teejay

@Ephelyon the recommendation to look into the EU tendering process is because it's complex and there are certain procedures you have to follow even at an early stage, the current outline the OP has posted breaks the EU guidelines, which is why I said to go do some research.

For a start, as this is likely to be a high value tender, please go and read up on how to write specifications for tender documents that meet the EU regulations. Secondly, go and learn about the data protection requirements for schools, especially when dealing with sensitive pupil data in schools and look at EU and UK legislation in this area and compare it to your idea of using online storage. I still can't understand your insistence on vendor lock in. If you want to write in house text books, why not deploy them as PDF so any device can use them? You could also develop your courses as SCORM compliant so they can be delivered to any VLE. If you evaluate various tablet solutions and do feel that the iPad is your best option, great, but don't put massive barriers in place for future development by allowing vendor look in rather than developing to open standards that can be used on any device. You also don't mention any locally based server infrastructure for storage, security, application and device management, backup, school management information system. Again, using Apple for admin is fine, but I then can't understand you wanting to limit licensing costs by using open source/freeware, when you could buy PC's plus the relevant licensing for a lot less than you would be paying just for the App,e desktops. I would also make some decisions on what MIS system you are going to use as some don't support Apple and do require Microsoft Office for outputting reports. Can I suggest you go and visit some schools, go in with open unblinkered eyes and also look at what curriculum you're going to deliver as for instance if you are going to be heavy in the technology subjects, then you really will need to diversify away from Apple. Please don't think I have a thing against Apple, I don't, I'm sat here typing this on my iPad. What I have a massive problem with is schools naively walking down a path of vendor lockin, it limits teaching as you're stuck with specific devices and it gets expensive to reverse out of if things don't work out. I also feel it's important for students to experience as broad a range of technology as possible, so yes that includes Apple kit, but also things like Raspberry Pi's, Arduino and yes PC's.

Actually Apple had more security vulnerabilities than Microsoft in 2012, but that's not my point and I didn't compare Apple against anyone else, my point being that any OS will have vulnerabilities and you shouldn't go in with rose tinted glasses believing the marketing hype from any vendor about how secure their OS is.

I would say it sounds like you are fairly driven by money from your opening post. If that's the case then your long term strategy should be to get into consultancy with one of the big companies as that is where the big money is made. They will want the right qualifications for the area you are going into, but it's also about making the right contacts within the big consultancy companies.

Also, the recent studies that have been in various national newspapers slating Glucosamine are based on major trials using Glucosamine HCL, not Sulphate.

Sending emails to parents/students instead of paper has no requirement for iPads. Buying eBooks has no requirement for iPads nor does content creation. All of this can be done using a multitude of devices including any brand of tablet, smartphones and desktop/laptop computers. None of what you have stated requires the school to lock themselves to a particular vendor. Is it right for a school to be tied to one vendor, shouldn't a school be vendor neutral so that students can experience a much broader range of different devices which best support the task? Would you be happy with a school that for instance only bought books published by Penguin, only allowed students to wear Adidas trainers in PE, could only drink products made by Coca Cola in school?

Yes, take it, but get the glucosamine & crondotine tablet form, it works much better. Glucosamine is derived from shellfish, so I don't know if I'd class it as herbal as such, but it definitely works If you have an injury, you can increase the dosage for a while as well to get greater and quicker effect. Edit: Forgot to say, make sure it is Glucosamine Sulphate and not Glucosamine Hydrochloride which is pretty useless.

You need the WDS server listed as an iphelper address on the switch for each VLAN. We don't have Options 60, 66, 67 set as WDS sorts itself out.

Apple devices do have serious security holes, don't believe the rubbish that comes out of Apple and their fans on this. Anyway, I would say the ideal is to make your core network client device neutral, so anything from Windows PC's to Blackberry phones can connect and use your network in a safe, secure manner. Bring Your Own Device seems to be taking off in schools, so you need to support that, plus the ability to provide devices that are correct for the task in hand which is why saying 'lets go all Apple' is very limiting.

Our office is currently at 19C, so that means our productivity has dropped by -10.8%

He's trying to multitask between F1 and Cricket, blame the cutbacks...

Amazing how for ages he has said openly that he paid the bribe to avoid being investigated for tax avoidance by HMRC and yet HMRC haven't had the gumption to actually start an investigation:doh: Wonders if some HMRC staff have been wined and dined on 'investigative' trips to various Grand Prix....

Another one who cut their teeth with Netware, brilliant server OS and Windows Server still hasn't caught up in some areas. Hmm, will have to visit the loft to see if I've still got the disks

Try holding down ctrl-alt-shift when you start illustrator, it'll reset all preferences which usually fixes random problems.

Most of the smaller server builders either rebadge Intel server systems - Intel® Server Systems or Supermicro server systems - Super Micro Computer, Inc. Home Page - Blades, Servers, Motherboards, Chassis and more If they are doing that, then they are good servers, especially the Intel server solution ones, if they are building their own out of random bits of hardware I would avoid, so you need to ask some in depth questions. We are Dell by preference, IBM are good if you can get a good price on them and Oracle Sun kit is good but I personally wouldn't buy them as I'm not convinced they'll be doing them much longer as it's not their core market. HP are on my naughty list.

Aww, he looks gorgeous:D We got a Lab last summer, really would love an English Cocker Spaniel as well in a couple of years once our Lab finally grows up:rolleyes:

I think that means you're getting a new puppy? If that's correct, you'll have your hands full of puppy fun;) Spend time with the puppy, get it socialised seeing as many new experiences as possible, like children, animals, cars etc as it will be much more balanced when older. You'll also have the fun of razor sharp teeth, house training and getting up in the middle of the night to take it out for a wee, so not so sure you'll be up for other major projects:p

Yep, so if they do at the moment, set up a generic login for all catering staff:p

So based on that, the till is a pc and they use it, so if the till pc is owned by the school and the catering staff are employed by the school then they would need including I would've thought.

It will still be relatively cheap for what you get, if you want eye watering and ludicrous then get some quotes for the new Adobe annual licensing model.

Is that info directly from Microsoft, there were the same rumours this time last year and it turned out to be incorrect.

Millgate are always helpful, Insight are good if you can get a decent account manager, Academia can be ok on pricing as well. Do look at the option of a 3 year contract rather than a 1 year, it does work out a lot cheaper. You're not tied to the same supplier for all 3 years, so you can shop around but it does mean you get extra discounts from Microsoft. Using the till probably wouldn't count, but if they also used backend PC in catering then you would count them as staff, unless of course your catering is set up as a separate company then it wouldn't count at all.

Wake on LAN and do it in the middle of the night. The other nice thing with Dell is their driver packs for deployment, save a lot of flagging around as you just need to download one driver pack rather than fiddling with loads of different drivers.

Schools are failing our children simply because they are technophobes - Telegraph Quite an interesting article, really don't agree with his 'do it all on the internet' philosophy and can definitely say distance learning really isn't anywhere near as good as face to face learning, but he does raise some interesting challenges. Edit: How he expects schools to do this with their current levels of IT budgets I don't know.

If it's standard certificates then contact your LEA as they can provide free security certificates for schools through an agreement with JANET. They may not be aware of this so you may need to be persistent, if they contact JANET they will set them up to issue them, the certificates are actually issued through Comodo. Details here - https://www.ja.net/products-services/janet-connect/janet-certificate-service