manc_techie

+1 for GBM have used them both in Education and Industry and very happy with pricing, service and aftercare. We've even had the team lend us replacement equipment whilst ours is repaired.

I've used Savilles and CDEC in the past and been happy with both, both in education and corporate environments

I've used CBT Nuggets previously on an in-house server and found it really useful, this was offered in conjunction with classroom based training though. They used to do a free trial so might be worth a look at with your team to see if it fits their needs.

I've used Virgin at a previous employer and they were great to deal with as long as you get a Virgin Engineer working on the install. We had a 1GB bearer and ISDN circuit (for phones) the latter was fitted by Fujitsu on their behalf and was left dangling from the comms room ceiling.

Speaking from experience where the MIS Manager and SLT decided on this with no input from IT it is a huge step backwards. SLG is hated by our teaching staff, we've had issues when SIMS is updated via Solus and the support compared to Bromcom hasn't been too great. Even the MIS Manager is now saying it was a mistake.

A Linkrunner AT would show you which port on a switch a wall socket is going back to, they aren't cheap but Fluke do a 30 day trial.

Replace a UPS battery, move offices (to one with a window) and enjoy the peace and quiet

I too like the possibility of free stuff. Can I take part?

That's the one

Haven't used Arena for Kyocera devices but for managed print and support contracts they are brilliant

Manufacturer/model: Mitel How many handsets/endpoints: 47 Installation cost: £3100 for the ICP, around £1000 for licences and £600 for SIP provisioning (did the instal and config myself as I've worked on Mitel before) Maintenance cost: £1500 for 3rd party support. POE Switch/rackmount inline injectors or Desk PSU's?: POE Switch with the PC's patched into the handset. Business Hours only, or 24/7?: Business only with a night service setup After installation I have been playing with Lync, installed this 2 summers ago and was impressed. As much as I like the Mitel platform I'd go down the Lync route now. Seen it working with Polycom and was impressed at how great a unified comms package it is.

I've seen no issues with Toshiba MFD's supplied by Arena, cracking support when we've had an angry teacher pull a part out of the printer.

Ours is in a room off the office so you need to walk past my desk to get in there, it has swipe card access control which myself, the technicians and facilities manager have a card for. There's CCTV over IP and no external windows, we can see who has come on by checking the card PIN against the access control system.

Using Toshiba MFD's with Papercut and MiFare and it works a treat, easy to release jobs and the Mifare cards work with access control to buildings.

Meant to add we also have the DHCP changed to allow the IP phones to pickup DHCP from our central scope

This works a treat for me. DEFAULT_VLAN is the PC VLAN and VLAN 250 is voice. We have students on a wholly seperate domain and switches ; J9148A Configuration Editor; Created on release #W.15.08.0012 ; Ver #02:11.05:16 hostname "xxxxxxxxxxxxx" module 1 type j9148a module 2 type j9165a module 3 type j9008a power-over-ethernet pre-std-detect stack commander "xxxxxxxxxxxxx" stack auto-grab stack member 1 mac-address xxxxxxxxxxxxx stack member 2 mac-address xxxxxxxxxxxxx stack member 3 mac-address xxxxxxxxxxxxx ip default-gateway xxxxxxxxxxxxx snmp-server community "public" unrestricted vlan 1 name "DEFAULT_VLAN" untagged 1-48,A1,B1-B2 ip address xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx exit vlan 250 name "VOICE" tagged 1-48,A1 no ip address exit password manager password operator

+1 for PaperCut also, with chargable printing (after quota) it turned printing into a zero cost affair with 11 MFD's that was impressive.

+1 for LPH, never had any issues with them apart from when the carrier left 11 new switches on a loading bay. Service wise they are great and prices are superb.

I’ve got a 6 digit Asset Tag on all Hardware (except monitors and anything under £100). This is stored within our Helpdesk System and the following naming convention is used. Desktop: PC e.g. PC123456 Laptop: LP Thin Client TS Printers- we have two virtual queues but these are named by location e.g. (only have 1 per room as they’re all MFD’s) Infrastructure: e.g. MANSVRDPM01 would be the DPM Server. MANHPSWI01 – switch. MANSWAP01- AP and so on…… I find simply asking staff to quote the Asset Tag is easiest to find them as we can pull all the details down within the Helpdesk. If it’s not there it’s simply the device type and Asset ID. Makes replacement easy as we can pull a report of all machines due for refresh.

We do have an issue sometimes with AB Tutor when teachers lock a PC then go home for the evening. As we have a shutdown app installed for power management this can cause PC's to become locked out when switched back on which means we have to visit the IT suite to fix it. Version 7 is much more stable than Version 6 and although I prefer NetSupport if cost is the overriding issue then AB Tutor is handy for a sixth form college and classroom management. That said, NetSupport is in next years budget as the Tech Console is really handy for management of student PC's.

Trying to rack a KVM switch this morning and it was only shipped with 2 screws. I need 8 to rack it and Support aren't being too helpful with regards to ordering new fixings. Unsure what size they are and can't find anything online. I know it's a longshot but has anyone ever had to order replacement screws for a Startech CAB1631D1U KVM? Thanks,

Currently using Microsoft Forefront Endpoint as we got the licences with our CoreCAL, easy to do basic management via GPO but trialling Sophos at the moment for more granular control and reporting.

I know it's a bit late but we're using the Sonicwall NSA4500 set up in High Availability. Gotta agree that the inbuilt filtering isn’t too great when CFS is used, however the Bandwidth Management to reduce bandwidth to certain domains is really handy. App Rules do allow a much more granular level of control but I’ve put a request in for Websense alongside the Sonicwall as this is much better for filtering. The SSL VPN setup is nice and easy as you just send the certificate out to the client and all they need to do is open it with the client application. One thing I do love on these though is the Sonicpoint Wireless. We moved from Procurve AP’s to the Sonicwall Wireless solution when we installed these and it’s so easy to setup it’s untrue. Took half a day to install 16 AP’s across site and configure them using the centralised policies, one change on the NSA and all AP’s update automatically. Was unsure at 1st and we went down the Sonicwall route more for cost efficiency but I’m more than happy with it

I am in the process of testing a few tools for Document Recovery, however the one week I could do with a corrupt document I haven't been sent any. Would anyone know where I could find a purposefully corrupted document for testing purposes? Would rather find a tool what works now then later on. Thanks,

We have a vacancy at my employer for an IT Support Technician based in Central Manchester. We've recently brought all IT in-house (hence me being employed) and we are looking for a Technician to look after the Helpdesk and deal with classroom IT Issues. There will be training within the role to a minimum of ITIL V3 Foundation and the opportunity to learn on the job by shadowing myself and the infrastructure team and hopefully (subject to finance approval) via Microsoft and Mitel training. We have approximately 600 students, 250 PC's and a Server 2008 infrastructure. If you have any questions drop me a PM. The links to this job are: Job Description How to apply