Jake

Hi there , welcome aboard. I havent bothered to inform our LEA about it, I have to admit that if I was to tell our LEA of Edugeek they would just phone me up and want to know what this "intanet" thing is, and how to start it up. Some of the things our LEA has phoned us up about asking how/what to do are hilarious. (like..what using a * in a search does) Dont get me wrong, I am not saying that they are behind the times, but last time I went to their offices they were heating them by rubbing two sticks together

You mean , to suggest that they worked in Harmony?? AHA !..ahaa ...haha....hahahah...harmony see....ahaha...music teachers....ahaha..ahah....ahem. mmm...I'll get my coat

Absolutely, I should clarify that professionally I would never use any form of warez. Privately however...is a whole different ball game

Starforce isnt too much of a problem anymore, the warez group ReLoaded have been pretty effective at cracking it. Though its getting more and more rare for companies to use Starforce now

Now theres weird !! I just installed Cubase with the little blue dongles myself yesterday

I have to admit that I know alot about the warez scene, and frankly I have yet to see any piece of software that has "locked" pirates out. Some companies have spent millions on various forms of "protection", only to have some group crack it in seconds. My money would be on either Dynam1cs or PRCD groups cracking it first. On the whole its always appeared that pirates are far better at doing what they do than the companies producing the software are at stopping it. I agree with Geoff, mere seconds after release, someone will have cracked it

Bah..down here the local hospital isnt even allowed to tell us what the sex is. No matter how much we asked all through our pregnancy, they refused to say.

I would be interested in giving it a try too, we've tried a few different solutions and none have yet been quite right.

The most common one that kids have been using here lately is https://pipeproxy.com , that one seems to often get through stuff, at least until we added the exact url on our ISA server

Antiexe from Faronics Software will do it, if you dont mind a pay solution

Nice

Hehe..to give you some idea of the standard of ours, one this morning couldnt get his pc working (was because he hadnt switched it on), another couldnt get anything to display on his whiteboard via the projector (hadnt pressed source on the projector for pc), and another had "printer problems in the class" (was because it had run out of paper)

Yeah, we tried mrbs but the staff just couldnt get to grips with it. Our staff are not the most proficient in the use of anything PC related , it really needs to be a booking system with an absolute minimum of options and fields to fill in. Webmans looks perfect for us from what I can see of the screenshots

Got to admit, that looks really nice, very aesthetically pleasing Any ETA on a downloadable version?

True..my mistake, I didnt mean to come over as bleating, I just meant to discuss SIMS, to partake in a discussion not necessarily come up with answers. I should say that my thoughts on SIMS are entirely my own, and do not represent the views of any others. For the difference between good and bad software, you are right..I guess that comes down to whether its good or bad from the viewpoint of the individual using it. I am sure there are some schools around the country for whom SIMS runs largely flawlessly, and who thus think its a terrific piece of software. For me I have had troubles with it for 6 years or so, had troubles with its old DOS incarnation, and its new fangled .Net version. So you can see why my viewpoint on it is somewhat..tainted Anyway, thats where I am coming from, I shall leave this discussion now to others who can look at SIMS good qualities somewhat more objectively than I

Obviously everything has glitches, but even so, I still wouldnt buy something which is poor and be happy that its got good maintenance. I would just buy something of better quality in the first place. Maybe thats just me, but thats how I am, I like to buy decent quality stuff rather than poor slop which is well supported. To use a software analogy, I would rather buy a decent game, which has limited patches, than buy a lesser game which has regular patches. Likewise I would rather buy a decent Office suite, which has less support, than buy a poorer alternative which has decent support. I am more interested in the quality of the original product than how well it gets supported when it breaks, as with a superior product it should be less inclined to break in the first place (although as you rightly say, a glitch of some kind is usually inevitable at some point)

I still expect better from a supposed professional piece of software. I havent checked any alternatives (cause I cant be arsed and its not my place to do so anyway), but to say that its not so bad because others are poor too seems like a silly view. A professional piece of software should be as good as it can be, not merely as good as anyone elses. Everyone here strives to have the best possible network, we dont sit back and say..well it will do running like that cause its still better than other networks, so thats ok. Capita should be doing the same. The support in our area is "ok", its not fantastic...but its definately not poor either. Having said that, if the product was running well enough , the support would be a nonfactor anyway. I personally wouldnt buy a poor car and be satisfied because its got a good maintenance agreement, I would set out to buy a decent car in the first place.

I truly. truly cannot stand SIMS, it has to be one of the worst pieces of software I have ever encountered. Its not in the least bit surprising to me that when the people who had "bunged" money at the labour party was revealed, the chairman (or was it CEO, I forget) of Capita was on the list having "donated" £1 million. I have come to believe that SIMS stands for "Shit In My Systems"

A wise idea, I find that problematic staff and "helpful" parents are usually the ones who make me want to grab the nearest firearm and show them how problematic I can be

/sits in corner plotting world domination

Hey !! I'm not a geek I am a seriously cool tech who rebels against the geek tech stereotype by specificly not being a sad geek and combining a strong dislike of technology with an equally sufficient dislike of geek-like obsessions such as cars, motorbikes and other geek toys !

Ours is something in the vicinity of 110:1 since we took on another tech

We felt like we still had alot to do, but looking at our summer work sheet this morning, we in fact dont have alot left to do. All we have left to do now is put in a couple of PCs here and there, cable the new head of year offices (8 offices), terminate those cables and install the network points, put up the server cabinet for that area, patch the panels and put their PCs in. Overall not too bad

I'd like to second the "good luck" message , october half term is no good to me though..I work all through the summer and half term breaks, which is why its all the more annoying when a teacher returning after a break says to me "Hope you had a nice half term" hehe

I still say tell them to shove it