Gibbo

That's what we did. Got a PCI Hauppauge WinTV Nova Freeview card and used the fantastic Showshifter software.

No, the programme must be broadcast over the air (or cable I suppose) and captured "live" at the time by either by DVD recorder, video tape recorder or a Freeview card in your PC. So take, for example, a BBC DVD of Blackadder Goes Forth. Even though it's been shown on TV so many times, the ERA doesn't cover ripping the DVD and would technically be illegal. However, it would be up to the copyright police to prove its not a TV capture and conversion.

Did you wipe the caches beforehand? That seems to be the biggest cause of all problems, closely followed by not doing an MD5 check of the ROM.

When we have this issue we delete the local and server copy of the profile. There's usually some corruption.

We have two mapped drives - DISTRIB and DROP. DISTRIB has full access for staff, read-only for pupils. DROP is a folder where pupils can save their work. Its done with CREATOR OWNER permissions: domain admins - everything staff - read/write/modify Pupil Group - write CREATOR/OWNER - read, modify (and write if you have to have it to get modify enabled)

It should be quite easy to set up. 1) First find the WAKE ON LAN option in your BIOS. Its usually in the Power Management section, and enable it. 2) Next you need to get the MAC address of your computer. There are loads of ways to harvest this. 3) Then just find a Wake on Lan program. Personally I use Gammodyne's WOL: Gammadyne's Free DOS Utilities 4) Create a simple Batch file containing the computers you want to wake: WOL 0030058b01be WOL 0030058b0232 WOL 0030058ad4e9 WOL 0030058b020b WOL 0030058b01de 5) And finally go to Scheduled Tasks on a server or computer that's always on. Select your batch file and choose the time you want to turn them on.

We've just bought a number of Stone machines: They were cheaper than any mainstream brand. They came with a 5 year warranty. The components are all branded and what I would consider good quality. Cases don't feel cheap, I warned the salesman that I would "kid test" the demo machine they sent by being deliberately rough in trying to damage it, and it stood up to the punishment.

We use ManageEngine Servicedesk here - the free version (I'd buy the pro version if I had the money). Been a happy user for many years at various schools.

But sometimes we're at the mercy of the software developers and can't do a thing about it. For example, one of our departments needed a particular program. There wasn't anything else like it on the market. The program was awful, it looked like it had been coded for Windows 3.1. The compatibility specs were something like "Windows 95, 640x480 resolution, 64Mb of RAM, 100Mb of drive space". When you see those specs you just know its going to be bad. And it was. It turned out that after the install I had to mess about unregistering and re-registering DLL files just to get it working on XP. There are loads of apps our school uses which just wouldn't run on our bench test Vista and 7 computer.

You mean like those members of staff who deliberately misuse their old but still functioning laptop so that they can get a nice new one?

There was a good post by RichyS on The Reg last month about BSF: I think this point has been missed in the BSF argument. You see pictures of schools with holes in roofs on the media. What were the site management staff doing? I know of a school which was BSFed, there was nothing wrong with the old building, it was perfectly sound. It just looked old and dated.

But would you feel the same if said textbook contained something inappropriate to the lesson, or contained something else - handwritten answers to certain questions or topics? While it would be nice in a perfect world to allow user's own devices on the networks, the amount of viruses on memory sticks shows that people can't look after their equipment. What about if the equipment contains games and the user is disrupting the lesson with it? Or a non legit version of Windows or Office? Where does that leave the school? I don't think you can compare a textbook with a computer.

Interesting article on today's Reg: German Foreign Office kills desktop Linux, hugs Windows XP German Foreign Office kills desktop Linux, hugs Windows XP ? The Register The key bit: We had this same problem when we ditched MS Office for StarOffice some years back - despite pupils being very happy with it and it running faster. One teacher even complained we shouldn't have it because its "not industry standard".

I've always found the AA patrolmen to be decent. My gripe with them is the administration and the "continuous renewal".

OK, I've now read it and after the dig at Edugeek it does develop into a incoherent ramble. Isn't the phrase something like "obvious troll is obvious"? But the comments posted after say much more than the blog ever did. One comment he posted said "My max has been 1000 students all spoiled little s***s " which shows one of the many chips on his shoulders. Remember the old teacher knocking phrase: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach become management / OFSTED inspectors." I think we have a new one: "Those who can do IT do it. Those who can't, write about it." As for the article, what does he want? Us to replace XP? But not with another MS offering? Easier said than done. I'm now ready to embrace Win 7 and Office 2010 now that the bugs are being ironed out. In fact I've been ready for Office 2010 since the day it came out but there's a slight problem - my machines aren't powerful enough to run it without any serious lag. So what do I do? Blow taxpayers money on scrapping a working system just for the sake of a new OS which does the same as the old? Now the budget cuts have kicked in I don't even have that option any more. It techies certainly do not hold back new technology. Just ask them to empty their pockets or go round to their houses. Maybe even look at what systems and apps they're running in their offices. Some of our best software is open source. So, get rid of XP and stick on Linux? I'd love to but the whole educational framework around computers simply won't accept it - from teachers to the crappily written apps (quick nod to ICT4LIFE).

Not read the article yet - his brief biog was full of errors to put me off alone: First of all the "start of ICT" was certainly not in 1981. Some of us saw computing in the classroom well before that. Secondly, the ZX81 was certainly not "duff technology".

I doubt the DVDs will be covered by the ERA - the ERA relates to television broadcast recordings. You'd need to check the terms of the licence on each DVD in question.

Restricting the machines won't stop the vandalism. If they can't log on they could just smash up the equipment anyway. Make sure the door is locked, report any staff to SMT who aren't locking it and maybe get a cheap camera set up in there.

It says they were established in 2010. Even if that were New Years Eve they've still had a month and a half to complete their website. The missing pages and "coming soon" are very unprofessional.

With the scrap metal prices leaping up are our old computers actually worth more than "we'll take 'em off your hands for nowt, guv and we're doing you the favour"? I was hoping to unload about 60 working Celerons to pupils, but regulations prevent me from doing so. An offhand remark to a supplier led them to offer me £300 for them - complete with proper disposal documentation and data deletion. What do you think?

A wonderful composer and a great Yorkshireman to boot! His music will live on.

Guitar Hero?

Another happy NOD32 customer here. Easy to deploy, ran well on my Celeron 2Ghzs with 512Mb of RAM, the management server makes updates a doddle, reporting is top notch and should you need help they call you back as soon as you log a query. And I think licensing is now based on full time staff members, not machines.

I'd also suggest checking the log. Its not the IE "20 second delay" is it?

We've always put CutePDF on all our images, gives staff the ability to PDF anything then.