nickholme

I guess 169

We are using xibo and have 4 large screens with acer veriton n260g units on the back of each. The acer is about 6 in square (although it's not strictly square) and has wifi (but no cd drive). They come with a plate to screw onto the back of a monitor and the veriton clips into place. We have them set to automatically start up so no KB or mouse required. We also have vnc for remote access to the clients if required.

We need a few scanners but they won't be in fixed locations and need to work via USB and without dedicated software. I've checked around and the canon Lide 200 scanners look like they fit the bill. However, can anyone confirm if they just work with XP sp3 or do they still need dedicated drivers. We have a Lide 20 and that doesn't work without dedicated software but it is quite old. Cheers, Nick

School starts in earnest on Monday and I've 6 weeks of junk laying around in one classroom or another. Replaced 32 older PC's over the hols so have to find somewhere to store 20 or so monitors and base units as well. Can't get anything done when teachers are pestering.

Whereabouts in Lancs are you? We are at Hutton near Preston and may be able to do something with you if you are near enough. ring me on 01772 613112 and ask for Nick on ext 136.

I've just managed to sort this - Xibo uses the CPU type and the hard drives volume serial number to identify the machine. When we use ghost to image the machines, the volume serial number ends up the same on each machine. The volume id can apparently be changed manually using a tool called volumeid.exe. Nick

We have 4 new Acer Veriton N260G mini PC's which we intended to use with flat TV's for digital signs, as they fit very neatly on the back of the TV's. However we have encountered a strange problem. When I register the first one with Xibo, it works fine. When I come to register the second one, the display doesn't show up as a second display in Xibo, but changes the name of the one that is currently registered, leaving only one display. If I then re-register the first one, Xibo switches the name of the single display back to the first name. This means that I can only have one display - the last one that was registered. If I register a different type of PC, all works OK. It's as if Xibo is seeing the Veritons as all the same machine although the IP address and computer name are both different. Anyone experienced anything similar or can anyone offer a possible fix? Cheers, Nick

I did some research a couple of years ago into setting up a web radio using open source software. I have attached the final documents - you may find some of it useful. I haven't looked at it for a while so can't guarantee that it is all up to date. Nick Complete FOSS Audio Streaming Guide v1.pdf Case Studies for Streaming Audio v1.doc

you won't get a low enough latency without a decent sound card. The ones on motherboards usually aren't good enough. SB Audigy/X-fi cards will work OK. USB type external souncards also are usually OK. You can get hold of older SB Live cards which won't work with their own drivers, but you can use others called KX project drivers.

How about if someone manages to come up with their own version which addresses the shortcomings, it could be made availabe through edugeek for any other school that wants to try it. I certainly don't have the in depth knowledge to build my own distribution, but I think the eee's are great in principle.

Here at Hutton Grammar, we bought one of these the other day and think they are fantastic - with a couple of reservations about screen size and battery life. We are seriously considering buying these for all our 6th formers and Teachers if not for classroom use as well. We have only had it 2 days so far, but I'll let you know as and when we get it working on the network. Our Head tech didn't seem to see any insurmountable problems while we were having a look last night. I'll check about local storage and printing and post back. As the initial post mentioned, it would be fantastic if everyone pooled their expertise in the early days. I'm going to investigate the use of external memory cards for installing the operating system and booting from, so that we can quickly slip in a clean one if one of the students messes one up. Check out forum.eeeuser.com and http://www.eeeuser.com. As the operating system is Xandros, which I think is Red Hat based, do we have any experts in the house? When I get time, I may install the eee ubuntu distro as I'm more familiar with that. What does anyone else think?