flyinghaggis

Skipping past the anti-MS OpenOffice Fanboy rant (which I think says a lot about your own personal agenda) you've just proven my point in saying that you're running into problems because you're using 2 different systems. If you're knowingly making all of your teaching resources in OO Impress which ,according to you, isn't compatible with Powerpoint then isn't that a bit short-sighted on your part? That means whenever a pupils goes anywhere in the school other than those '3 machines in your dept' they aren't going to be able to view your materials. This is why I spoke about the whole school view as staff&pupils will, quite rightly, expect to be able to view these documents elsewhere in the school. This leads you very quickly down the path of making the software available everywhere on the network. In terms of progressing your request what you should really do is raise it via the relevant channels in your school. You can then sit down with all of the 'players' who your request will ultimately affect (computing dept, IT Support, Office, Headmaster, perhaps PTA if you're suggesting that pupils use it at home) and make an informed decision about the best way forward. Simply wandering along to the Headmasters office and demanding that you get a piece of software when it has so many potential repercussions isn't the way to approach it.

In my opinion the NM has every right to refuse to install Openoffice. I think that if a teacher asked for it here we'd probably refuse it on the grounds that we have an equivalent product (MS Office) that has all of the functionality of openoffice. I would also argue against it on the grounds that it would confuse staff by having 2 systems that do the same thing. That and there's no guarantee that all of the plug-in macro's and add-on programs (mathtype) would work in openoffice. It also introduces the potential for compatability issues between documents made using difference software. eg. I could see staff saving document in OO file format then other staff wondering why they cant open them in MS Word! At the end of the day it makes much more sense for the school to standardize on a single Office application to ensure compatibility and simplify technical support/training. I'm not going say one's better than the other but if the NM/Headmaster have decided on an Office Suite for the whole school to use I don't feel you are really in a position to demand an alternative just because you don't like what the rest of the school's using. I would agree with you in saying that there aren't any security issues associated with open office (or open source software in general). We use plenty of opensource applications but I feel that where there are 2 products offering similar functionality a business/school needs to make a call and pick one or the other.

You just need to add the file extension you want to block into the 'designated files types' list. Then you can add a disallow path rule for 'H:\' and it'll automatically block everything on the file types list from running on that entire drive

The program can actually be run by multiple users at the same time from a shared mapped drive so you don't actually need to package/deploy it to make it available. That's how we run it at our school. Given there's no registry changes or shared dlls/etc packaging it should just be a simple case of adding the install folder and files in it to a straightforward MSI (In the even that you decide you want to use it off network or dont want the extra traffic/overhead of a mapped drive).

Seriously How can you gaurauntee any kind of security on the network if you let pupils wonder about with their own laptops with god only knows what viruses and hacking utilities/programs loaded onto them!

We're looking for a dedicated printer that can be used for printing labels for envelopes. Our general office staff have developed an annoying habit of putting crinkled envelopes though the printer and insist on putting laser printer labels through the printer several times even though you're only supposed to use them once. The envelopes/labels combined with the glue seem to jam inside the printer, wrap themselves around the rollers/drums and jigger the thing irreparably If I had my way I'd make them hand-write all of their letters, after breaking several printers as a result of their stupidity, but can anyone recommend a label printer for this task as I've a feeling management probably wont go with the above suggestion! Ideally it should be networkable but failing that a USB one that has signed drivers so it can be moved from PC to PC would also be OK. I've had a look at some from Dymo that cost around £70. Any recommendations? TIA

All advice I've read suggests you should never use any ADSL USB modem with Vista as many of it's features aren't deisgned with using a modem in mind. That plus most DSL modem drivers are ancient and designed for use with windows XP. Buying a cheap-ish DSL Router would be a much better option than trying to troubleshoot modem issues IMO.

It's over your budget by £100 but the Dell XPS1330 is very fast/fully featured and very light. Not to mentioned it looks seriously bling which is generally the main criteria for most of the Headmasters I've met £599 http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1330?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

In the last year we've noticed a lot of problems with various pieces of software crashing with random errors and weird graphical glitches appearing. We eventualy found out that the problems only occurred on the PCs we've bought over the last 2 years. Dell Optiplex GX620s and GX745s. After spending days worth of our time we eventually tracked the issue down to some kind of compatability issue with the AT/AMD Radeon cards (x1300/x600) that we had fitted to these machines. The program in question (Birchfield Chemistry Lessons) kept crashing with a projector error whenever we tried running it as a limited user. We've also had similar issues with Google Earth and several pieces of technology software. After spending this morning running tests to find out the cause it turns out that it's because of some debug code that's been left in the bloody driver. Whenever you launch a program that calls any kind of OpenGL routine the ATI driver decides it's going to create a file in the root of C:\ drive called modulename.txt . Because most users (quite rightly) wont have access to create a file in the root of the system drive this causes the software to crash! Allowing read/write access to this file once it's created allows affected software to run without a problem though it's a far from ideal solution. NB. I've just dowloaded the latest version of the driver from AMD's site and catalyst version 8 no longer has the issue but the bug's existed on every version 7 driver we tried So we've now got the choice to roll out a package to over 200 PCs to allow access to a file on the root of the system drive for everyone or update the Catalyst drivers on 200 computers. All because ATI/AMD screwed up and didnt remove what appears to be debugging code from their driver! NOT a happy bunny

I've not seen that particular model 'in the flesh' before but I have to say it looks good. The specification seems pretty potent for the price aswell.

http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html MWSnap FTW!

thread resurrection! I've just found that our Junior LS teacher is still using successmaker software on a 10 year old standalone PC that's dropped off our audit and we'd forgotten about! We've no backups and no apparent way of recovering the software if that PC should failed (very likely given it's age). I've had a read through the forum and everyone suggests that successmaker (even newer versions) is massively overpriced and a complete headache to deploy on a windows XP network. Are there any alternatives out there? We use RM Maths for numeracy assessment so it would probably only really need to cover the reading/writing part of the software?

First one I've seen this year so far as one of our teaching staff has decided to forward onto everyone in the school! It is (alledgedly) a virus that opens as an Open Log Fire and will burn the whole hard disc in your computer. ! Just a cheap variation on the olympic torch hoax but it doesn't appear to be on most AV lists yet so I've attached it below:- Subject: Virus !! !!PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING: PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING: You should be alert during the next days: Do not open any message with an attached file called 'Merry Christmas' regardless of who sent it, It is a virus that opens as an Open Log Fire and will burn the whole hard disc in your computer. This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list, that is why you should send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it. If you receive a mail called 'Merry Christmas', though sent by a friend, do not open it and shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced, it has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept

I remember looking at this when I was buying a new computer just over a year ago. The chipset the GX620 and most of Dell's other Pentium D based systems weren't conroe compatible at the time. IIRC it wsa something to do with the voltage being different (or certainly nothing that a BIOS update could fix) so I'm pretty sure that you wont be able to use a Core2Duo on a GX620 unfortuntely

Just finished playing Crysis earlier today and what a complete anti-climax that was. I was really enjoying the first 2/3rds of the game where you get free roam of huge maps. You can pick your tactics and fight against intelligent enemy soldiers who work together against you. The selection of vehicles was really cool as were the special abilities activated by the nano-suit.................. THEN the aliens appear and freeze the place! This breaks all of the cool vehicles and kills off all of the aforementioned intelligent enemies replacing them with retarded matrix squid rejects who fly blindly at you. The huge open maps get replaced with linear sections floating down alien corridors and you're on a dull monotonous fixed path until the game ends. The ending scene in the game is full of bugs aswell. I lost track of how many times I fell through the floor of the ship AND to make matters worse the game ends on a cliffhanger that makes me forgive Halo2 completely because at least halo had an interesting plot and was fun to play until the end! It just feels like they rushed it go get the game out before xmas without bothering to finish it properly (Typical EA).

Providing they own the laptop then it's legal. If it's a school computer they're using for work then AFAIK at that point they (and inherently the school) are in breach of copyright as soon as they copy/download the music onto the laptop. Why? I don't see why it changes the legality of what they're doing. Do you have any case law to back this up? Can't quote any case studies off-hand but when you buy a CD the T&C's only entitle you personally to listen to music you buy in your own home. As others have said if you follow the rules strictly you don't even have the right to rip/backup the music (in this country at least) as it counts as duplication which is also prohibited. It's only because the BPI tends to turn a blind eye to things like this that it's tolerated rather than explicitely allowed. The school doesn't have any rights to this copyrighted material so if it's put onto the schools laptop/servers it's illegal as it would be covered under distribution of copyrighted material. IMO it's shocking how little right we have to Music/Movies we buy but that's the law AFAIK (or at least what it says on Movies/DVD you buy) :?

Providing they own the laptop then it's legal. If it's a school computer they're using for work then AFAIK at that point they (and inherently the school) are in breach of copyright as soon as they copy/download the music onto the laptop.

I'd recommend against it on the grounds that it put you into a legal quagmire. If a member of staff downloads an itunes song (or rips music off a CD) even though it may have been legal for them to do it at home the fact that it's on a laptop owned by the school means that it's almost certainly illegal. I expect they've a clause in their contract to say it's only for personal/home use. The other problem is if that person leaves or gives the laptop to someone else you are without a doubt in breach of copyright. Ideally you should get SMT to agree that staff dont get admin rights on the laptops so you can control what software they're using on them.

Alice worked pretty pretty much flawlessley since we've run it with relatively few issues(>5 years). Oliver on the other hand seems to be full of bugs and issues which really should have been fixed by now given how long it's been out for. The stock response from Softlink support seems to be 'We've tried it and it just works so it must be your setup....!'. We've not done anything unusual and all that's in our database are the files they've converted themselves from our old Alice install! I can't help but feel they've bought in the system from someone else, chopped it to fit and nobody in Softlink tech support has any real understanding of the how it all hangs together.

Some of the extra functionaly is really useful. Especially the file server resource quota and filtering management. The File access enumeration (so users can only see files they can access) is also unbelivably useful. I cant believe we managed for so long without the above facilities! The print management isn't quite as fully featured as we'd like unfortunately though so we ended up buying a 3rd party piece of software (print manager plus) to give us more control over what users can print.

Yeah, It's amazing M$ haven't thought to setup some kind of management facility for windows mobile PDA's yet. At the very minimum for a device used on a company/school network you'd expect somekind of auto-setup facility and the ability to lock down what applications can be installed on it to stop staff breaking it. Mind you what good's all that if you can simply wipe any passwords and settings by removing the battery 8O We've had requests in the past to give a PDA to every staff member but without some structured way to manage them it'd be a full time job for someone just maintaining them.

Thanks for the repies. We've used wink and it's pretty effective but we were really just after something that would let you take multiple screenshots without having to copy>paste into a paint package every time you took one. MWSnap looks like the one best suited to our needs so far. It's pretty impressive given it's freeware and doesn't require an install which is always a bonus. Cheers :cheers:

We've just recently changed from PaintShop Pro to Photoshop CS3. In the main the software's a big improvement but the one thing that appears to be lacking is that Photoshop has no facility for capturing screenshots. Paintshop Pro used to let you set up hot keys for screen grabs and let you capture multiple screen shots at a time which was really useful for creating training materials. Obviously you can still use PRINT SCREEN and then copy/paste the screen into Photoshop but it's a slightly cumbersome way of doing it. Does anyone know of any (preferably free!) software for grabbing screenshots?

What if one of the kids want to use a floppy disc or a pen drive? If we get another IT suite and have to buy furniture this is probably the route we'll go down aswell. We haven't had a massive amount of vandalism but generally there's no reason for the pupils to have access to the PC chassis itself. You could buy USB extension cables for a couple of quid and mount them on top of the desk so that pupils can use memory sticks. Though having said that we're nearly at the point where we're comtemplating stopping pupils connecting USB devices en masse (perhaps with just a single PC for copying across material in each room). More often than not they're simply loaded with all kinds of illegal, harmful and dubious material rather than genuine schoolwork.

I wouldn't have said that there was any problem paying that for a vauxhall. Most new cars will loose 50% of their value in the first 3 years? If you buy a new one for £14k and then sell it in 3 years time the odds are it will only have cost about £2k a year to run which aint too IMO bad given it's a brand new car with 3 years warranty. I'd have thought you'd have been able to get a 3-door astra for a good bit less than book price as most dealers will happily discount new ones by several grand? Mind you I notice that my local dealers are selling new FOCUS ST's for £17k and you can get a new Impreza WRX for £17k just now aswell. Admittedly neither would be as cheap to run/insure as the Astra but they give you a lot more bang for your buck :twisted: