howartp

Wow - that's even more cost difference than I was anticipating between the MFDs! Thanks for the post! Peter

This is something I'm considering in my new tender - can anyone tell me what the cost differences are between A4 and A3 copiers? I've been told by one person that A4 isn't that much cheaper so you might as well have A3, but I am also looking at the desktop version of the same MFDs, some of which share common parts with the full size models if I get the right combinations. I did a survey of our staff last week, and one of the questions was: 49% of responses said they would "realise after a couple of weeks" and 20% would "notice but use the print room in future" which in my mind is justification enough to remove A3 from most devices. The print room, Art/Tech copier, and second admin area (other building) would still have A3, but everyone else can do without. Peter

Interesting thought... yes it is, but I'd never thought of changing the MAC - both servers (old and new) are already VMware. I'll have a gander at half term! Peter

Tim, good to see you're still around - I know you're no longer with PTC, but do you know the situation with re-installing old versions on new servers? PTC Support won't give me license for new HOSTID so I can move our Creo Elements to new domain and destroy old servers; they insist we need to cough up for newest version which won't run on our hardware and is significantly different for students mid-way through a 2/3-year course. Does this sound correct from what you knew when you left, and/or is there a helpful contact I can ring who might be able to help us out? Off the top of my head, Dmitry is the guy whose taken on our account from you, but he's going by the book which doesn't help us.

Off the top of my head, Networking, Outgoing Ports - are both servers in a policy that allows ICMP outbound?

Password for all apps suggests you've got the option ticked in the profile to require password for all apps? We have it for our 12 student iPads, but not for our 150 staff iPads. Peter

I like that idea; the building that hosts the backups is distant from the main building so my plan has always been to commandeer that building for the admin staff to work in whilst the network is restored (as core switch is in server room so unlikely to be available) - the building only has 5 classrooms and three IT suites, one of which is ideal for commandeering for smaller VMs; the backup server itself is powerful enough to run SIMS's VM which is the biggest resource-hungry VM we have. ESX is quick enough to install on each desktop, then point Veeam at each desktop-host... done! Cheers.

What do people do about server replacement in DR, or where do you (plan to) temporarily host the data when your server room no longer exists? Our insurers would take weeks to sort out proper replacements - what do you do in the meantime?

That's a good way of putting my gut-feeling that I struggle to describe/explain down on paper.

I just checked with our Director of Finance; she says it's the other way round here - as an Academy we don't have to do anything they tell us. However she would now like me to consider it as a sensible suggestion (rather than it being enforced from above)! Peter

Interesting to hear positive comments about Ricoh. When we started our current contract 4.5 years ago, we replaced the Ricoh's and avoided them for replacements because they were so battered and failing left, right and centre. I wasn't here at the start of, or involved in, the contract, so I don't know what service or support we had with them, how long we had them, etc, but I'm presuming 5 years like we normally do. I'll be starting the process again after Half Term, so will add them back onto the considerations list. (Currently using Sharp MX series models; the only one we had proper trouble with was MX6201 which hadn't had the model-refresh the year before we bought like the others - 2600, 4200, MXM1100 - so was inherently older hardware in the first place. Added a newer 5201 to the fleet 1.5 years in, which is even newer model-refresh - problem is we don't like the new UI on the 5201 so hoping it's got better since if we renew with Sharp) Peter

Unfortunately it appears I didn't succeed with this, though I had no recollection that I hadn't succeeded. I did copy the content and recreate the IIS entries, but they aren't working. The shortcuts in use around school are still pointing to the old 2003 server, which is only online for Creo Elements (hostname-based license) - it is pure fluke that the same server hosts Metro/Logo, hence why nobody from MFL has come crying to me yet. However Andy somebody on here claims to have hacked it successfully, so I've PM'd him. Peter

PM sent in the first instance.

I was thinking that - that's what I thought the article was about to start with!

I'm positive we re-installed this on 2008 R2 this summer... It's definitely there, just need to check what it's doing. Peter

We're due an IT audit next month, and I suspect I'll be pushed on documenting the plan. The rough plan is all in my head, and my senior tech knows most of it, but it's not on paper. I did put together a disaster toolkit last year with all the installers for adobe reader, word viewer, excel viewer, IBM Storage Manager, java offline v7, putty etc etc etc and all the user manuals for the core switch, san, VM hosts, passwords, serial numbers etc. (That was absolutely not a result of coming in one morning and finding both the SAN switches frozen and not knowing the IP addresses, usernames or passwords for it, and those details being held in their normal saved folders on my user account, on the SAN... Honest it wasn't.... Had to do a restore of my user area to another location to retrieve some of those, and guess the rest... the toolkit is now held both in my area AND on the remote backup server!)

Secondary school Session 1 / Reg / Assembly: 8.25 Session 2: 8.50 Break: 9.50 Session 3: 10.10 Session 4: 11.15 Lunch: 12.15 Session 5: 1.05 Session 6: 2.10 5 minutes movement time between the double-lessons, so all lessons are 1 hour.

What everyone else said... Went through about 4 filter products in 8 years until Smoothwall came along courtesy of county. If we ever left county or they ever cancelled Smoothwall, I'd buy it outright in a blink of an eye.

As Arthur says, it shouldn't have ="required" if it's HTML. XHTML on the other hand should. I've just checked w3schools' page which has a 'try it' option - on both IE and Chrome it performs as intended: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_required.asp http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml5_input_required

Friday

Temporarily put the IP address of the NAS box into the 801 exceptions and see if it works - you'll know it's definitely Smoothwall rather than say passwords etc then. Peter

I don't *think* so, but not 100% definite on that. We just have it on our SIMS server now that both support SQL whatever-it-is. (Temporarily had SOLUS on different server as my SQL versions were different) Peter

When I look in SOLUS3, I have two updates - "SIMS 2014 Autumn 2" and "SIMS Database 2014 Autumn 2" - as well as the same for the Autumn 1 release. Which order do you deploy these updates? I tried over Christmas both ways round - SIMS followed by Database, then the vice-versa - but both failed with something to do with not meeting desired count and rolling back. I'm gonna try again at 4pm today. Peter

Are they running pulsar.exe directly, rather than SIMSLoad, for some reason? Peter

I *think* vlookup/lookup should be able to help here - might need an intermediate spreadsheet that helps it work things out. It's a while since I used lookups though.