roty80

I read Digg: Digg - All News, Videos, & Images and MakeUseOf: makeuseof.com by Mobify Flickr also has a mobile version: http://m.flickr.com/#/home UPDATE: just found a list here: http://cantoni.mobi/

Completely agree. Also, I know the school is trying to save £240k in wages but as part of our BSF Civica take over here next year anyway. So by the time the unions have settled with the head and the governors the school won't be saving any money on making one of us redundant and reducing everyone else's contract because Civica will be employing us.

Thanks for the reply. We can't work out why he based it on square footage either. That is why I asked the question, so hopefully we can go in and say: 'yes they have only one technician and are the same size, but they also only have 100 computers. So how is that the same amount of work?' We have tried to argue that it shouldn't be on sqaure footage and the BECTA guidlines say 1:150 for new computers and reliable network, 1:50 for older computers and/or problematic network. We just get told that they disagree. At the end of the day they will probably sack whoever they want anyway, no matter what the unions say.

I was hoping to find out what ratio of computers to techs there are in Sheffield schools as we are currently going through a redundancy situation and a reduction in contracts from 52 to 41 weeks. The reason I would like to know is because we currently have one NM and two technicians, we have 800 desktops, 15 servers, projectors and Smartboards/Promethean boards in every room, etc. (approx. 1400 pupils, 170 staff). So we have a tech to desktop ratio of 1:400 (tech to user 1:785) and we have been told by the head and finance manager that they have looked at other Sheffield schools and we still have too many IT staff. I was hoping to find out what the other local schools ratios were so when the unions come in in the next couple of weeks we can go into the meeting and say "this is how we actually compare to other local schools" as one way the finance manager told us he measured it was on square footage of school. Thanks

I was hoping to find out what ratio of computers to techs there are in Sheffield schools as we are currently going through a redundancy situation and a reduction in contracts from 52 to 41 weeks. The reason I would like to know is because we currently have one NM and two technicians, we have 800 desktops, 15 servers, projectors and Smartboards/Promethean boards in every room, etc. (approx. 1400 pupils, 170 staff). So we have a tech to desktop ratio of 1:400 (tech to user 1:785) and we have been told by the head and finance manager that they have looked at other Sheffield schools and we still have too many IT staff. I was hoping to find out what the other local schools ratios were so when the unions come in in the next couple of weeks we can go into the meeting and say "this is how we actually compare to other local schools" as one way the finance manager told us he measured it was on square footage of school. Thanks

Forgot to mention. It is a Server 2008 network so a Windows RADIUS server would be NPS not IAS.

Hi, after a bit of advice. A member of SLT has secured some funding and bought a large number of Nintendo DS's, PSP's, Ipod's and netbooks. What he wants to do is have students walk around school using these devices and be able to use the network constantly, moving from access point to access point. Currently we have some Cisco Aironet 1200 access points and a few (but with more coming) 1130AG access points. We have never had the need to set up these access points for roaming in the past. It seems that it can be done by enabling 'Wireless Domain Services' on the access points and setting up a 'Cisco Secure Access Control Server', unfortunately a quick search of google seems to suggest the ACS software is quite expensive (something we were never asked about when they were spending all the budget on netbooks). So how do you guys handle roaming? Do you use ACS or an alternative? I have looked at setting up Windows as a RADIUS server. Will this do the same job as Cisco ACS? And if so how do you get it to work with non-windows devices like Nintendos and Ipods? From what I understand it installs a security certificate on the clients. We have also seen FreeRADIUS but not very hot on linux here. I have seen there is a setting in group policy for wireless security which is obviously fine for the netbooks but again not for the other devices. I realise there are a few questions here, as you can probably tell not done any wireless in the past (except setting up at home) so any simple info gratefully received.

From The Sheffield Star newspaper: PLANS to rebuild eight Sheffield secondary schools could be scrapped if the Conservatives come to power in the upcoming General Election. Spending cuts could pull the plug on the Government's flagship Building Schools for the Future programme, shadow schools minister Nick Gibb has admitted. Mr Gibb said only schools which have reached 'financial close' with their developers would see their upgrades definitely completed. Four Sheffield schools will only reach that stage by the end of the summer, well after a likely election date in May - Parkwood Academy, King Edward VII upper school, City and Stocksbridge. Four more are not set to reach financial close until early next year - Birley, Handsworth Grange, Bradfield and Notre Dame. Cancellation of all eight schemes would see £17 million of local taxpayers' money already spent on development costs written off, according to city council estimates. Going ahead with all eight would cost in the region of £150 million. Mr Gibbs stressed building projects would not be axed across the board, with decisions made on an individual basis. But he added: "We think BSF is a hugely wasteful approach to procuring new buildings. It's very 'top down', very bureaucratic and costs a huge amount of money." Four Sheffield schools have already been rebuilt, with work on six more currently underway as part of the programme to renew every secondary in the city by 2014. Coun Andrew Sangar, Cabinet member for children's services, said 18 months of preparations had gone into plans for schools like City and Stocksbridge. "I find it totally unacceptable that the Tories have indicated they would consign planned improvements to many Sheffield schools to the rubbish bin," he said.

It is probably done through group policy. On a machine with admin pack installed (or a DC) go to start, run and type gpmc.msc The group policy, if i remember right, is in Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer and disable Remove Windows Explorer’s default context menu

So far no buffering problems and only on 2meg connection

open a command prompt type: echo %logonserver%

Just seen this on the Playstation blog. The final design and games announced for the PS3 'Wii' controller, Playstation Move. Anyone going to get one?

If you use Google Sketchup 6 instead of 7 you can run it over the network. No need to deploy it. That's what we do here. Installed in a folder in a software share on our applications server and shortcut put on the start menu (ours are redirected so just one shortcut to create). Just install once Not sure if it does animated clips. Only used it a couple of times to design rooms.

If parents HAD TO PAY for the vandalism that occurs they'd be the first ones saying why haven't you got CCTV? SLT decided part of our job now is dispensing loo roll and soap as whenever they have loo roll in the toilets they flood them and smash the soap dispensers off the wall. Also in the last couple of weeks had a radiator pulled off the wall and cubicle doors kicked in half.

Completely agree. The Adam & Joe show is hilarious. SAVE 6 MUSIC

So, got in from work tonight, switched on my PS3 and the date says 31st December 1999. Tried to play a game and before it starts get the error message "registration of the trophy information could not be completed (8001050F)" and then it shuts down. Worked fine last night. After a trip to Google found Sony had said people were having problems logging into PSN Error: 8001050F Takes Down PlayStation Network - playstation network - Gizmodo But I have not been on PSN for months! How can it be a PSN issue when I cannot play games that have never been on PSN, been updated or collected any trophies? Cannot play games off-line, cannot play downloaded games, cannot change date and time and cannot connect to PSN. It seems all 'non-slim' PS3 models are having problems. Could not get through to Sony suppport. Anyone else having problems?

What games, if any, have you downloaded from the android market? I have listed mine here: ComputerBites: Great Free Android Games

Some others I use include: Last.fm: Free personalised radio station AK notepad: notepad that you can also use to setup reminders Movie Finder: find cinemas by search or GPS and get show times and reviews Listen: download and listen to podcasts Places directory: use GPS to find nearest petrol stations, cafes, bars, shops, hospitals, etc SayNoTo0870: dial an 0870 number and this software finds a cheaper alternative starting with 01 The Weather Channel: in-depth weather forecast SnapTell: take a pic of a DVD, book, CD or its barcode and this will find you prices online, reviews and clips The Daily Telegraph app: free newspaper on your phone and some games: bonsaiblast, connect4, moviz hangman, labyrinth lite, jewels, torect lite, pac-man, slide puzzle and light racer

Popular Wallpapers and Backgrounds - Desktop Nexus when you enlarge one it detects your resolution and aspect ratio so you can see ehat it will look like on your screen.

For students we have this group policy set: User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Ctrl+Alt+Del -> 'Remove Lock Computer' But I am not sure if it removes it from the start menu too *UPDATE* Just logged on as a test student. It doesn't remove it from the start menu but when you click it nothing happens.

Hi I believe the group policy to disable 'switch user' is: Computer Policy -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Logon "Hide entry points for Fast User Switching" option and set it to Enabled. I will have a look at our group policy for the lock GPO. Andy

Problem solved Microsoft replied to us telling us just request MAK keys but last night on MVLS our KMS keys changed. Windows 7 is just KMS, Vista and the different versions of Server 2008 are either KMS A, KMS B or KMS C. Looks like microsoft changed the machines you can run KMS on last night: KMS can be hosted on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2003 R2 -> activates 7 and Vista KMS_A can be hosted on Web Server 2008 -> activates Vista, 7, Web Server 2008 and HPC Server 2008 KMS_B can be hosted on Server 2008 Standard -> etc KMS_C can be hosted on Server 2008 Enterprise -> etc So our KMS key for Windows 7 will only work on a Windows 7 PC or Server 2003 R2 machine. Setup a Windows 7 PC and put entered: cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ipk ****-****-****-**** (where * is key) This morning all machines say they are activated. Looks like for 2008 R2 we will have to setup a Server 2008 R1 Enterprise machine to activate it.

Same error code as us. Says KMS key is not vailid. Looking around for a solution it appears quite a few people have the same problem.

Hi Are you using the Windows 7 boot.wim as one of your WDS boot images? We followed the instructions on technet and used the server 2008 boot.wim as it said and we got exactly the same error message. We added the boot.wim from the Windows 7 disk to our deployment server and booted into that when pressing F12 and it installed without a problem. Wrote a little about it here: ComputerBites: Windows 7 In Schools #1

Exactly the same thing happened to us, validation error 0xC004F050 and when we run slui.exe it says the product key is invalid. We have been using KMS to licence Vista since it came out and not had a problem. We have installed the update (KB968912) for KMS on our Windows 2008 server this morning. Emailed Microsoft Volume Licencing asking if they know why it would say it wasn't a valid key, no response yet. Definately the KMS key off our licence agreement. Any ideas?