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The view someone made about their degree being out of date etc is to miss the point - I thought it too until I graduated 5 years ago. Degrees are not there to teach you to use a specific system like MCSE would, they give you the skills and thinking power to work any system out for yourself whether its networking, coding, logic etc. I've got a degree in Computer Science and it is well worth it, it opens up the entire range of IT careers and is respected well above any sort of certification. It is also a good starting point towards BCS professional qualifications - you get AMBCS staright away and MBCS which is full professional membership after a few years experience. Then there is chartered status etc.

Instead of MCSE etc you could do a degree instead - which is permanant and gives exposure to a much wider range and depth of topics, is permanant and is universally recognised (if it's from a decent university).

Alternativly it may be under lifetime warranty.

You could always get a good iMac G3 off eBay for next to nothing.

No seriously, it does work really well - even on <1Ghz Celeron 256mb machines - thats CC3 based machines or workgroup laptops. I was worried when I first heard about it but the biggest challenge associated with it is the teaching and learning ones.

I agree with Norphy

But it works like a dream!

Yes they do mean personal rather than impersonal but semantics asside the issue remains and if EduGeek is to be useful in promoting the valid views of its members then its members should stop worrying about what it is called and start thinking about how they can contribute. If an EduGeek spokesperson was ever approached by the media - which is what is needed to get the issues promoted then the press would probably not be interested in the name anyway (e.g. 'an Edugeek spokesman, which represents IT professionals in education said .....) I think a set of stated key aims would be a good starting place.

In my experience, at least for secondary schools LEA support is a bad thing. Most schools in our area have moved away from LEA support, especially for curriculum side issues because: - Centralised LEA support is inflexible and slow - Centralised LEA support staff don't understand or have the authority to respond to the individual needs of a given school - A one size fits all approach to equipment and setup is attempted and then fails to deliver to any schools needs. Going back to LEA controlled IT provision would be a disaster for schools - something most schools in our area would hate because they are reaping the rewards of doing things for themselves: - Better equipment, cheaper and based on the needs of the school - Better, on-site support that understands school needs and works for the school not for some faceless SLA manager. - You can employ a team of highly skilled support staff at a school for less than the cost of full SLA cover. - Servers should be on-site The whole idea of outsourcing IT from schools to either LEA or private enterprise is ridiculous anyway - think how much money is being put into paying profits and setting up these arrangements which could instead by spent on upgrading school infrastrucutre directly.

A NAS is fine for that - just don't expect to host shared areas for general use effectivly on them or mega fast access. They really are for small groups (such as the technical support community in a school or a department's staff) to use. Think of it as a big networked USB Stick.

I would cite cost, security, reliability / availability and ease of use as the main advantages. http://compnetworking.about.com/od/itinformationtechnology/l/aa070101b.htm

SIMS.Net is just an SQL Server database but they say you must use Business Objects to integrate from your own .Net applications. That said, you can see the SQL database from any .Net project - but this is unsupported and risky. I have always wanted to do the above but have in the end resorted to the annoying but acceptable method of doing reports from Sims.net for the data I want and then importing that data into my own system. I am looking into the possibility of doing scheduled XML reports linked to a system that then subsequently schedules an import from those XML reports - a kind of stepping stone which assures you don't break SIMS.

You can use webfolders with OS X Tiger and you can view them in folder listing mode in OS X Panther. We've got Easylink and although it is certainly designed only with IE in mind you can use it from Apple workstations if you try hard enough. Can't remember whether had to use IE in OS X ot Safari though.

We've got Lacie NAS ethernet disks which we use for backup (as well as tapes). They work out of the box and can be accessed just like any other share. You can also manage them using a web interface and we run Real VNC on them because they are stored elsewhere on the site. They work seemlessly. About £450. http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/product.htm?pid=10646

We use them with Classboards and have no such issues on the VGA side - only sometimes on the Bluetooth side.

When I started in my current post four years ago there was no documentation available - mainly because most things were run by the LEA (which we have since moved away from). I've noticed quite a few posts here on EduGeek which refer to the lack of documentation found when starting a new job. So my question is - what is a good but realistic level of documentation? I try to keep an up to date network map, domesday pack with passwords, parition sizes etc etc and some information about our ever evolving Intranet services. However is it really possible to pick up someone else's network from documentation?

You could get a brand-new Dell laptop for under £400. http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/inspn_1300?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

You can turn any VGA device into a networkable device by using a VGA server - which is similar to a printer server. We've got some RM Ekko projector servers and they work really well. You plug the projector's VGA socket into it and plug the box into your network - then you can control the projector from any computer on your wired or wireless network. Here is the URI to it: http://www.rm.com/Secondary/Products/Product.asp?cref=PD337943&position=1

They're not encrypted anyway if you are looking at them locally on the server (i.e rather than through IIS). Bare in mind that that code is copywrite material too.

With loads of companies out there offering network switches I was wondering about which ones differenet people use and which are best. We use a mix of 3Com for bigger switches and NetworkX for small cheap ones. Editted your poll to include a couple of extras - Ric_

If your servers are plugged directly into the core switch couldn't you unplug everything else and then plug in a laptop directly to the switch and attempt to ping the server. Then assuming that all works fine work back from there. Time consuming but I find this kind of approach always leads you to the problem. PS. If you haven't already, don't forget to document what plugs in where so you can build a cabling map which may help you isolate the fault.

Cosmetically I think it looks horrible. Microsoft always seem to be one step behind when it comes to making things look nice.

If they are current then the manufacturer is probably going to hard to beat.

We had a whole batch of 33 machines with AOpen boards which over time all had faulty capacitors - a real pain.

Thanks, I have got all the templates installed, including system. But as you say it may be out of date - (June 2003). However because we are on RM CC3 I supose I better not touch it. Quite annoying really. Just out of interest - the client machines are Windows 2000.