Joedetic

Veritas Backup exec is what my school used (before i left and went to uni...not that they used it and stopped....you get the idea ) I always found that to be a nice userfriendly piece of software that did as it was told and made restoring and backing up files a relatively easy task in comparison to something like NT Backup. I've used NT backup in the past and found it unstable if i try to perform a full system restore. The other thing was it didnt seem to restore the correct permissions. I had a backup of an old SIMS SQL 200 server and i restored some files to a folder as a backup-restore-test...it turns out that i then couldnt delete that folder once done...even as admin :S

Ebay is your friend for some things. We ebayed about 200 or some silly number of SATA leads, a tonne of IDE leads and also a joblot of IEC power leads ("kettle leads"). We also had some spare stuff like camera batteries etc that we were never going to use. ITWombat, i'd suggest e-bay...someone'll want them! We /did/ have one of the old RM System base servers that ran NT4 along with an old RM proxy server running NT4 also, and if i remember correctly the old RM CC2.5 server. The LEA came and took them away for us

What makes a really horrid job is cleaning brick dust out of servers and switches etc. He'd have fun doing that. But of course...if there isnt any already in there then it's not recommended to add it to the mix I remember when we had some comms guys come to move the internet line to our server room...they didnt put a dust sheet over the servers and drilled through the wall right behind the main data cab. I was the smallest person in ICT Services at the time (but at 6' 2" I was possibly tallest!) so i was sent behind the server cab to vaccum dust...fun fun fun, I THINK NOT! I should probably just re-emphasise that although i was the VI Form techie, it was just because i could fit behind the cab and not because i'd been abusing my power LOL.

There's a soya and linseed one by budgen or whatever they're called... That's quite nice. Makes nice buttery toast

I always found VNC to be slow and a bit more of a bandwidth hog...just my own personal experience really...dont know what others have found it like in comparison

So if you're single you're effectively zero...making you a minor and therefore unable to drink...... That's no fun! But at least it'd cancel out your 40th

Perhaps the guys at kingsmill are trying to produce a race of curly haired humans to take over the world with? I cant see what relevance curly hair would have but...you know...never mind...each to their own.

If this junior member of the ICT Services team is VI Former, just take away his admin access for a while and tell him that he's relegated to putting paper in printers and changing toner etc. If you really wanted to you could interpret his use of said batch file as an abuse of power. Clearly he's not using the access rights for what they were given to him for if he's got time to sit and play about with blocking ranger when he's meant to be working for ICT services! Sod the AUP...how's about an "if you're not doing what you're meant to be doing go home/sit in the common room" policy?

That sounds EXACTLY like the guy we had. He joined the school with the head of ICT from his old school and started work on the network rebuild...we'd just become a technology college and had the funds for a whole new e-learning centre and a big network rebuild etc. He rebuilt the network and it ran fine...then it started getting worse...and worse and worse. Problems with incorrectly setup roaming profiles amongst other things lead to severe instabilities. He started coming into work on a less frequent basis (when he was meant to be full time!). So in the end he quit before he could be sacked. There were a lot of issues with him and he was the type with the documentation all in his head...when he'd had plenty of chance to put it to paper/electronic form. Anyway, so two-three years after him joining the school, he left. And then we had a full rebuild of the servers etc and since he's left we've had tonnes more stuff happen. At the time he left so did the ICT technician (for a better paid job more to his suiting) and that left me...the VI form techie and the head of ICT. In that month or so when there were no technicians, just us, we got more done than they had in three months! All the persisting tickets in the fault log got cleared and even completed a couple of new projects. It's amazing what can get done when you're not relying on a useless network "manager" for guidance. Seriously though...this guy couldnt "manage" to script a batch file properly!

We had it turned off too

That section of the school was due for tearing down within something like 3 weeks of us doing it...it was only a temporary measure. So no...they were just slung across the roofspace.

Suspended ceiling is what we did most of the time when we were in that situation when we had to extend the cables. It's not that hard to do really, but you've got to make sure that you dont break any of the panels. If they're old they are usually damp and then crumble and the site manager gives you a b****cking for it!

webdav over HTTPS from an IIS webserver with the nice bit of CSS that enables iexplore folderview

The way the paper booklet i was given is worded, it would appear that you've got to go onto the webpage before you can use it... I'm going to take my laptop to the library this evening and see what's what.

I've just had a more careful read and there's CA certs and stuff that you've got to do once you've opened your browser Typical student...scanning the stuff and taking little or none of it in!

I know that at staffordshire uni (where i've just started my BEng in Network engineering) they dont have WLAN acces in the hall of residence. The way the network access is done is by MAC filtering. You have to list your room number, student ID and mac addy of the one piece of equipment you're allowed to connect. And you're not allowed (/meant) to connect routers Anyway, that's beside the point. What they do do with regards to WiFi is it's open and unsecured as far as the literature says, but the SSID isnt published. http://www.staffs.ac.uk/airnet/ might give you some ideas as to how they manage the WLAN. But this is purely for access to your homedrive (map it on the network) and internet...so it's not for domain logons (as far as i've seen) i KNOW there's another wifi network around the buildings but it's unsecured and it's got a published SSID. I'm assuming /that/s the one with the MAC filtering on it. Anyway...

Dual boot them. Have one partition running the XP Home that comes with the laptop for use at home...and have the other partition running your volume licensed copy of XP Pro that you'd use for your on-site machines etc. That way it's /sort/ of kept separate and you can have them hooked up to the network. There's not much point in offereing laptops for students if they cant use them onsite too when they cant get onto a workstation in the library etc IMHO.

Oh bugger...I had one of those on tuesday But seriously, stone are really quite good. I seem to remember something bad about a whiteboard installation they did but i'm not 100% sure on that...it's too long ago now

Oh i've got another.... "if i stare at his beard veeeerrry hard...maybe it'll catch fire!"

"Is that a beard or an animal he's trained to sit veeeerrry still?!"

Keeping it simple makes the most sense as i'm sure you're aware, because there's less to go wrong. And if you ever leave it's going to be easier to for a new techie to pick up what you've done if it's just a simple star network without VLANs and mess. And if it's a primary school do they /really/ need VLANs? There's going to be very few students and even fewer staff () that will be packet catching for data and if very large schools with 2000+ users manage ok without VLANs why does a small junior school need it? The broadcast traffic isnt going to be cripplingly (new word ) huge either.

Why am i suddenly singing Money by Pink Floyd and trying to fit DNS and other services into the lyrics. Hmmmmmmmm......

You'll want to leave the server and your I.net kit running so that it can get updates when no one it using the network.

I'ma download it when i get home.

LOL...that'd be nice...but highly unlikely. This is PF we're talking about here!