Pete10141748

Ideally I'd like to keep the towers away from prying fingers (that includes staff as well!) as SO many times I've walked into the ICT Suite to find cables unplugged, towers moved around the desks etc. No need for anyone to access the CD drive on the PCs in an ICT Suite (at least not here so far anyway), everything is network run or locally installed by us. A cable to the USB / USB in the monitor / USB in the keyboard seems a good way to go if USB access is needed. At the moment we have everything on the desk - monitor:tower:tower:monitor pattern to give enough room to seat 2 students per screen (sadly we've only 14 machines )

We hide it here for everyone except Admin staff. No complaints so far, staff know that once something is gone its gone so they have got into the habit of saving things!

Is it worth getting? (I'm talking about personal use here, nothing to do with school, though I might use it at work for some things) I had placed an order for the 2GB Surf version (the non-webcam cheaper one) from Play.com but then they screwed up the order so I had to cancel it Now I see the new 8.9" screen version is coming soon, though at over £300 it seems a little expensive considering you can get a laptop at almost 3x the spec at very little more cost So I'm toying with wether I'll either stick with the idea of ordering the cheaper 2Gb one: Asus Eee PC 700-2G / 512Mb Ram Linux Mini Laptop or maybe upping the spec and going for the 4Gb one with camera.... But mostly I'm wondering if it's actually worth it? So, has anyone got one of these? Either for work or for themselves? If so, which version did you get? What do you use it for? How does the battery fare? I've heard the touchpad has issues too? Any other general review-type things to say about it? Thanks in advance guys! Pete

Definately get everything you do documented. As Button_Ripple said, here we use SomeHelp which is a nice little Access database (free too! ) I also keep a Word document of "Work done" over a period of time (6 months or so) as I feel that in this job, looking on a day-by-day basis of work done can be misleading; quite often we get very S-L-O-W days where very little actual "work" needs doing and we spend time doing "research" into other aspects of ICT, whereas other days can be a constant rush and you feel like you've done 2 days work at the end of one! Better to showcase your work "this week / fortnight" than "today" or "yesterday" I feel. and yes, Dan sounds like a real ar$e - sad thing is, there'll always be someone like that wherever you work (at least in my experience!)

Powerpoint? Photostory? hell, you could even do it in flash if you had the time!

H&S training for working at heights, eh? The techie and I usually just jump up on a couple of tables to sort out projectors! Use Air Duster to clean them, fortunately I am tall enough to reach the projectors to do this without the need for my feet to leave the floor

Luckily I've not had this sort of thing happen (yet!) I would have imagined that a re-skinning would cost quite a bit, and it appears that it does! As for pens, we're putting this poster next to each board, so there's no excuses from now on (even for Cover teachers )

I concur, Testbase is a bl00dy awful piece of software (from an tech/admn POV anyway!) Too bad the staff here seem to love it, or I'd chuck it out

Not sure about that one. Could depend on your JD. If you are employed purely as an "ICT Technician" then you are responsible for the day to day runnning of the computers - nothing more. If you are actually full-on Managing the ICT though, you might have less luck getting out of it. I agree that, technically, its a 3rd party system which is out of your own hosted network. On the other hand, it is operating on your network, and you are most likely responsible for network / software running correctly etc, in which case the training would probably be seen as an essential part of that. Personally, I wouldn't mind some training on new systems - good to expand your knowledge base, plus you get a "day out" so to speak

Here we clean the filters about once every 2 months (usually just before a half-term break). We've also planned take them down and give them a thorough clean at the end of each year (july time) though we've not been here a year yet so no idea as to how that will go Overheating is a big problem as well, so keep advising staff to turn them off whenever they don't need them (90% of the time this will fall on deaf ears, but some will take notice )

Cheers for the help guys. Between Button_Ripple and me we have managed to get FMS installed. Now we have the problem that we cannot get the database link to work - it keeps asking for a username and password for the server, which we do have, but doesn't work. Any ideas? does it need to be a SIMS/FMS username and password? Or would it be an admin-specific one that capita use? Cheers!

Anyone used a Dell PowerEdge installation CD? Its the one the comes with a server if you buy it without an OS pre-installed. It runs an app that you enter the OS info into (product ket, date time etc.) then put in the OS CD and it completes the install automatically. I tried doing this this afternoon but it seemed to get stuck after I put in the Server 2003 OS disk (after the Dell app CD has requested me to). Maybe I was just being impatient with it, but when a system sits at 74% for around 25 minutes I get suspicious

thats gotta be borderline illegal! how can schools expect to put in such pi$$ poor amounts of funding and get modern, fully-fledged systems? Its all B*ll**ks if you ask me. If our admin department can afford to spend £100 on a clock, £300 on a PC for the nurse who works 4 hours a day and mostly makes tea, and almost £4000 for a SIMS-compatible fingerprint-scanner-signin-and-signout system, why on earth are they so reluctant to actually put funding into things that are used for TEACHING. Sometimes I have to remind myself I work in a school, and not just a giant showcase of flashy gimmicks to impress parents.

everything is bizarre here, not just the politics We haven't *explicitly* been told not to call it a strike, but everyone seems very sensitive about the word. I think the teachers taking part want to think of it as something more than just a "strike" (a term which, for a lot of people, would conjour up such thoughts as "lazy", "greedy" etc) and see it as them "taking action". Yeah, right. We all know they just want a day off and more cash; based on the cars I see in the carpark, the holiday photos all over the network etc. I'd like to see a lot of them survive on the meager wages we recieve. And as someone else pointed out, they couldn't have picked a worse time of the year to strike, they clearly arn't that fussed about teaching the kids, right? On a side note, of course, we all know that if we techs went on "industrial action" for a day, the majority of schools would half fall apart. But of course, then all the other staff would complain they couldn't teach, call us greedy, and so on. At the end of the day, what the teachers are trying to do is say to everyone "HEY! Look, if we refuse to work, schools dont work and kids don't learn". Its borderline extorsion/blackmail! A techie strike for more pay with us lot saying "Look, if we refuse to work, the server log will go unchecked and you'll have to put paper in the printer yourself....." sadly wouldn't have the same effect, I fear.

Personally I'd make sure I could tick all the following boxes; Written permission from parents to video the show Written permission from parents for said video to be sold to public Written permission from parents for children's names to be used in credits of the film Permission / License / Royalty agreement from owners of music used in the video for said music to be used in a commercial DVD+Video which will be sold to public for profit Name of track, artist, and record company in the credits for each track used Otherwise just keep it for internal use.

£42 per pupil and that's not taking into account that a majority of the budget will be spent on staff, not pupils. How are we supposed to survive on that!?!?!

We have a (reported) 13 members of staff taking "industrial action" (not allowed to call it a strike *wtf* ) Everyone has been told the school is still open, kids are still in as normal. Quite how we're going to manage with less than half the number of Teachers in, God only knows! As for setting up laptops for students to work on.... HAH! That'd never work here. Our laptops have to be plugged in with a power cable just to turn on

We keep the paper copies of all licenses, scans of these paper copies in jpeg format, and an Access database which we use to store all info about software and its licenses. Access is a pain to setup, but it definately works if you get it right!

Yes, 4 people were let go. It was a sad day for M$

Yeah we've had that here a few times, although fair enough the CT asks us nicely to help him out, and I don't mind as the caretaker here is a good guy and we have a laugh. Plus I'd feel bad if he had to do it himself, I know I'd be pi$$ed off if it was me and someone else didn't bother to help me! Of course, if I was actually *ordered* by someone in the SMT to do something like this, first thing I'd ask for is a Risk Assessment, what Health and Safety they have in place to ensure the moving of the equipment was safe, what would happen to my job if I were to hurt my back and be off for weeks, etc etc...........

My job title is "ICT Manager", which translates as "anything and everything that needs doing that is remotely to do with ICT is up to you" Myself and the Techie here built the school's website between us (not live yet waiting on Head's approval ) TBH I'm happy to do anything they ask me to do (wel, almost anthing ) wether it's in my actual JD or not - I'd rather do something new and learn about it than say "sorry, thats not part of my job..."

I use my PDA for the calendar / timeplanner email + internet on the move remote access to computers when I'm away from my desk making quick notes when a thought occurs (not too often though ) List of "things to do" Easier to take to a meeting to make notes than a laptop music/games for the journey home

This has been around for a while now http://www.edugeek.net/forums/blue-skies/14331-desktop-vr-displays-using-wiiremote.html (Old thread about it) I actually tried it with good results! Not enough to keep using it all the time though

I've had that problem twice, once with a VPL_EX3 and once with an EX1. Both times Sony took it back and sent us a new one. No info on what the problem was though

Check out Laptops Direct - Buy Cheap Laptops in the UK. Laptop Computers, Cheap Notebooks, New Cheap Laptop, Used and Refurbished Laptops. Find bargain Laptop Computers for Home or Business. and look at their LapCabby units. Not got them here, but they look quite reasonable