bossman

@Simcfc73: Moodle can do transparent authentication, it can also synchronise with sims (there are various blocks with which this can be done with) also remote web access blocks can be installed and configured so users have access to their files. Staff in Moodle version 2.0 are able to create lessons which can be assigned to different groups of students plus create homework for instant marking with markbook blocks etc. All this can be done for free but will take you a long time to install and configure, we have gone down the route of external developers and they have developed our Moodle version 2.0 exactly how we want it. We do have things to develop in the future such as an in built reader which will tie in with a library system block so we can automatically download free digital books which can be reviewed separately before being made available to the students. There are many things that you can do with Moodle and it can only get better as other CMS VLE's fall by the wayside. We decided 3 years ago to go down the Moodle route and up till now has been very stable. Its what is right for your environment within your school and how you interface with the staff on this as to whether they embrace the tool which you are creating to try and make their teaching and learning style that much better with the least resistance. Good Luck

@GrumbleDook: Not available for the UK market as yet hehe! Unlucky

Ditto that! Sad! but that is life

@richardturnbull: Could you not refurbish with a Mobo-kit which would not only be eco-friendly but reduce your schools carbon footprint into the bargain, I'm sure you could convert them into core 2 duo 2.7Ghz workstations with 4GB RAM for around £150. I haven't bought any new computers for the past 2 years just refurbished the components inside as most good kit will last you at least 3 years, 5 with good practise. Just a thought or you could scrap them and replace them with brand new ones which would take more resources to create thus impact on the planets eco - system.

@mavhc: It looks like Microsoft have been given the cold shoulder regarding their web browser hehe! Has anyone tried it with IE9 yet? Just to see if it does in fact work with IE?

@morganw: Version 5.6 also

Well if he thinks that is the case then ask him to find one who is both willing to design it without coding it and for a small fee, I think myself he will be sorely upset when he sees what the real cost of a good web design company. He may have a friend who knocks up websites on a weekend who has told him it doesn't cost much but let me tell you it does if you want a proper job done just ask @webman who now works for a webdesign company. It's funny how business managers always seem to know better and yet when push comes to shove they will always go for a cheap option.

Another big thumbs up for Xenserver here, running 3 hosts (pooled) with HA for the cost of £1200 (£400 per host for the HA license) attached to Sun 7110 for VM's running 12 servers load balanced between the three. I wouldn't virtualise my DC not until I had a proper system in place to bring to take them down and back up again in the proper order if ever a power cut ensued. I haven't got round to this yet but will do when I have the time and the money. Installation is fairly simple just download the ISO image burn it to disk and then boot from disk and follow the instructions. The SAN and 2 nics of the hosts are on a different IP range running through 2 gig switches to allow for failover the other 2 nics are load balanced and belong to the network LAN so no bandwidth issues as data just flows back and forwards from the XEN hosts to the SAN. Has worked very well for over a year in fact thats how long they have been up for hehe! I have not updated from version 5.6 sp2 yet to version 6 as it has a couple of issues at the moment. Very happy at the moment.

If you don't want to be tied into a custom CMS and prepared to code it yourself to make changes then why not try this: Open Source Content Management System - Open Source CMS - CMS PHP - CMS Made Simple You can customise it and with it being open source its free Why pay someone to design it when there are many templates out there which you can customise to your hearts content and then host it yourself. Here are a few more for you to look at: Open Source Scripts - OpenSourceCMS It may not be what you have asked for but it doesn't make much sense to me as any company willing to design it will obviously want to code it. This is our website which @webman designed and built before he went to pastures new Welcome to Bishop Barrington School. Bishop Auckland in County Durham.

@matt40k: Ouchhhh! that sounds a little like your having too much fun with your Sims and FMS hehe!

We mobile use Zimbra here and all endusers can use any mobile phone to access their e-mail externally it just has to be setup correctly in both the admin side and on their mobile devices. Blackberry devices have what they call a push mail service which is part of the price plan (£5 extra) and with this e-mail is fed directly to the device unlike other devices which have to run through the browser to access the webmail side. Not had any problems using different mobile devices though. If you setup the devices using IMAP as the server type and the port to access along with the mail server address then the username and password which they use to access their e-mail then everything should work just fine.

@matt40k: You on part-time for Capita hehe!

Deleting the desktop.ini file will rectify and will rename the document folder as the owner, had the same problem early on with some user folders just called My Documents but once I had deleted the desktop.ini files it sorted it.

@rush_tech: Damn!! Just bought this for the school's PR at twice the price wouldn't you believe it from BigNorman.com | PC Tablets, Digital Cameras, Lenses, Camcorders, MP3 Players, Laptops, Gaming, Mobile Phones, EBooks Never mind it will get plenty of use

@mattx: You've done it to me again!!! How am I supposed to go on the internet again after this!! I'm still retching 2 hours later damn you!! Please! Please! never show this again or anything like it on pain of death!! Could one of the Admins please remove these awful videos before I go totally blind please!!! ;-)

Well done to your missus Shaun, congratulations to the both of you on your new arrival. @Sylv3r: I second that "Jaegar bombs all round" again!!!

I presume you have the Physical server to which you P2V'd? If so then it should be fairly easy to export the database from the physical server and import it into the VM server through the PostgreSQL database Voila! If you have PostgresSQL installed on the VM server that is, you should be able to find the version on your Physical server and install it on your VM server. All you require is the PostgresSQL username and password P.S. Question? Why have you Virtualised your CC4 DC anyway? I would have done all the other servers but not the DC, I would have kept this a physical box but then that is my opinion

Good switch gear should last minimum 10 years at which time it should be changed, having said this I have a spare core switch already configured to drop in within 10 mins should ours fail, also have a spare 48 port edge switch to swap out should any edge switch fails. Other than using lots of cash to create a full mesh topology where if one switch fails others are there to share the load then there is little one can do. I did have a core switch failure once but had the network up and running within 10 mins due to having a spare which is not as costly as the above method. As long as switches are kept free from dust and cool they should last a lifetime of the network. I am thinking of upgrading our infrastructure soon to Juniper but at this moment feel a little reluctant as our Cisco kit is still working very nicely with not only workstations and peripherals running across it but also our CCTV of 30 IP cameras and is only using a third of its bandwith capacity at full use. If you have plenty of money then I would invest in good quality equipment with a spare core and edge switch change equipment every 10 years accordingly as with the capacity and requirements of the network. If your equipment supplier has a lifetime warranty then this is based on what the manufacturer of that piece of equipment expects it to last, the price of this equipment reflects this and this is why they can afford to cover it in this way.

@mdench: Does it have front usb connectors? If so disconnect these from the board have had this come up a few times.

Sims DB and Discover DB on same VM server and so far no problem, have only 10 clients utilizing it at once, seems to be very quick and looks really cool. Using Xenserver in Pool of 3 hosts.

Hi Guys, have sorted it through the following: VM manual reboot through Host CLI: 1 - "xe vm-list" to get the uuid of the VM that is hung 2 - "list_domains" to list the domain uuid's so you can determine the domain # of the VM above by matching the uuids from this output with the uuid for your VM from the previous command. 3 - "/opt/xensource/debug/destroy_domain -domid XX" where XX is the domain number from the previous command 4 - "xe vm-reboot uuid=XXXX --force" where XXXX is the uuid from the first vm-list command for your VM. Your VM will be back up running now in most cases. (I use this for my HVMs that hang so I don't have to reboot the host server) This has got me VM back up and running without having to reboot the host but still showing no IP address in the Xencentre console although I can ping on the LAN so at the moment its back. will update as necessary. Thanks guy's

Hi All, Got a guest linux ftp/webserver VM runningon Xenserver 5.6fp1 which has developed a NIC interface problem in that it does not have a recognised IP address and therefore I cannot gain access to it although it states the system is running, I cannot see the console cli. Just wondering if anyone has come across this problem before and how they dealt with it. I have tried the following: 1. Moving guest to another Host: did not work because it reported that the guest system was doing something (It seems that it is locked up in doing something which I have no idea as I cannot gain access). 2. Checking out whether the XAPI service is running on the host and how many systems it is servicing: Done through SSH and it seems everything is in order. 3. Rebooting the Host: As No.1 above it will not restart the Host due to the guest system being classed as busy doing something. 4. Deleting said guest and then rebooting Host: Problem, I don't have a backup of guest VM as it has been refusing to backup due to the system being "busy doing something". I am at a loss, but as it is not a data intensive system and not even for the school I am just tempted to delete it Thanks in advance Bossman

Yeah been using this type of 3D unit for a couple of years now along with other Roland equipment, kids just love designing and creating there own stuff and we are looking to sell bits n bobs to fund the creativity, we already have a website which is due to go live for the purchasing of home-made textile goodies which the students make, hope it takes off for their sake as they have worked hard to get themselves established within the community.

Even if they are, at the cost it is negligible, when they break they can just be replaced, I would purposely buy more than you require as spares but they seem fairly robust even for the PE department hehe!

@sonofsanta: We went down the Xenserver route with 3 hosts 32GB Ram in each and worked on the theory of utilising a third of the memory on each host so in the event of 2 hosts failing (Chances are slim) the remaining host could still deal with the load. I am working on getting our hosts up to 128GB Ram in each.