SteveMC

Well, for just one example of their (cough) support, take a look at this Register article on Edugeek's issues in the past: Fasthosts brings down Edugeek - and leaves it there - The Register Stephen

With the Netgear ones, if you go for their Prosafe range you'll get a life-time warranty. Considering that they'll likely be on 24/7 it's a feature worth having. Plus, the WG102 can be converted later into a WGL102 for use with Netgear's managed wireless switch. I would say though, that if you can afford it, the Ruckus kit has a lot more features when it comes to that area. Stephen

It's an Intel server chassis, Mavell Yukon Sky2 and Intel Express Pro 1000 8254x NICs. We've had a temporary fix through from support, but it's still a mystery as to why it was misbehaving in the first place! Stephen

Bit of an odd one this, - one of our schools is intermittently losing connection to their Smoothwall system. When it does this, the mac address reported by machines on their internal LAN for the Smoothwall LAN IP is actually that of the WAN interface! The LAN and WAN macs are actually only one bit different, despite one interface being an Intel card and the other a Marvell one. If I ping from an internal server, after the first reponse is received, the second one times out, and the ARP cache on the internal server has the mac address of the WAN interface listed for the LAN IP. The ARP table may recover for subsequent pings, however it frequently results in long periods of non-response. Just wondering if anyone else has encountered this? Stephen

From what Tom and other folk have mentioned, I believe there's more SSL certificate stuff (for catching those annoying proxies) and a revamped reporting system. There's probably a bunch more stuff too, but that's what I've seen mentioned thus far. Stephen

I think Edge10 may just be launching their new monitors, - certainly they're currently between models with their touch-screens. They're a pretty approachable bunch though (managed to buy one of their ex-demo touch-screens the other day as we needed one in a hurry). Try any of the contacts on their site and see what they say. Stephen

Loxit do a good selection of mounts for SMART Boards, - including a variable height one with a boom arm that's also mobile (which is something I don't think SMART themselves offer at the moment). Stephen

Occasionally I manage to have two screens at work, but if I leave the office for any length of time when I return the second one will be attached to some ill machine or other. It could be worse though, as once I got back to find that my boss had sold my system to someone who was in desperate need of that exact motherboard Stephen

I've a feeling I'll end up with something like that, - just wondered if anyone had found anything cheaper that did the trick. Currently the second screen is stood on top of the printer - I've also discovered that the ATI drivers let you position the screens at an off-set too, which is actually quite handy! Stephen

If you'd seen the wall behind my desk, you'd know what that'd be a bad move! It's a blocked in chimney, and even papering it was a challenge. I think some of the plaster is now a structural part of the house Stephen

Thanks for the pointer, - unfortunately there's only a limited desk space, - so I'd need to raise the screens above the level of the printer. Looks like the only option may be to go for one of the single-central-pole-with-two-arms stands Stephen

Having just acquired a second TFT for home (impulse Ebay purchase, but it was a bargain...), I'm now trying to find a suitable dual-TFT mount. I need to raise both screens up by about 20cm (partly due to the desk space, but also to get them at the correct height), and I'd prefer not to have to drill holes in the desk (although clamp would be ok). I've looked at some by Ergotron, but they are all fairly expensive. Does anyone have any recommendations? Stephen

Depending on the RAID controller used, you may not have to reinstall. The proper, hardware controllers don't require any particular drivers on the part of the operating system, since they deal with all the RAID related business themselves. All the operating system sees is whatever RAID volumes you configure in the RAID BIOS. Often you'll be able to create a mirror (RAID 1) volume in the BIOS by mirroring an existing drive. RAID 5 does require more work, as it spreads the data across the drives, along with creating parity information. Stephen

It is indeed (probably actually go for the School Guardian, as that's the Education targeted product) - plus you can get a 30-day trial of it too which is completely unrestricted (we're just setting up one of our local schools with such a thing to run alongside their ISA server for half their users). And of course, the fact that half the Smoothwall support team seem to hang about in here doesn't hurt either Stephen

And if you find yourself having to type a long sequence of commands that all need super-user (otherwise known as 'su' or 'root') privileges, you can type: sudo -s Which will switch you to the root user until you type exit Stephen

I agree that software/hardware vendor support forums could be a could idea - Hexus do something along those lines for a few consumer related IT companies and it seems to work pretty well. As others have mentioned, I'm not sure that the Healthcare / Business sectors would create a similar community-feel, as technicians in those organisations (small businesses aside) tend to be able to call upon a larger range of 'in-house' skills and colleagues than are available to the average primary school's IT tech, so would possibly be less inclined to join in the general banter that gives Edugeek such a unique atmosphere. As it happens, the company at which I work (DataSwift) is heavily involved in both NHS and Education (albeit in a geographically constrained area!), and whilst some of the problems encountered are similar, the approach taken to fixing them does vary. Stephen

After finishing off a lot of jobs, (which removed 1 HP laptop, 2 motherboards, a CPU, various sticks of RAM and a Fujitsu-Siemens server) mine now has the following: 1 x Apple iBook G4 (trying to see if it can be of any use running Linux) 1 x HP AMD Mini-tower PC (building an image for a primary school) Box of assorted whiteboard markers (including one permanent pen to trap the unwary!) 2 x Thermal paste tubes 1 x Ultra 320 SCSI card 1 x naked USB flash drive (case disintegrated aeons ago, but it still works) A couple of order confirmations 1 x Leatherman Wave multi-tool (indispensable) And of course my PC Stephen

It tends to vary, - small schools may well have the head teacher directly involved in sourcing contractors, but in larger ones it may be a business manager, or the network manager - even in some cases the IT coordinator. If you're unsure, usually sending to the head teacher will get it intercepted by the admin staff who'll probably deliver it to the appropriate person. Stephen

Although it's a little different down here on the Isle of Wight (mainland companies are less interested in on-site stuff, due to the added cost/time of the ferries), the local authority does recommend that all suppliers are registered on the School Quote system. We did register on there, but discovered that it's mainly used for purchasing of equipment, and not the consultancy/installation that we provide. I'd say that getting a good relationship going with a couple of schools should be a priority, as word-of-mouth is by far the best advertising. It's also worth investigating local building firms - keep an eye out for boards outside schools when work's being done. They often don't have the skills to do the cabling themselves so you may find a way in through there too. Stephen

Just to check, - you are making these changes to a Group Policy Object (GPO) that is applied to the Computers, and not just the Users? (if you've not already got it installed, Microsoft's Group Policy Management Console is an invaluable tool for sorting out policies). Also, just checking that your users do have roaming profiles assigned to them? (look at the user properties in Active Directory Users and Computers) If they don't then that policy setting probably won't have any effect. Stephen

How about Neal Stephenson? - I can especially recommend Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. Stephen

Another thing to bear in mind is that Ricoh, Gestetner, Infotech, Lanier, Nashuatec and NRG are all actually the same company! Quite a few printers/copiers are sold under different model numbers with the various brands, so it's worth looking around. The only problem with using the copier type machines is that staff end up competing - someone will start a 1000 copy run locally, and then other staff will sulk that their print-job has to wait. If you've got any Apple machines (or Linux/Unix for that matter) it's always worth buying the PostScript add-on, as it makes life so much easier. Stephen

Just got home (well, after dropping on a rehearsal on the way), and got to say that it was good to put faces to names (even if I was too late to get in on the pizza action..!). The stand seemed to be pretty busy throughout the day too, hopefully its' position near the cafe helped guide a few visitors in the right direction... Stephen

Anything that's not got pineapple on it is good... Stephen

Something else to bear in mind, and that's that Smoothwall School Guardian has an Anti-virus option (SmoothZap) that tends to work out a load cheaper than buying Exchange-aware anti-virus (which usually has to be licensed on a per-mailbox basis). Obviously that'll only be a cheaper option if you're already using School Guardian! Stephen