CyberNerd

yep. been there and done that. Many years back I managed to rm -rf an entire UNIX web server.

I'm sure there are - but I don't think any of the things you mentioned are beyond fixing.

It's been our default browser for a couple of years now, no real issues.

and put /var onto another filesystem

Ok enough already. I just think its too expensive when you can put a sub £300 desktop in a classroom and get staff to bring in their own tablets if they want them.

I can remote to it

I don't understand your logic at all. Rather than fix an infrastructure problem which causes compatibility issues with non windows devices you'd be prepared to buy touch screens at £600 a piece. I would recommend buying cheaper laptops and spend some money on a more flexible infrastructure.

I guess. If you really wanted to and didn't care about things like storage space. Im a low end user anyway and my work pc only ever struggles if its running more than 4 virtual machines simultaneously. Its a higher spec than a surface pro and cost about £500

I dont think that's how joe public sees it. Its not going to be any better on facebook. And would you really want a tablet as your gaming machine? or to use at work 8hrs per day on a screen like that? Id rather spend less on a secondary device.

It's way too expensive for a tablet. I don't think people are willing to pay that much, no matter what its specifications are on paper. The RT was more reasonably priced and that's already turned out to be a massive flop with manufacturers halving their production

I suspect it is because I have been 'doing the BYOD thing' (at the direction of our senior teachers) it is why I have been neglecting MS operating system upgrades. Now we have this all in place with web apps, cloud storage and so on I'm now looking at the windows side of things. The only pressing reason we have to upgrade is XP support ending in 2014. I'd sooner look after 200 BYOD's than 100 Windows domain computers. Users take more responsibility and tune the device to their liking, it costs less and software is easier to deploy.

We've hardy made 'little changes'. We just adopted a different methodology that centered around what SLT and users wanted to do (BYOD, webapps) before MS 'allowed' us to do it. The other side is that we have to continue to support legacy windows apps. My question was really whether we should adopt windows 8 to keep pace with TIFKAM apps (as i mentioned all our other apps are supported on XP) or whether we should ignore them. Others suggested ignoring them - which leaves me to think there is no reason to upgrade XP if I can put it on ICA or virtualised.

We used to use Tivoli for deployment. It is an exceptional piece of software - but it was VERY expensive for us as it needed a bunch of addons that we couldn't afford. ( endpoint sounds like such an add-on) It is really enterprise grade and is a bit too overkill for less than 1000 pc's. We couldn't justify the cost.

We use Chrome and ICA. IMO they are both better than their windows counterparts. They are both cross platform. From a management perspective I'd rather just plug them in and forget about it. Chromebooks look way better for scenario!. but hey -I'm lazy I don't. it gets Virtualised. Did you know that Virtual XP boots faster than virtual windows 7 on the same hardware? you got me on the login. The login processes is way too slow. Anyway -I'm still wondering if we should go straight to windows 8. I still don't see any advatages of moving to windows 7. TIFKAM would be the biggest advantage so far and I don't even like it.

We have windows XP because it is a) supported b) runs everything we need c) is as fast as Win7 on our hardware d) saved us a huge amount of time money and stress by upgrading to every new windows since e) users don't even USE the operating system. Lets face it - windows explorer and notepad are the only useful native windows applications anyway.

Staff and students couldn't care what operating system they use. As far as they are concerned they use applications. XP still supports applications. They would care if they couldn't find their applications. I'm half tempted to just put them onto linux. In out tests we booted an 8yr old laptop into Fedora vs a new Corei3 Windows7. Fedora was on youtube before Win7 had even got to the logon screen.

There is already some pretty good and well documented tools. Spacewalk, for example (commercially available through canonical or Redhat) is a fantastically easy way to deploy and update linux. You can send out any type of update or policy to multiple clients, be it a security policy, package or fix. It is web enabled, so if I want to update any of my clients I just log into the web interface, select the package and hit 'deploy'.

I agree with this. The writing has been on the wall for some time. Of course, you can still centrally manage and deploy linux desktops should you want to.

Google apps calendars has a specific section for resources such as rooms or pieces of equipment. From what I remember you just create the resource, set the hours it is available, and share with staff. Schedule resources via Google Calendar - Google Calendar Help

Windows Blue: Microsoft’s plan to release a new version of Windows every year | ExtremeTech

Which doesn't even have our schools IP range in it!!!

Thanks - that looks good. I also found a database: MaxMind APIs: GeoLite Free Downloadable Databases

It has to be possible - the BBC do it! I found this MaxMind APIs: mod_geoip2 Apache module but annoyingly this is the only IIS site I run !!!! is there an equivalent IIS module

Does anyone know where I can get the range of UK location based IP addresses to that I can enforce a UK only block on a web service?

not on a google domain - it works out less bandwidth than hosting mail yourself