Mark_D

Hi Anyone using rm's connect plus for online exams? we have just got to the end of the 2nd exam season using connect plus and we had a few issues. Mostly machines locked out or became unresponsive during an actual exam, and although there is a spare pc and the candidate resumes the exam on it, the time remaining and any previous answers become unavailable on the new machine. The time also went out of synch between the admin machines (we had 2 running, one for backup). The reasons are being investigated, but so far nothing conclusive and this only affected a couple of machines we were using about 30. Anyone else having any issues?

Hi All I am looking for your suggestions and experiences on Rugged laptops, I have read the posts about the rm one mobile on this site and it sounds good but I am a bit concerned about the number of mentions about keys/keyboards. Any other suggestions anyone? main thing is that these will be deployed to kids who have been taken out of the classoom or are under a sort of internal exclusion - so the laptops may well get bashed about a bit. picking off keys is a particular problem in general so any suggestions welcome. Thanks Mark

Hi All We are looking to get rid of classlink 7 (and not before time) however it has served us well and still provides a fair few useful tools like disk quota management, applying printers to users or groups, a login from home and etc. So my question is, have any of you been down this road already ? and if so what solutions did you come up with what worked what and didnt. Many thanks Mark

Hi All Sorely need your help, guidance and input on what to do with my corrupted server 2003 AD database. Last couple of days we have experienced odd issues , mostly around users login, an inability to reset passwords, users getting a profile that is missing several components etc. Long story short the active directory database on the PDC is corrupt. So far only about 2 -5 % of users are affected so I may have a little time to prepare and soften the blow. Most every help suggestion online boils down to restart server in directory services restore mode and run database integrity and or repair utilities and that is fine and is what we expect to do at some point or as a last resort. However before we go off down this potentially one way road, I would love your input on the following questions or options that we may have. First,anyone done this and found a “magic fix” ? Next - I have another (secondary) domain controller and its copy of the db is 8 days old (when we assume the corruption occurred) is there anything stopping me copying this one to the pdc ? I can boot the servers from a mini xp cd so the db wouldnt be in use. Can I demote the pdc ? My previous experience when its psu went bang was that the secondary controller did not pick up the reins and the domain was unavailable, despite the secondary also having roles assigned for dns and dhcp. But I feel it should work. I cant figure how do a system state restore because backup exec runs on the pdc, anyone know of a way round that? I have other servers that I could dcpromo but they all seem to have local admin accounts for various things and I believe these get lost in the dcpromo process any ideas here? I do have a vmware v sphere set up ,but these v- servers are on 2008 r2 and I dont think it would play nice with 2003, seems you cant do a p2v on a pdc, ironically, because it apparently corrupts the ad/ldap database. But its there if anyone can see how to use it. Is there a way to use the user state migration tool to get what I can off the sick pdc? Lot of questions I know and we have been round this all day, I expect this is going to hurt but want to keep disruption to a minimum what with exams and revision and etc all going on. Thanks in advance Mark

Hi Thanks your comment made me try again, and it worked this time!!! failed 3 times yesterday, but hey that was then.Thanks again. Mark

Hi After the sql 2008 migration and sims autumn update, we moved the whole shebang to a new server running 2008r2, most things are ok but the sims document server wont install saying .net1.1 is missing. we have installed .net 2 up to 3.5 but the installer for 1.1 just hangs ( not 64 bit compatable I am guessing) any ideas how to get round this? Thanks Mark

Hi Thanks for input so far, Staff have school laptops which of course have access to the school internet (and consequent filtering) However staff are local admins of the laptop and are free to take them home and use their home internet , including 3g, Sixth formers can and do bring in their own kit, but they dont get access to the network except in certain circumstances. Some lower school have laptops, almost always as a result of a specific special need being identified and meant to be for offline use, a few of these have sneaked in a dongle which only gets noticed when they are suddenly on facebook. At the moment there is nothing in the aup so its been dealt with on an individual basis. Just canvassing opinions before advising on some sort of guidance for SLT. Thanks Mark

Hi All we are starting to see these 3g/mobile broadband dongles pop up, Staff, 6th formers bringing in laptops, even some lower school. As our system stands, only an admin could install one on a domain machine, so thats not the issue - its more about the what ifs and the unfiltered internet access. what sort of policies do you have in place? what would you suggest? Thanks Mark

Hi All I have my macs bound to Ad and all is reasonably well, one fly remains in the ointment. I can set a users my docs (mapped to a network share using classlink/ad) to automount on the mac but I get a message about permissions to open the folder. To fix this I have to allow Traverse folder under the network share, and un tick "Prevent running of executables in home folder" From within classlink 7. I am loath to do the executables bit for obvious reasons. Has anyone found a way round this? I would like to get this sorted without resorting to dual booting the macs or allowing the executables to run. Thanks Mark

I had an Intel based Mac Mini running os x 10.4, which recently refused to boot. It got past the grey screen and apple logo, got to the blue screen and mouse pointer and that was it. It would not boot into target disk mode either. I needed to get some work off it as it was coursework so I dismantled it and removed the hdd, Using a usb adapter was able to save work onto another mac and ran disk utilities, verify only, all is confirmed as well. Reassemble and I am back where I started except I can now boot to target idsk mode, so I restored from the original media and chose to keep preferences, users etc. There was an error message to the extent that the version of os x on the mac was newer than the one on the disk , that must be due to online updates as it was the disk shipped with the mac. Seems 95% there except Wep key lost Sharing preferences all reset to default off Worst of all the admin account password no longer works Try the reset password utility from cd and the admin account is not available to be reset (neither are any of the others apart from the 2 I had logged into to check connectivity) The other accounts are mobile managed accounts and the Mac’s are bound to active directory. Server 2003 Now at this point I am not overly worried as the local admin account was not used much, however if it had been how would I get back in, I know if I don’t find out now this will happen next week next month whatever and of course be a show stopper. Anybody got any ideas?

Hi As promised some feedback on the Evo machines from edutec. we went with the following spec dual core e5200 integrated 6 usb/audio/lan 10/100/1000 / 2gb ddr 400 ram160gb sata2 dvd cd rw combo 17 in sxga with touch screen and small speakers The units are nice to look at and feel robust, we asked for a downgrade to xp-pro and this was preinstalled for us. one oversight was the halt on all errors in bios - no keyboard - no boot but in fairness at this stage you do need a keyboard plugged in because of the windows mini setup if nothing else. the screens themselves are nice to look at the touch screen overlay is unobtrusive, you can just notice a gap of a couple of mm at the screen edge. A very acceptable image all round and still ok when viewed from an angle(touch screen here means its not a shiny unit like a crystalbrite or etc) . Performance wise the units are plenty quick enough. I wanted these primarily as an internet information kiosk but due to requests from end users also installed open office media players and the usual plug ins. still plenty quick enough, full screen dvd playback was very watchable, as you would expect from the above spec. The touch screen works well there, is a utility to calibrate the screen but it didnt need it (I just tried it from curiosity-like you do) anyway my fingers are not the daintiest and I still found no problems navigating through an average screen. I am using opera in kiosk mode (with a little help from tweakui and gpedit )to tie the user interface down and it works really nicely. Speed dial is set as the home page and it carries nine squares each with the homepage of a different school in the local group so that you just touch the one you want and you are away. So far very pleased, scl were helpful and competitively priced supplying extra's like kensington lock kits and vesa mount brackets the units themselves carry a 3yr warranty. overall I would have no problem reccommending these based on what I have seen so far. I am not attached to scl in any way feel free to contact me for any more info. Mark

I found this link very useful in binding our Mac mini's to our server 2003 active directory Big Nerd Ranch Weblog Mac OS/Linux/Windows Single Sign-On I'm sure server 2008 wont be too different, most of the work is on the Mac's anyway and there are just a few things to check on the windows server. The setup described in the article allows for authentication using windows credentials, and there is also info on automounting things like windows "my documents" drive mappings. We only use the authentication part here. hope this helps

Hi I have gone with EVO all in one's from Edutec (scl) Will let you know how I get on once they are here. Thanks Mark

Hi all I am looking to deploy 10 touch screen all in one pc's as information points in school receptions they must have an o/s preferably xp, be touch screen @ 17 inch, and capable of being wall mounted, other than that they only need to run a web browser and have some usb and etehrnet connectivity, I have gone round and round here and getting no where fast, have discounted the Dell studio one (no wall mount) and the Asus eee top (not seen to be robust enough) any suggestions gratefully received. budget is 1000 or less Mark

Hi Has anyone had their hands on a dell studio one touchscreen I am thinking of going with the 19 inch to use as reception info points These things have an impressive spec and are a reasonable price but are they any good? All comments welcome! Thanks Mark