dgsmith

Thanks - I thought as much but had seen comments disabled on groups before, so assumed it was the same for pages.. clearly not anymore!

I am sure this used to be possible, but I can't for the life of me find a way to do it now. The head has asked that on certain posts, he would not want people being able to comment (I understand the reasons for this), but still invite comments on other things like events, achievements etc. I cannot see anywhere that allows for commenting to be blocked on individual posts, either before or after it's posted. Am I missing something really obvious, or is there just not a way to do this anymore?

Hi, just seeing "System" and "System Default" with the full # of APs in each (20). Very occasionally, it seems the other WLANs will appear momentarily, as if to have come back, but then they'll disappear again. I was convinced it was vlan related but as I say, other model APs on the same switches are absolutely fine!

I noticed recently that in some parts of the school, only the default WLAN, i.e. the one on VLAN 1, is showing as an available network. Other areas correctly show other WLANs that are associated with specific vlans. I thought it may have been switch related or ports not tagged, yet this has not changed at all and some APs show all WLANs fine that are connected to switches with other APs that don't. Reboots of the APs or Zone director doesn't work either. Following some wandering and working out which areas are problematic, it seems to be that APs on the R310 model aren't presenting the other WLANs. We have R510 and R610 APs too and these show all fine.. the only areas without issue are those covered by the latter APs and where the issues are relate to areas covered by the R310s. Anyone has anything similar or could advise what I could look at/change to try and resolve this? Our support is limited to partner premium so I can't go to ruckus directly for this.

I don't mind keeping the seat warm!

As above - trunks and channels are often used interchangeably or indeed erroneously. We are with spitfire and they refer to a single channel as a single trunk, yet a trunk could also be used to denote a group of multiple channels within a single trunk. Whichever it is though, 2 seems an odd number. It seems to be, though I may be wrong, that you will either have 2 trunks containing multiple channels in each (overkill?) or 2 trunks (i.e. channels) which seems quite minimal (but depends on size of site). We have 6 SIP channels for 6 external calls simultaneously, although 4 would suffice "most" of the time.

I hadn't considered the possibility of alternate approaches before, so perhaps read-only access for no encryption would be a consideration too. I wasn't aware of this thread, so useful to see that others have (recently) also been trying to achieve the same thing. Perhaps we'll take a look at MBAM to do this instead.

Is there a way we could force bitlocker encryption on removable drives when using Win7 Enterprise? We want to aiming to move towards not permitting removable storage, however some staff say they have teaching resources that don't include sensitive data and it's causing some issues as to the blanket-ban proposal. It seems an interim measure, or where circumstances require, we could enable/force encryption, but we'd want to be making sure that non-encrypted devices couldn't be used freely. As we are RM CC4 then the facility to do so isn't included in an RMMC so we'd be looking at the vanilla gpo approach. What's the most efficient way of achieving this, or is there an alternate way of going about it?

It did take us quite alot of time to standardise on procurve, and that was including refurbished acquisitions too, so now our entire site is procurve. Many of those older 2510/2520 models are plentiful on ebay and the decision to save on a standard 100meg poe switch for IP cams/phones, or a 48 port gig switch for sub £50 is still enticing, even without 10gig uplinks. I guess it is too early to tell if Ubiquiti will change the game as HP did 16-18 years ago. HPs initial switches haven't aged that well, but their kit from ~10 years ago seems as suitable now as it did then. I also agree that HPE/Aruba don't seem to be keeping pace in their current offering.. I am less of a fan of their new kit than I am/was of their old procurve branded kit. The Ubiquiti 16 sfp+ switch seems like a game changer at that price and spec, yet to make it worthwhile, the edge switches would also need to link at 10gig, so we'd have to go all out Ubiquiti to see the benefit. Hence, getting this switch at the core would be a statement of shifting onto Ubiquiti, without there being much to go on past experience/reputation. @AlanD - We had a few NGs prior to the procurves.. they were just "ok" but we were happier swapping their gig switches out for procurve 100meg ones at the time. They generally are a lesser option vs Cisco/HPE.

I guess, but was the quality/reliability then as good as the later ones? I like that Ubiquiti are offering fully gig switches with 10gig uplinks for extremely attractive prices and if they saturate enough of the market, you'd wonder if the others are forced to follow suit. If they truly are wanting to compete, then stacking and more than 1yr warranty is surely something they could be taking a look at too..

Thanks for the responses. Yes it's the edge series I have been looking at and I realised the unify line seems somewhat more of a cut-down line. We don't use that many features of our existing switches to be fair, beyond the vlans and QOS so we wouldn't necessarily miss alot I don't think. When I see procurves on ebay for practically at giveaway prices (sub £50 for 48port gig switches and 24 port poes on the 2510 lines upwards), how do we justify Ubiquiti? Also with Ubiquiti, their warranty is a year vs lifetime with HP (well at least for the HPs we bought new anyway). It seems Ubiquiti are offering very good 10gig capable switches at very good prices.. this seems the draw right now.. thinking ahead rather than the now. For the core, we'd want something solid (no surprise there) and more of an aggregation to link all cab switches and the Ubiquiti does seem like the only offering with SFP+ in reasonable quantity, 10gig and great price.. maybe apprehension rather than anything else in considering what for us has been an unknown brand to be the big-dog in the networking infrastructure!

I have read alot about Ubiquiti switches here, mostly all positive and it seems there is some shift towards their product line from some in education here. My question is.. are they at the right level now to compete with the bigger boys? I am looking at our existing switches, mostly either 10+ years old or bought refurbished (all procurve, a mixture of 2510/20s, 2610s, 2810s and 2910s with a single 2530G). Our "core" switch is just a 2910 with the 4 SFP linking to other cabs and rear CX4 used for virtual stacking to another 2910 and 2900. I see Ubiquiti have some impressive switches available at even more impressive prices (a 16 port SFP+ 10Gig switch for under £450 and a 48port gigabit poe switch for under £650 are very attractive indeed). The web interface looks somewhat more informative too. But are they hitting the heights of the procurve (or now Aruba) line at the fraction of the price, or do you get what you pay for in netgear/dlink-style economy? In an ideal world, our core would be a chassis but I think it's out of price range and I wouldn't want us to get what is now a really old refurb procurve model anyway for this. The Ubiquiti 16port SFP+ one would be ideal to link every edge switch back directly to a single place, over fiber and 10gig capable, but is it as capable as the better brands and does it seem too good?

Nope, running it over our EXA Networks line. Neither have any problems with that setup. Admittedly, sometimes you don't always know who's at fault when the line quality goes down (usually ISP related though!), however in terms of running spitfire over another provider there are no problems; it was just BT that insisted on being the ISP if providing SIP. We also opted to get a PSTN line through spitfire too so if there is an issue with the SIP or ISP, we can still call out (albeit a different number displayed). We have just put a phone in every classroom now, adding 20 to our existing 40ish extensions. The T40Gs are fantastic value for money, look great and with gig too you can't grumble. Stylish and affordable.

We went with spitfire (good pricing), but also looked at BT (also good pricing, but want to be the ISP too) and Gamma (who at the time didn't support 3CX, but I believe now do).

Thanks for the suggestions. I was seeking to incorporate something into the intranet layout rather than a fully-blown system that does alot more (which is not required). The teacher simply wants to have a basic area to post general news in the easiest way without needing to navigate a full system/CMS. I may well end up needing to write something as it transpires, though I thought there would surely be something out there suitable..

Our T&L co-coordinator would like to have a page setup on the intranet to publish notices on teaching and learning, as well as a simple blog to post updates and information. I could make a simple php/mysql script but it'd need to be somewhat more sophisticated than the type of interface/interaction i'd come up with! Does anyone know of a reasonably good, free and intuitive system, ideally php-driven, that can be "dropped" into an existing structure with little effort? I have tried nibbleblog that is php, but it doesn't seem customization and doesn't work for some users properly (which I don't get).

Bought one of these from Roche yesterday on the back of seeing this. Great value, great customer service, fast delivery. I confirmed the price over live chat but didn't mind the confirmation being emailed (and we have used roche before, albeit quite some years ago). I accept though that suppliers are trying to offload these older units now so some will be prepared to go slightly below the usual sell price on these occasions.

I hope at least one of these then is as successful as the original, and not a flop like Hospital Tycoon (which seemed to care more about relationships than actually being about a hospital). If they stick with the original Theme Hospital premise I can't see too much going wrong!

I don't think we changed any of our BIOS passwords back to blank and it wasn't raised as an issue. Similarly though, they wanted us to package each device separately at first, but as we didn't have sufficient packaging for this, we managed to convince them that just collecting on a pallet (tightly wrapped) would be fine also (but with a separate sheet for each device.. no biggie). I do know their T&Cs state they can/will deduct amounts for damage, though I guess this is more prevalent with laptops which are prone to minor damage. We haven't had anything knocked off when we have sent stuff to them.

We did this last year on their previous trade up - part exchanged around 20 RM desktops and a mixture of other older HP desktops. We didn't include any accessories just the base units, but made sure they all booted and had all components inside so they were "complete". Some had questionable HDDs (working, barely) but all were collected on a pallet and we got the money about 4-6 weeks later, no issues. Other times we have had the cashback offer and this has always been paid without any problems. We have done quite a few of these HP deals over the years and never had a single issue getting things collected or the money received.

Is this a different game to Project Hospital announced last year, or just a rebrand?

You won't necessarily get the same level of functionality on the analogue exts though (I can't speak specifically for the Panasonic, though it tends to be basic calls, transfer, voicemail only). Whilst I briefly toyed with implementing a system that would allow use of analogue extensions, ultimately it made far more sense to go with an entirely fresh new system that was all consistent, and where every phone interface was (mostly) the same, with the same level of user experience. Most places with a phone point already had network sockets anyway, and in classrooms where there is only 1 socket, the IP phone will act as a switch and allow the computer to be plugged into it. Try and see if it's feasible to remove analogue altogether. Looking back, if i'd have proposed a system that allowed use of our analogues on hybrid, they'd have quickly been removed anyway and recabled with ethernet for IP phone replacement. Knowing that 100% of our phones use the same technology and can be configured is a big plus. It does depend on your environment though, and sometimes it may be very difficult for some regions to have IP phones, but you have to be certain the job to implement them would outweigh what might be some extra cost to recable.

As it's the server cluster and san, it's not viable for us to not own at the end (esp as only 3yrs old). The option to buy via a 3rd party was noted when we entered the lease agreement, but this option hasn't been included on the end of lease options (which we have queried). We understand the implications surrounding finance leasing and not being able to buy it from the lease company, though the fact they offered purchase via a 3rd party suggests the end result desired is feasible. The main query and confusion surrounds the 3rd party buyout option (i.e. is this legit, can this be done, who can act as a 3rd party, would there be any ramifications).

A few years ago, we opted to lease our server/san hardware rather than purchase outright due to financial restraints. At the time, we understood (and it was contractually written) that there would be an end-lease purchase option via a "third party". What we need to understand is the implications of this, as I believe that schools buying equipment and subsequently owning after a lease contract is not seen as a legitimate option (despite it being given at the start as an option). What have other schools done in a similar situation and could we fall foul of anything if we look to follow through with the purchase option via 3rd party as set out in the contract?

The thing with this board is that the manufacturer (asus) releases are just not compatible.. they don't flash. The asus website for this board range shows all the BIOS updates, including the 0403 that the RM ones ship with. The OP wants 0803 revision, which is the earliest to support Ivy Bridge, so I do believe it's for the exact same reason I was looking to flash the boards we have. Whilst we have used manu updates in the past, particularly for Intel, the Asus ones seem more rigidly tied to the reseller. I am sure there must be a way to hack them, but not to the extent of physically changing chips!