Pete10141748

Yup, we've had "the computers are slow today?" remarks the last few days. Personally I think that it's due to everyone being off the past fortnight and being used to their (in many cases much nicer!) home PCs and Laptops, so that when they come back, they realise all over again just how cr*p the computers here are. Still, after a few days they seem to forget/get used to it again. Staff eh?

ah, mobile laptop suites. The baine of any IT tech's day. We're looking to upgrade our wireless network, as using 25 laptops in a classroom just does not work (TBH, I hate wireless laptops for pupils completely, and see ICT Suites as having so many advantages that there shouldn't even be a debate about it really.....) We were running 1 AP per classroom, so there was always 2 (usually 3) APs in range for the laptops to use. Staggering the logon to 5 at a time, it would take around 20 minutes to get the whole class in and ready to begin teaching. By this point, half the laptops's batteries were dying anyway! We are going to get 3Com AP's, upgrade the switches to Managed Gigbit ones, and pray that this helps out. Even so, you do the math; 1 54Mb/sec AP serving 15 laptops = 3.6Mb/sec per laptop. Take into account network traffic, noise etc. and you are lucky if you'd get a 2 meg-a-second connection. even if you could get a 108Mbps AP, you're still only looking at around 5-6mbps per laptop! Which to me is just stupid, when anyone can walk their class 2 minutes down the corridor and sit them all at a PC in the IT Suite which has a steady 100Mbps cable connection, with no battery worries.

Second vote for Pivot and for 2animate. we have them here and they're nice little programs (esp. Pivot as it's free!) Just watch out for what the kids create though..... We've had some rather *ahem* rude/adult-based animations saved by year 6 pupils in the past!

remove the keyboard keys all together, and tell them that if they can move the keys around and still manage to do their work then they don't really need the keys at all, right? Watch the GCSE kids panic at that one! On a serious note, I would make it known to the SMT / Team leaders / Heads of year etc. that during ICT lesson the pupils are clearly not being observed very well as many have been able to do this re-arranging of the keyboards without being noticed, and so subsequently who knows what else they are doing to/with the PCs beside this?

We've got Sophos here, and we have no problems with it all! We're in our 2nd year of a 5-year deal (which was taken out 18 months before we arrived at the job so not our doing) but yeah, so far no complaints.

If I have a server with 1 quad-core processor, do I need to get Server 2003 R2 to make use of it, or will the standard Server 2003 SP2 work just as well? Cheers!

Test 1; http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2592/62029183us6.jpg Test 2; http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2015/20059168cy7.png Guess it's Official, huh?

EDIT: BAH! Stupid proxy wouldn't let me host/post the image. Grrrrrr.

@SYNACK We've just come out the other end of doing all our documentation. I think that's maybe why we feel there is a "gap" that wasn't there before. For ages now we've spent time each day updating our hardware and software audits, our network and VLP userguides, network "handbook" for any new techies who may come along / replace us when we're gone, licensing portfolio... We seem to have files and folders (physical ones, I mean!) all over the place now I'm sure something'll happen soon enough.....knowing my luck, in repsonse to me posting this topic our server/s will decide to go into meltdown, just for a laugh To sum up, we have the following; 4x servers (1 DNS/file, 1 App, 1 Print and 1 SIMS) Cachepilot (espresso) Anti-virus (Sophos, 5 years, remote deployed and full system coverage) 50 laptops, setup for appropriate users (teachers and students) 2x laptops for Head and Dept.Head (Vista ones, too ) ICT suite, all PCs re-built from scratch (after getting rid of Winsuite!) 21 projectors / smartboards in classrooms 2x portable projectors 1x portable Smartboard Wireless Access Points suficient to cover laptop use anywhere in school Roaming profiles (created .man for pupils and .dat for staff) 11 printers (8 networked) Website (designed and created in the last month, now awaiting going live) VLP (up and running, just not used by staff much) SIMS (admin server and 6 PCs - one of the PCs is the server ) Helpdesk software and some other minor stuff. That's all been done in the last 6 months, so I guess now we have to begin planning for where we want to go next. I guess now that things are running smoothly it would be a good time to start some "professional deveopment" of some sort seeing as we have sufficient time to actually sit down a read a textbook!

Ether of those 2 servers are more than capable of running the WSUS. We have a similar server to your server #1, it runs DNS/DHCP/File storage and WSUS, all works perfectly. You'll need around 50-100GB of your HDD memory free to do it though )

Automatic here, done with WSUS, makes life easier Run with the logoff script Already scheduled task, 1st day back next term is the next one Done over the last 2 days, along with projectors. Don't mean to disount your ideas Jamin Currently awaiting approval for my new design to go "live", and our VLP isn't used by anyone despite us taking weeks to go on training days an setting it all up.... @tech_guy; hmm, that's given me an idea....... At least no-one (yet) has mentioned something thats made me go "AHA! We don't do that and really should!" Thanks for the responses guys

You say that, but in a way it's not as it makes me feel as though I am not doing enough "real work"..... I know that sounds a bit daft, and some of you who go to multiple schools would love to spend a month here doing the (compatively) little actual "work" here Maybe it's just because its the last day of term here, but we are sitting here (on hold with RM for the last 25 minuntes after speaking to 3 people in 2 wrong departments, which doesn't help ) and just kinda wondering if there is something a bit more productive we should be doing...

OK, so, many times now I have read in various posts about how people are "always rushing around, no time for breaks, busy busy busy" etc. especialy during the holidays (those who work during them). Well, my question is this; What do you guys actually DO that makes you so busy all the time? I only ask because me and the techie here seem to have quite a bit of "spare time" as of late, especially since we got the network/wireless set up, profiles sorted and new servers installed, and I'm getting the feeling that there's something we should be doing that I'm missing..... though I have no clue what, and neither does he! Maybe it's because we have (relatively) little equipment here (50-odd laptops and about the same number of PCs)? We don't have in-house internet control or filtering (all done by E2BN, sadly ), we used to assist in lessons but now that Staff are OK with the new system they don't ask us anymore, we have been told so often that we can't spend money on new equipment that it's hardly worth looking into "future ideas" (which I have already done a doc. for anyway)...... Don't get me wrong, we don't just sit around do nothing all day*, I'm just wondering what (if any) "active" things you NM's / Techies do with regards to "network management" as opposed to being "passive troubleshooters / problem solvers" that perhaps we don't do........unless we're just lucky in that nothing ever seems to actually go wrong around here Cheers guys, Pete *from what I remember from being at school and seeing the NM at my Uni, they seemed to spend most of the day drinking coffee and playing solitaire, only venturing out of thier rooms when a problem needed fixing!

You can try deleting all the temporary files, thats worked for us here before. Shortly after though we did away with quotas, they were just getting annoying All our pupils have .man profiles (one login for each class by class name), and save their work in a mapped drive at "\\server\work\pupils\%classname%" That way, they can't add things to the desktop, change settings, delete things etc. as no changes are saved back to the server. If you want logon times to improve, you coud also re-direct the start menu (I haven't done this myself, but I've seen it montioned many times before around here).

I though computers had already taken over our lives? Or am I the only one who never seems to be away from the damned things? That vid is seriously cool. Man may have a new 'best friend', but I'll start prepping the EMP, just in case they "turn" on their masters......

Ive been using Vista at home and at work for a few months now, and I have yet to report a single major productivity-reducing problem - honesty! My Vista Basic laptop (1GB RAM, 2.0Gig AMD Sempron, no SP1 yet) runs Office 2003 with no problems, we have test installed SIMS and no complaints there, all our software works (as we left behind the old 16bit programs now anyway in favour of newer software, which frankly is better), our printers installed fine. The only problem we've had is that one of the "Toner replacement" wizards doesn't work propery on Vista for one of our older printers - this printer is being replaced in a month anyway as it's 3+ years old, and leaking My home PC runs Vista Home Premium (3GB RAM, 3.0Gig Intel Core2Duo, pre-SP1 as well) and while I'm aware that is well over the minimum spec, I haven't had a singe problem yet, and the kit means that (hopefully!) I'm somewhat future-proofed as well.. I hope! All my software from my XP machine works, my printer installed without an issue, connects to my wireless, communicates with my xbox360........ Despite is being pre-SP1, I have had no real issue with the file transfer speeds / extracting / copying speeds. The two very minor problems I have encountered so far; 1) Pubishing a Flash MX file as an animated .gif - the new Windows Media Viewer does not "play" the animation, but this was easily remidied by opening the file in something like GOM player instead, which I already use for other things anyway. 2) Twice IE7 has failed to open when I click on the icon - Task Manager say it is running, but no window opens. However, I suspect that this is (at least partly) the fault of IE7, not explicity Vista? On the plus side, being a "visual" person, I love the look of Vista, and using XP now looks (and dare I say, almost feels) dated. I accept that the majority of people rely on "doing X this way as thats the way we have always done it using XP" which of course is fine; it's just not the way I think about it. To me, an OS is merely another piece of software. I woudn't expect to get an new version of Flash, and it be exactly the same as the previous version; what would be the point? I know that talking about Flash isn't the same as Windows, which people use everyday for everything, but in my mind the same applies. Just because something is different, doesn't make it bad, and as IT people I think we should be willing to look past the initial "change, oo-er, XP is good, don't want to move on" and so forth which is the general feeling I get from reading most of the posts in this section. As for the additional hardware requirements, has it not already occured that other companies' software will being wanting more requirements as well? I know most of the Educational software requires very little, and I agree that Vista for schools is not a good idea yet (mostly because of the cost of upgrading the hardware), but industry-standard software will only continue to get bigger and hungrier for resources - after all, it's how software and hardware developers make their money, isn't it?; I remember making this comment in a post a while ago somewhere, but I truely believe that most of the "Vista bashing" is down to fear of change, dependance on XP, and (for some non-techy folk) the fact that XP is all they have ever used (having not been using computers to go through the 95-98-ME-XP changes). Closing comments; I love Vista. It's big, flash, good lookin' and pleasant to use provided you spend a little time to actually learn this new bit of kit.

Brilliant

I grabbed my Wiimote and retro-fitted an LED Torch (maplins, £3.50 lol) with an IR LED. Works pretty damn well actually, turned my TV into an IWB for less than £10, including the bus home from town too! OK the accuracy is nowhere near an IWB, but then thats to be expected. for the home user, getting a decent IR-torch-pen thing and getting the Wiimote set up in a decent place would be more than sufficient. I shall be investing in a better torch very soon!

I fail to see how an external company can ever compare to in-house support from trained, knowledgable individuals. The who reason myself and the techie got these jobs was due to the fact that the school was so sick of dealing with a crappy outside company that they decided to actively employ in-house staff; hence, us. People who work at a place every day know the site, know the ins and outs, know how it all works, know the staff, know their needs, can anticipate problems arising from past experiences of the site, etc etc. External company can never get to this level; the only way to do it would be to place the same employee of the E.C. on the same site/s each day..... ......hmmm, does thay ring a bell, or is it just me?

OK, now you've got me paranoid, "Matthew", if that IS your real name..............

It doesn't matter that they "expect / don't expect to find", what matters is the potential risk. I'd certainly put all of this in very clear writing, down to the comments made by people, especially that of the caretaker, which is bang our of order; no-one in any job deserves to be spoken to that way. That alone is cause for complaint. I'd tell the bursar that until you get a written H&S risk assesment, signed by the bursar and a proper rep. of the company doing the work declaring it safe for you to work where you are, you're not prepared to work in the vicinity of the area being checked. The whole approach to this situation has been badly handled, from what I've read, and there is no way you deserve to be the victim of someone else's incompetance.

Don't know about getting the Linux Minibook on the AD2003 network, but there's always the option of installing XP on the minibook............

Welcome Matthew. OK thats going to get confusing now,what with you having the same name as my school..... lol

Also, i'd love to know how, in the last photo, the larger truck which is "falling" into the river managed to be IN FRONT of the other crane truck, and not broken in half on top of it! Look at it again and you'll see what I mean

Whatever way you decide to do it, an audit needs to be done. Its your job to make sure the school is abiding by the Licensing Laws (as it is mine at my school ) and its not enough to just trust the ICT-Coordinator to have done it right, IMO. When we started here back in July last year, there was no record of anything really, so one of our first jobs was to make a complete Hardware and Software audit. The school has no fancy audit sotware, so we had to go from machine to machine to do it (around 75 laptops and 35 Pcs), it took th best part of a few days, but having the audit has been useul ever since. Luckily most of our software is Site Licensed so we didn't have much bother with most of the software being installed. On the plus side, once the audit is done, it's done, save for adding the few new items you get along the way. And having the lists has been useful to us quite a few times in the last 9 months! Pete