone! have a good weekend

Subject HOD's are given vouchers as part of their budgets which they have justified with the DHT in their yearly budget meetings, they have to develop a teaching and learning strategy for the use of individual apps which shows how they will be used in the classroom environment to enhance the students learning. It does deter those staff who just want to spend money on totally naff apps (lots of these) and promotes good working practice. I don't feel personally that the IPad will reign supreme for long as they are too costly for those schools that don't have the finances. I feel that utilising a good BYOD strategy will help schools move forward into the cloud and enhance the students learning without the huge costs involved in purchasing new wireless devices every 3 years.

School has own account with VPL license, apps are purchased through vouchers and codes are entered by each subject leader who will manage 30 IPads so they will usually get the students to install using the voucher codes. We manage through the apple configurator for the moment but looking into third party MDM such as Meraki MDM admin tool which is free but there are others at a premium. We don't have a policy at the moment as it was quite a rush job, in fact it took 3 weeks to research wireless system required and gather costs, 2 day's to install, configure wireless whole school and then learn how to connect and install 25 apps in 3 days for a workshop given by an LA consultant, a little bit of a challenge but we learnt very quickly indeed and still learning every day. Good luck

Have a butchers at this: Pay monthly - Mobile phones - Tesco Mobile Down the bottom end, some of the deals look really good and I know from experience (OH anyway) is that she is more than happy with her Samsung Ace and is not too clogged with apps. Also you don't really need unlimited data or texts as you will not use more than 5000 txts per month or use more than 500Mb of data per month, as for the calls then maybe change the amount of free minutes per month. Happy hunting MSSB

I have just recently spoken to a colleague of mine who has a Cisco wireless system at his BSF school and I remember him telling me about Cisco having to patch his AP's to enable IPads and the bonjour app to work. He seems to have it sorted, PM me and I can give you his details

It was before 2008R2 was available, been on windows 7 for nearly 2.5 years now just designing our new windows 9 client structure with 2012 server platform.

Got 4 VM windows 2008R2 servers on our CC4.2 one is our Sims server, no problem at all just build your server using your network naming convention and using a static IP, then use the Microsoft way of joining the machine to your network, simple. We also have Linux servers as part of the domain also. Enjoy

Eton Rifles! Eton Rifles! Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah! Eton Rifles! Eton Rifles! Great song! Looks a good job

Hi everyone, Would like to ask a question? Recommendations for a cheap server which will have the following requirements: 1. Run Xenserver 2. At least 64Gb RAM (With capacity to upgrade to at least 128Gb if not 256Gb cheap memory) 3. Raid card 4. Space for at least 2 x 64Gb SSD's (Mirrored for OS) and 5 x 2Tb HDDs (For added local storage) 5. Possible quad Nic (Dual Nic's will suffice) 6. Best possible number and type of CPU's (Bearing in mind cost factor) Looking to purchase for our IT team so we can put together a CPD package for the SLT team to authorise funding. All specifications and costs appreciated, if any of the suppliers want to take part they can PM me with details. Thank you Regards Bossman

I would rather stab myself in the eye's with cocktail sticks steeped in surgical spirit repeatedly than watch this excuse for music!!! This is only my personal opinion, nothing personal

Sorry peeps! Found this out on Friday evening and should have updated on here but time was against me due to family commitments and I haven't been near a computer or the internet all weekend until now. Patch has been superseded as has been stated in previous posts. Apologies all round

@Rawns: Only fix I found was to manually delete the agent from the workstation in question and take it out of the Solus3 deployment and then add the workstations again as you would normally through Solus3 and it should re-install the new updated agent. Also do these workstations have the firewall enabled and if so do they have the port rules for Solus3 enabled? Its all a little patchy still but its getting there

+ 1 for Luxriot here, we have 30 plus IP HD cameras with movement and Zoom and its just a doddle very easy to setup, can't remember what the companies name who installed it but it has been great and is not bandwith hungry. Good luck with your choice

We had Ofsted in 3 weeks ago and the first thing they commented on was the Website and how good it was, explained it was developed by @webman as a 2 click information system, non of this flash bang wizzy sites with too much going on but an easy on the eye information site about the school. I was questioned in our very first Ofsted around 8 years ago for approx 35 mins about the network and safeguarding issues etc, we actually got a mention in the final report which I felt very chuffed about as @webman and myself had worked very hard to implement the system from scratch. Since then we have never been bothered by Ofsted P.S Just before we had the Ofsted our HT had mentioned changing to something flashy like one of our competitor schools, good job we didn't

I too looked at Meraki and Aerohive but eventually went for the Aerohive through a company called LAN3, once in and configured to your requirements it just works, we have had IPads, Andriod and windows wireless devices all hung off them. Superb piece of kit and not that expensive as you will find out as they do bundle deals, I would think that Meraki are the same but I had to make the choice farly rapidly due to IPad workshops being pushed out on schedules nothing more. I do hope this has helped?

Only just implemented our Aerohive system throughout the school and to be totally honest it has performed better then we could have hoped, we did have a captive portal configured and it worked really well except that you had to keep the page open and browse on other tabs which was not a problem but having sorted another re-config through our Smoothwall box (courtesy of Jay) we have a very good working wireless environment for our first set of 30 IPads which have worked flawlessly when they have been used. We also have Samsung android devices which are working equally as well plus our own HP100e netbooks which are built onto the network. We are looking into VLans but for the moment everything is working as it should be, as I have stated it is a project ongoing so will keep updating as we come across any problems and how we overcome them. Excellent service from a company called LAN3 and the contact is Adam Slocombe, only took 2 days to install and configure, I realise it is new and only been running for the 2nd week so I do expect little niggles until we get it right for us but the service from LAN3 is good and after service seems friendly also (only contacted them once for a trivial ask) but they were excellent. It was a toss up between Aerohive and Meraki but I am pleased with the cost to the school which has been small compared to what other wireless solutions wanted to charge. Listen to what they have to say and give it a try as they will give you trial APs to work with. Good luck in your choice

Don't use it as our e-mail system has its own malware and ativirus built in, in fact we were using the Smoothwall relay until it got broke by one of the last updates so we haven't used it since. On a good note when we did use it and it functioned correctly it was very good.

Cunningham's provided our cashless catering system and have done for many years, all I can say is that it has worked for all these years flawlessly! Only issue we had was a hardware fault with one of the tills and a smaller issue with one of the fingerprint scanners they changed them the very same day if I remember rightly and all has been well since. Set up with static IP's with backup of the server config done daily every evening by the admin office staff. As for technical help we haven't really required that much and when we have they remote in and fix as it is part of their SLA. Simples

Unless it states firmly in your contract of employment that any mandatory courses offered to you by your employer must be done in your own time then I feel your being put upon, As elsiegee40 has so wisely stated "Join the union" you can still get advice from the union even if your not affiliated. It does seem a little odd and I wonder if the teaching staff are required to commit to this type of training? As for your performance management being brought into this I feel this needs to be nipped in the bud before it gets out of hand, tell them that you don't accept what they are giving you as part of your performance management and that you are going to take it up with your union. See what becomes of it then! Good luck

You deserve to have a great night out Ric! Pity I'm not there to help you have one hehe! All the very best to one of the best! Thanks for being a friend Regards

Don't use it as the software is still very flakey, just spent the last 2 days reconfiguring to sort the latest updates which wasn't helped by the fact the Solus 3 update was released after the spring database and Ampark updates, asolute nightmare, Just about sorted now but I would not advise configuring auto-update settings but that is just my advice. Good luck

@all: I still have the original video tape trilogy hehe! I am old but I don't mind who knows and I like all of star wars films even the new ones! "May the force be ever with me Obi Wan Kenobi" Look as good you do when you reach my age!!