docboggle

We have a new child in school that suffers from dyslexia. They find things a lot easier when using a coloured page. I know you can buy coloured filters to put over books and computer screens, but does anyone know if there is a simple piece of software that could replicate this effect by just tinting the screen?

Next episode, Lair of the Leviathan, released 29th September

I would say avoid a Samsung CLP 300 at all costs. I bought two to use in our school, a few months apart so not part of the same batch, and they are now both useless. One lasted just over a year (just past the warranty) and the other lasted a year and a half. Both of them developed the same fault - fading printing on the left hand side. This is due to the imaging drum wearing out. I can understand this after a lot of printing, but one of them was barely used. The imaging drum costs £50 more than I paid for the printer!

I have been experiencing this on a few of our PCs over the past month or so. It will occasionally successfully grab an update or two, or pick some up through auto update. The weird thing with mine is that the updates work perfectly on my laptop through my home connection, but not through the school Synetrix say it's nothing to do with them, but nothing has changed otherwise.

Now, I know there are a few old gamers out there. And I guess there are a few fans of the Monkey Island series. What you may not know (I only came across it a few days ago) is that there is a brand new Monkey Island game out now! Telltale Games - Tales of Monkey Island This new game is being released in 5 parts. Two have been released already, and the third is due any time now. I must say I have enjoyed the new games so far and, once you get used to the slightly awkward interface, it is some good old grog fuelled fun! And for those who want to relive the old days, they have release the original game in a new special edition "HD" version. LucasArts.com | The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition Get practising your insult sword fighting!

While browsing on LifeHacker, I came across a service in the US called ImHonest.com. This is where you register you phones, laptops, etc and put a sticker on them so that people can contact you (via ImHonest) should it be found. ImHONEST.com | Online Lost and Found Service, ID Tags & Labels to Report and Return Items of Value Has anyone ever come across a similar service in the UK? Any good or bad experiences?

You can pick it up from FileHippo Here Not got the CC3 package though. Sorry.

I have recently shifted our primary school servers (2x servers + 1 UPS) into a room a little larger than your airing cupboard (aprox. 2m x 2m x 3m high). I have put vents in the top and bottom of the door, but have got no extraction in there. The temperature reaches 27C in there. However, this weekend will be the first full weekend with the door kept closed for longer than 18 hours. My backup plan, should the temperature be getting too high, will be to add an extractor into the ceiling into the loft space (which is absolutely massive!).

I'm afraid I didn't. I still have a dead laptop for me to look at over the summer holiday. I ended up switching the hard drive with a spare laptop that I had so that the user could just carry on.

I am really interested in getting this onto our CC3 system. Are there any estimated release dates? It's something I want to implement during our summer holiday, so will go for the earlier version if the release is later than that.

I have tried with and without compatibility mode.

Okay, I have made the big step and, with a little bit of direction (thanks to GrumbleDook and Nick at LP+) I am starting to move with our learning platform. I am hitting a few issues with switching to 'Explorer View' to view/modify files. I am getting "Please wait while Explorer View is loaded. If Explorer View does not appear, your browser may not support it.". Has anyone else faced/fixed this problem? I use IE8 and have added the site into my trusted sites.

It's not a major problem for us, but just thought I'd mention it to save anyone some grief. Looking at it now, I agree the username is a much better option for anominininty (can never spell that word!). We originally introduced the other version to make it easier for our kids to email each other (easier to work out).

Just a little warning for anyone that uses the EMBC email. I came across an issue where an adult and child were given exactly the same email address, which causes a little bit of a problem. If you have your site email format set to [forename-initial][surname][N]@domain, an adult (eg. John Smith) will be given the same email address as a child (eg. Joanne Smith). This is because the child and adult databases are completely separate, so would not generate unique addresses (ie. jsmith@domain and jsmith1@domain). Thankfully, our children have not yet used their email, so we have changed our format to username@domain. It is something that Synetrix are aware of, and will hopefully be fixed by the October update. Just be careful when you are generating your new addresses for the new school year.

Remembering back to the original tuition I was given on LP+, quite a while ago, there was some talk regarding email, and whether the Synetrix EMBC email addresses could be used within LP+ (and a single-sign on). Did this progress any further? Or does LP+ still work with completely different emails?

Hmmm, thought I would try swapping the RAM with a working machine. Turned on the machine, and found the BIOS clock had reset. Put in the correct time, booted up into Windows, logged in, and after 2 minutes the laptop resets by itself and resets the BIOS clock again. Thought I would then leave it for a few minutes in BIOS to see what happens. Clocks seems happy ticking away, lulling me into a false sense of security! Press the + to change the time and it freezes again. "Curiouser and curiouser!" Cried Alice!

My latest experience with some Fujitsu-Siemens laptops has got me puzzled. Aside from the batch of Amilo Pro V3515 loosing all their screws by themselves, and the whole batch now running at snails pace, one of them is experiencing some further strange symptoms. The laptop is randomly freezing (in Windows, bootup, and even in BIOS), shutting down, or just not booting at all (press power button, power light comes on and fans, but nothing else). I have tried reseating the HD and RAM. No evidence of overheating. Can anyone please give me any ideas?

Thanks to everyone, especially GrumbleDook (who now has all of my details, so there is no escape!) I am facing Option 1 of GrumbleDook's post, and was advised by Nominet that it will incur £10+VAT charge. Will try to sweet talk them though

I am helping out a Northamptonshire school set up their emails. However, they have not been allocated a .northants.sch.uk domain. Can anyone point me in the right direction as who I need to speak to to get one set up for them?

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. It looks like something worked as it is no longer shrinking the prints.

The way the laptops work is that they are totally independant of the server. Standard Windows XP Pro laptops that do not actually "log-on" to the server, but use the printer effectively as a network share. Consequently, there are not matching profiles on the laptop and server. Not the ideal set-up, but it was set-up like this when I joined the school!

@bossman: This is not a problem on a CC3 computer. This is a problem on non-CC3 teacher laptops that just print via the network. Therefore, deleting profiles is not an option on this occasion.

That is one of the first things I tried. Including restoring to default. I have tried it again, but still shrinking pages.

Bit of a long post, so sorry for it all. Just trying to get all the information in... We have a rather unusual problem that has started this week. Some prints that are being sent to our network A4 printer are being shrunk to A5 and be stuck in the bottom corner of the page. It is a CC3 network (although prints are from teacher laptops that are not connected via CC3). The printer is a HP Color LaserJet 2550 Ln. As far as I can see, when the users print out in Word, if the Page Setup is set to Letter instead of A4, it decides to shrink it to A5 to "fit it on the page"! As you can image, asking everyone to check to see if every document they go into is set to A4 is causing a bit of upset! (Although I have got them to change default to A4 for all new documents). This has not been a problem before, and documents that used to print fine are being shrunk. I have checked server printer settings (all set to A4). I have tried removing the printer and re-installing onto server. The only recent change to the server was a HP ColorJet 970CXi being added recently through a Netgear PS101v2 parallel print server. I have subsequently removed this printer from the server printers, but am still having problems. Anyone got any ideas? Please? (Commencing begging!)

Has anyone upgraded the memory on a HP Laserjet 2550Ln? We are having problems with printing (files being to big for the 64Mb built in memory). I have read it takes 100-pin SDRAM, but a certain type of chip. Anyone got any suggestions to where I could go? (Cheaper the better!)