smidsy

Our structure is fairly similar but we do split pupil and teacher laptops as they receive some different software which is deployed through GPO.

I get called geek all the time at work but outside of it I would say that I am not. I spend most of my free time doing a hat full of sports including Triathlons, Surfing and squash. I do enjoy playing some computer games but that is on the wane now summer is on its way and going outside is a lot more appealing. IT is a job not a passion for me at the moment. Roll on the holidays.

I used the power shell script on the web page below just before running sysprep on my reference machine and I haven't had any of the Metro apps appear yet .... Removing Windows 8.1 Built-in Applications - The Deployment Guys - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Have used Joomla for quite a few websites and it has definitely matured into an easier to use CMS than it was previously. It might be worth a look when Joomla 3.5 is released (currently timetabled for Spring) as this is apparently going to add a lot more functionality for people viewing web sites from mobile devices and another simplification of the admin back end. Have managed to use quite a few free plugins with the core system for adding funcionality such as google maps, SEO, web forms, photo slideshows which have been pretty good. It can occasionally take a bit of searching through some plugins that don't have quite as good support before finding them though ... Good luck

Happy Birthday Alex, unfortunately I have hit the 30 mark today. When one of the staff was told that I had a big birthday today they asked if I was 40! Got to spend less time fixing computers and more sleeping by the looks of it.

We are using a RISO ComColor 7050 MFD in a primary school of 340 as our main printer and it has been great so far. This is a big improvement on the previous HC5500 that we had before. Print speed is good and the quality is okay (we use a Xerox for any particularly high print). They have made big improvements on the devices UI as well so I have fewer questions from staff about how to do duplex copies than before. Had no problems with print drivers but only Windows devices print to it at the moment so can't say anything about Mac compatibility. I would recommend getting them in for a demo as they will bring a truck to the school and show you the quality in your car park + some free things.

At the end of last year we were looking at tablet alternatives to the netbooks we were supplying to our (primary school) children and have settled with the Asus VivoTab. I am currently configuring 35 of them and I have to say I am quite happy with them at the moment. Although not the most powerful they can still run a lot of programs we use without too many problems. Main problem has been integrating Win 8.1 into our Win 7 network. We as a school are going to try to expose the children to a mixed OS environment so they are ready for what they will face when they leave school. Loads of schools have gone solely down the iPad route, how is this any different to just having MS computers?

We have wpad set up here and it works flawlessly for staff and students. It uses the Proxy.pac file hosted on our smoothwall server but have had a version hosted on a web server pointing to an external proxy when we experiencing internet issues.

Work in a primary school of 300(ish) pupils and we have Impero currently installed on all our staff laptops and the wired desktop computers. It has helped me save time with: Fixing quick problems with staff when they phone me and they are at the laptop without having to walk to their rooms Helped with deploying software directly with MSI's to our ICT suite. Helped teachers with clasroom management in our ICT suite so that they can view / control all of the screens without having to walk between the rows. Helped with power management in the classrooms where teachers don't turn off their class machines at night I haven't really had any problems with it so far apart from getting the current update which was solved within 30minutes of me putting a support ticket in. All of the teachers I have shown how to use it have given positive feedback which is very rare. I haven't had a chance to play with some of its other features yet so can't say much about those. Only good so far ...

We use Insight Tracking for our assessment levels throughout the school (primary) and just about to introduce 2Build a Profile for our Reception students for further detail.

@Garacesh Scratch does include loops and if statements in a nice graphical interface which children and even some of the teachers can understand. One of our year 3 classes (with some guidance) managed to create their own Ghost shooter games within a few ICT lessons. We have found this a very useful tool with our KS2 children.

Have just started using TrueCrypt for encrypting USB sticks and found it pretty easy so far. When you mount a USB stick in the program you can add it as a Favorite Volume and configure the program to automount the USB stick when it is plugged in from then onwards. Haven't had a problem with using this yet as our teachers only use their laptops or a single computer at home. If your teachers are going to be using a lot of different machines then that probably won't be a viable option as I can't see a way to automate the favorite process. It is also possible to use TrueCrypt in portable mode TrueCrypt Portable / Portable TrueCrypt although I have seen some people having problems with using this where users aren't administrators on the machines they are using. Haven't had a chance to play with this myself though...

Hello All, I have been signed up for a while and creeping around the forums but only just got around to posting here. I am a ICT Network Administrator in a 2 form entry primary school down in rainy Cornwall. Already found mainy useful forums on here and hoping I might be able to help people back.

I have had a few occasions where our Toshiba C850's have refused to boot. Removing the battery for a few seconds and putting it back in tends to fix the problem. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to check what the flashing lights means.