dgsmith

Just wondering, were those the limited availability units priced at £225 each, which have now disappeared from the site? They were a good price and had we needed just a couple extra at this moment in time, we would have looked into those - they did seem a cracking spec for the price! Pity they're all gone now though! Lets hope any future ones don't go up in price due to the apparant popularity over them!

Hey.. a competition with no strings attached.. can't argue about that! I've emailed it to you Simon, hope that's ok! When you say single entires, is that per site too or just per individual?

For record (in case anyone in future has this problem and sees this thread) I just needed to clear the cache! No idea why that was the case however works fine, so i'll be putting microsoft.com in the list of destinations not to cache.

We bought some Axis cameras some years back, but were introduced to ACTi cameras by Phil here from use-ip (good chap - you can have a nice chat with him). They're dome cameras (megapixel) start at £250 and the quality is near enough on-par with Axis megapixel cameras (most Axis cameras are only VGA resolution so don't capture as much). For storage, that depends on what software you use. Although we're quite happy with icatcher (again, recommendation from use-ip) it might not be for everyone. At least, the solution for us works and it works well and reliably.

Smoothwall Express 3 (easier to type) I have also tried commenting out the block for exe type files but this hasn't worked (as looking in the logs, it mentions that exe line you wrote above).

We have been using SWE3 for around 6 months now (students only), but noticed last week that the students can no longer access clipart through MS Word 2007 that is based online (only the local clipart), yet this works fine for staff who aren't on this proxy. We have tried making an exception for microsoft.com and office.microsoft.com but this hasn't worked, yet we can go to office.microsoft.com in the browser and get clipart this way, so it doesn't appear to be an obvious block. What else could we try, or indeed confirm whether it is smoothwall or something else causing the problem?

I appreciate all the responses to this. We plan to put it forward in our annual proposals so of course the governing body and SMT would be made aware of it anyway. We know about VAT so that isn't a problem. I assume having a paypal account with the school is "doable" - maybe having to get it set up with the bursar or are we able to just do that ourself? Bit of a grey area there for us..

We are looking at the Viglen Omnimo machines as a possible means to compete with the RMOne computers, when we next upgrade. What sort of prices where they? Are they more/less than the RMOnes (if you know how much they cost)? Child friendly?

We have so much unused hardware in our storeroom that we could make a nice amount of money selling it for spares (someone must want bits and pieces of printers that you can't buy anymore). We also find it invaluable to buy things from too. Has anyone here got an ebay account for their school? What is the process about setting up/using it? We have bought a few things on personal accounts before for the school, however we do want to look at a proper account if possible. We haven't submitted the proposal yet, as I wanted to see if there was anything we need to be aware of beforehand.

If noone has seen this, then maybe it is time to start enquiring, even if just to get some like-for-like competition, as we struggle to find alternate quotes when buying student laptops, given RM use the "child proof" arguement, which to an extent is fair enough. Would be even better if these laptops are OEMed from the same Asus model!

You're right - RM OEM the Asus Z91E as you can pick up Asus parts (such as keyboard and battery) for them on ebay. We also have trouble with the lid catch breaking - terrible, terrible design and makes the claims of being break-proof laughable (even when the kids haven't broken them on purpose too)!

We may be looking to buy some more student laptops during the summer (quite some time off, but just testing the water at the moment), and noticed that Viglen do a similar unit here (it does look nearly identical) with all the usual rubber around the edges, shock proof etc. Has anyone gone the viglen route? Is it at all cheaper than RM's Mobile One solution? Is there any price guides or would we need to get an account manager there to get an idea of costs? Apart from appearance, is there any other difference or anything which would make them hard to implement (CC4)?

Thanks for that. I was under the impression that was the case, with any windows OS being acceptable as the core for the agreement, however I did just want to double check (we already have alot of machines with home level licences, so would have been a disaster if it weren't the case)!

Can I just ask, as it's confusing for us too, that if we are to buy machines with Vista Home Basic/Premium licences or build machines and buy an OEM version of this, are we still covered under the schools agreement to upgrade these to whatever we want (XP Pro or Vista Business)? Any literature would be appreciated for us here, as we can get some laptops cheaper with Vista Basic, so it makes sense to save the ~£40 if getting a basic OS licence is still legal - it's all very confusing!

yes, the print unit is the drum and typically will always be able to last for a longer period then the toners themselves. I did a comparison chart not long ago for our 5430, 5440 and 5650 printers, and the 5650s are definately cheaper by a long margin. From what I gather, LnL have been able to secure good prices on this printer as it is a current model they are giving to schools, whereas the the 54xx series isn't. We were offered an early upgrade on our 5450 printer to the new 5650 because of the price increases. If you call them up and explain your thoughts, I am sure they would offer this to you as well. The initial cost is around £321 (you get 6k starter carts), which still works out cheaper than the other printer - definately worth it if you have the printer with LnL. Besides that, the 5650EN is an excellent printer!

That printer is still more economical than the Hp CP3505 though (by a much smaller margin now, but still a little cheaper), as you can get the 12k carts cheaper than 2x 6k cartridges. Bear in mind your quoted £620 will be high capacity cartridges, so would be cheaper than the HP if compared like-for-like with the 6k cartridges. In saying that, we have a 5450 on contract hire from LnL so may look to replace it shortly as I agree that it is becoming expensive to run, so may look towards the newer 5650EN model, which has fanstastic economy for what it is! We still have a few 5430 printers which are even worse!

What's the difference in this one and the one you were selling in January for £169.99 here (except the price)?

haha my bad, it went into the junk.. again!

Updates Simon, updates!

Reason this has come about it because the kids want to print work from the alphasmarts, and we can't find an appropriate printer (there used to be one but we can't remember when or even what kind it was), and there is little or no help to advise on this. Not only that, but the screen size only means thet can get 3 or 4 lines!

Tom, do you know anyone on the express side of things you may be able to shed some light? Even if someone could take a guess why we don't seem to be getting anything back on identd would be appreciated!

I've moved away from lasertech due to high prices and instead recycle with empty cartridge (linky). They do run on a cycle though and for us (north west) is every 3 months, which isn't ideal, but they take nearly anything (including the konica minolta ones which noone else would take). Lasertech give more money back, but you may more to begin with on their OEMs, and we have other suppliers who can do compats much cheaper. We bin the waste toner bottles though - don't think these can be collected, although never asked.

We block the word "game" in the url as a regular expression then just set up exceptions as and when needed (such as with PE, some sites have the word ligament in it). Flash games within sites with no or little text is a tricky one when the site name is some random one. Our problem now is kids running swf files from their user areas!!

We are keen on pursuading our SEN department to invest in eeePCs instead of alphasmarts, however they are concerned there is "too much" information or things that can be fiddled with for the kids (or too many complexities). Can the eeePC be "dumbed down" so that is acts just like a word processor without everything else, so the whole thing is locked down and there is nothing else which can get in the way? Considering the alphasmarts cost £200 and the basic eeePC is the same price (bigger screen and better compatibility), it seems logical, but our SEN department don't like the idea of it doing "more".. Anyone else considered or actually gone down this route?

This is something I have been looking to do for some time but never really got it working and just put it on the backburner. The username displays as "-" on a blocked page, and we want to try and pick usernames up for both logging and grouping. Now what I want to know is - are we able to put users into "groups" which means they can only access certain websites (so for specific students, rather than block them entirely, have some in a whitelist)? I think for getting username, it is looking like using identd as we need to keep transparent proxying on, however having installed an identd service and checked it's running, it doesn't report the username (the internal windows firewall is off and I even have an exception for port 113 incase). In saying that, would enabling the username necessarily be a pre-requisit or even allow for the grouping I want to attempt?