ANiceEnglishman

We've had 40 RM Ones for about a year and they've been great, but.... They're expensive. The best price we were offered was about 50% more than Dell or Lenovo (IBM) USFF machines with the special stand to make them an all-in-one. This is for the Rm One ecoquiet - the standard model was only 30% more expensive. The screen is an integral part of the RM One so has to be disposed of when the PC reaches the end of its useful life. Re-using the screens should save us maybe £100 per machine next time round. Interestingly, RM are now HP resellers. The prices we were offered are more in line with Dell and Lonovo, though buying from HP direct or another reseller might be cheaper still. I haven't checked as we preferred the design of the Lenovo and RMs offer of the HPs came to late in the cycle to do a proper evaluation. The only thing I don't like is the external power brick.

Knock up a few lines of instructions, maybe with pictures, print out, laminate and stick on the wall in a prominent position next to the laptop. Sometimes the low tech solution is the best!

Is this against Dell list prices? Have you spoken to a Dell Education rep and got their 'real' prices? Dell will come down considerably too!

Ah right. How about thermostatic valves on each radiator?

We have similar stats available. Our Site Manager is off sick at the moment so I can't find out the figures but I know he has saved an enormous amount by cutting out wastage. We do our bit by shutting down all computers remotely at the end of school and will be putting in 100 low power PCs this Summer. Not sure how switching off a third of radiators would help. Turning down the room thermostats would be more effective I would have thought.

Have you considered eBeam Projection? It's a device that will make any whiteboard interactive. It's portable so teachers can share it but as it's 1/4 the price of a decent sized Smartboard the school may be able to afford one for each teacher. We have about ten of them and the only problem was one pen that broke. They replaced it without asking any questions. You should be able to get one for £300 or so. eBeam - Interactive Whiteboard Technology, Luidia UK Ltd, System3, Interactive, Projection, Whiteboard, Integral

We've found we simply can't afford RM hardware at current prices. Recent quotes have been 25-50% higher than the likes of Dell or Lenovo (ex IBM). We're still awaiting prices for CC4 licencing. Are you at liberty to say what you were quoted?

I had a similar problem and their tech support sent me detailed instructions. Don't have them to hand as I'm at home but drop them an email - they were very helpful.

Newport City Learning - School Vacancies

That's the way Serco advise you to do it. It's all in the system administrator's manual whch you can download from the support website.

Ah right. I was getting excited for a moment. Would be nice if they gave some incentives for those of us who are certified tbough.

Ditto! But what's this about the 50% discount for being RM certified? I'm a certified NM and my technician is a certified technician but we pay the full whack for our support contracts AFAIK.

Was having exactly the same problem. Will check this fix out tomorrow On a more general note, how helpful are RM Tech Support towards those using third party hardware? We've always bought RM up to now but simply can't justify the price differential any more. Edit: Yep worked for me too. I also found that I had to turn of hyperthreading to get RM Client Security Module to install. It has been a known problem to RM for some time. All that's left now is getting the Audio drivers to install during the unattended build. Works fine if I install manually

We're currently using RM as our ISP, paying £1200 pa for 2Mb. With Smartcache this copes surprisingly well on our network of 300-odd machines. However I think we are paying over the odds, and will need faster speeds soon. RM will offer ADSL Max which according to Samknows Broadband - Broadband Availability Checker may give us 5Mb but at an eye-watering £2500 pa. Virgin Media offer 20Mb for £50 pm (half what we're paying for 2Mb but is there a catch? Anyone using Virgin Media in a school? ntl:Telewest Business - Business Broadband - Blazing fast 20Mb business broadband

Nuvo wall AMP & Speakers - Misco.co.uk We use these in Languages. Fitted the amp and PSU inside existing trunking to make a very neat job. Sound quality isn't as good as the Eridols which we have in Music but quite adequate for general use.

What does 'looking after' involve? If there is no second line support and 'the buck stops with you' when there is a problem then just over minimum wage seems rather low. If it's day-to-day support, changing the backup tapes and toners, resetting passwords and resolving simple problems then it's a more reasonable.

We moved from SIMS to Facility a couple of years ago, and it's working well for us. The move went well because: (1) We employed a very able Data Manager to configure and develop the system. It's not really a MIS out of the box, it's a kit of tools to build one. (2) A member of SMT took personal responsibility for the migration and ongoing development of the system. Not doing the work, but ensuring the necessary resources were made available and teaching and admin staff 'bought in' to the change. (3) We bought a good beefy server to run it (and nothing else) on. 4GB of RAM is an absolute minimum. Don't try to stick on an already overworked DC!

There is a document available to download from the support website explaining how to set it up. The process involves copying the documents to a location on the server specified at the set up stage easy, then attaching each document to the relevant student (tedious!).

FWIW, I found that referring to the dispute procedure in the Catalist T's & C's and dropping the name of their Commercial Director brought an instant resolution to the issue that had been ongoing for months.

I've been using them quite a lot and their prices are good. As others have commented, they are not so hot when things go wrong. A problem with a faulty item which they undertook to sort out has now been ongoing for three months with a string of broken promises and me being bounced between Probrand and the manufacturer.

We have done this, for staff use only. We had to change ePortal to use IIS instead of the Tomcat web server (Serco Learning can supply instructions for this) , buy a digital certificate from Verisign and open port 443 on our router. It all went reasonably smoothly. We set up a web page with the school logo and the Verisign logo which Internet users see before they get to ePortal . This gained some brownie points from the SMT! Although probably not strictly necessary, we use https over our internal network too. Don't overlook the weakest part of the system - passwords. Lots of our staff had weak passwords and I insisted these were changed beforehand. (Visions of truants sitting at home and marking themselves present!)

But if you do it this way if they DO save changes they will overwrite the (single set of) client files and keep undoing each others settings. Our LEA set it up like this.

I am recruiting a junior technician here in Newport (south Wales). Details at http://www.newport.gov.uk/_dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=schools.jobs

About 300:1. Just me and part of a part-time administrator at the moment but we are recruiting a technician. I can see a further technician being needed in the not too distant future.

That's what ours do too. As they're obviously not using the interactive feature of the IWB they may as well have saved the money they spent on it and buy a projector and Gyromouse for another classroom. That's what we did. Perhaps they think Gyromice only work with IWB's