rocknrollstar

We have 6 new classrooms that will make use of the cat5 network for the phone system. A company has charged a large amount to supply rj45 to analogue phone adapters, as well as the phones themselves. I can see the adaptors on ebay for very cheap, though not sure about master/secondary option? Also, if I bought a cordless phone for each classroom from, say Argos, would they all interfere with each other? The classroom layout is 3 up 3 down. Thanks in advance!

An update- I got some universal chargers off ebay, and they didn't fit the nx6325 laptops we have. Completely annoyed! I am now going to try and sell them on... Be careful when purchasing the universal charges, they don't fit everything (obviously). I later purchased some specific chargers for this laptop off ebay, from Hong Kong. Delivery in 1 week, cheapest price, and work fine. Thanks for everyone's input.

Hi, just wondering if anyone has a Sony VPL EX50 projector? Looking to buy one for presentations. With good lumens on LCD for a reasonable price, it looks good. Can't seem to find any reviews for it online though. Sony VPL EX50 LCD projector 2500 ANSI lumens XGA (1024x768) 4:3 - Ebuyer Thanks for your input

Thanks for your replies everyone, I'll give it a go tomorrow. Cheers.

Awesome- 5 replies in less than 10mins! I'll give that a go. I take it that if I make the non-admin domain user a member of the local admin on the client, then the profile settings and gpo folder redirects still apply?

Hi, I was wondering if you can help me with a problem. I have created an administrator account that the pupils will use (hear me out) to make animations. They may need access to install drivers- really it's to simplyify things for teachers and me. This is a junior school, and I know the children's abilities- certainly not able to 'get into the system'. Anyway, I created the account by copying the adminstrator account in active directory. I also want to redirect the start menu, desktop, and my docs. I've done this before, and it is working fine with the pupil accounts. I think I've done all the necessary things to get this special administrator account to have the redirect. However, whenever I log in as that special account, I don't get the special start menu or desktop as dictated by the GPO redirect. I've tried rebooting, checking permissions on the redirect folders, examing gpresult, nothign springs to mind. Is there something special about an administrator account that says redirection won't work? GPREsult says that the redirected path of the start menu and desktop are pointing to the server, however the actual desktop and startmenu are showing the icons from the default profile on that machine. Any thoughts? Thank you!

Heebeejeebee - thanks for that. Yep, we've had the same issue before, and HP replaced the motherboards as they were under warrentee. As you say, not worth fixing otherwise. The laptops which I need new chargers for charge fine with other chargers though, hence I figure it must be the charger itself. Cheers.

Thanks for the responses. Just to add that the chargers are for a laptop trolley, not simply general use. Also, do you know if the cheaper chargers will turn off when the laptop battery is fully charged? I take it this is controlled by the laptop motherboard, not the charger itself? Cheers.

I need to replace about 8 laptop chargers for HP NX 6325 laptops, as the chargers don't seem to be working. Looking on ebay, you can buy some from UK suppliers for £20-£30, or from Hong Kong/China for £10. Anyone know of any reason why I shouldn't go for the foreign ones, despite the 10 day wait? Thanks

Awesome, thanks for your replies. Extremely helpful- I did quite a few searches on trying to figure this out, but none as clear as these responses eduabancs, I couldn't access the page for "BGfL School Network Standards" as it was restricted. Any change that you could send it over to me? Regards.

Great, thanks everyone for your quick replies. Does that mean that I can assign an ip address of, say, 10.199.231.100 to a printer, and this will work on the network? I take it the gateway would all still stay the same? Thanks.

Hi, we have a win2k network with xp pro clients. Although I didn't setup the network or server originally, I do try and maintain it in my spare time (I'm a full class teacher the rest of the time). We had some issues with IP conflicts with some printers, and I am looking into dhcp reservations, which looks fine. However, in oder to try and organise the IP layout, I was wondering how many ip addresses are available for our network? The DHCP scope is as follows: Start: 10.199.224.100 End: 10.199.224.254 Subnet: 255.255.248.0 (length 21) Am I right in saying that we have 154 IP addresses available? Don't think so, but not sure how to work it out. We haven't go that many pieces of networked equipment yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. Many thanks for your help.

Great, many thanks for all the responses.

Hi, we are looking to get 6 desktop pcs (xp pro, intel duo core, 2gb ram, monitor). CCLonline have some great bundles, but are having stock difficulty at the moment, and I'd like to get these before Christmas. Looking for a max of £350 per PC. Any advice on other suppliers? Ideally I'd like to have xp pro preinstalled to save time. Many thanks!

OK, Ray's Learning isn't complex software, but as you say it is good for what it does. I wish that more software was good for what at what it was meant to do. In my earlier years of teacher, Ray's Learning let me complete report writing in half the time of other teachers doing it 'manually'. Works for me!

We use google apps for staff email, but would be equally suited for pupil email. Free, and has use of the google suite of webapps. Does all it needs to do. Easy if you don't know how to setup your own email system like Zimbra (which I don't know how to do, although I'd like to know).

We started using it this year, networked version. Not ideal, but it does the job. It was tricky for those teachers who job-share, or who wanted to take it home (particularly if they are non-techie). There aren't masses of alternatives. One by 'Rays Learning' which is good, albeit more standalone.

Hi, we currently have 30 desktops and over 50 laptops at our junior school, all XP Pro sp2 clients, and an ageing Win2k server. Due to building works, we are having a new rack of switches put in, and I'd like to upgrade our server. A few questions: 1- Should I go to 2003 or 2008? What the cheapest? Do I need a license for each client? 2- What's the min spec you would have for a new server? Currently the server handles everything needed for the network (e.g. shared files and printers/AD/DHCP/DNS). 3- anyone recommend any companies? Although I manage the school network, I'm not sure I could setup and install a new server. (is there a migration tool to take the settings from the old to the new server?). Budget is less than £1500. Thanks in advance.

If you checkout Marnel Junior School , there is a tweak of the moodle main menu that I wrote (top left). It's based on the slash-dot menu, with fold down menus. Happy to send you code/instructions if it is helpful. HA! Just checked the link to the moodle thread- that was my posting Thought it looked familiar... Charles.

Great, thanks for your quick reply. I've simply set the my docs folder to redirect to the home folder in the loopback policy. Interesting that this is the only one I had to change (the other redirections work fine (and the other group policies applied on the computer). Any ideas why loopback only affected the My Docs redirect (AFAICT)? All seems a complicated way to simply get the shutdown options removed! Thanks. BTW: I already had 'merge' option selected in the looopback options.

Hi, firstly to say a big thank you to everyone on this site- as a full time teacher in primary (and someone who looks after the network), I really value the support and information provided by everyone. Thanks! Virtual beer all round. Also a question: I have 3 PCs that are used as backup machines (attached USB drive). I wanted to disable the 'shutdown' option, so used the "Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Group Policy -> User Group Policy loopback processing mode" option. (see this thread for more info: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/25671-disable-shutdown-loopback-gpo-issue.html). Anyway, it works fine, and shutdown isn't available as planned. However, on these machines now, when any user logs in, there is no folder redirection for my documents. All the other desktops and laptops for which loopback is not applied work absolutely fine. The users are mandatory. When using the loopback feature, is there any side affect for folder redirection? Interestingly, the desktop and start menu are redirected ok, just the My Docs are not.I can see that the my documents are always located in "C:\documents and settings\username\My Documents", but not on the network as the students profile dictates. Any thoughts much appreciated. Thank you.

Great, thanks for your help. I was using channels 1,5,9 and 13 based on a paper I read about these channels being non-overlapping in European countries, as the frequencies were far enough apart. Anyway, I'll change the channels to be 1,6 and 11 as suggested, as well as reducing the transmission power. Distance isn't a great factor. Thanks again!

Hi, I help to manage a wireless setup in a school. Despite several new wireless routers and new laptops, the staff are getting slow connections. The setup is as follows: - school building layout is rectangular, single story - there are 6 netgear access points (54mbps), spread out like the pockets on a snooker table. - all APs have same SSID (wirelesss network name) - I am using a channels 1, 5, 9, 13, with the APs closest to each other having different channels. - Power of transmission is on full - uses WEP 128 - no mac filtering - laptops are xp pro, with correct wireless settings. - 2003 server The laptops will connect to the network and internet, just get can get a slow transmission despite a strong signal. This is just with 1 or 2 laptops connecting, not a whole suite of them. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for your time.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. Haven't had time to try them yet, but will report back what I find. sparkeh, I'll check the server for the virus again. Cheers everyone.

Hi, I am getting very strange things happening with our printers on our win2k server and xp client network. Things not printing correctly, things printing small, loads of apparently random sheets printing gibberish (100s of them). On investigation into the printer queues, I notice that our Panasonic photocopier (which we can print to from the network) keeps flashing up the document 'Remote Downlevel Printing', with status Spooling. The owner comes up as either 'Marnel-38104374$' or 'Marnel-01E7B486$' (which I can't figure out which users this actually relates to). The document reappears every 2 seconds, but showing the alternate user as the owner. I've tried starting and stopping the printer queue, restarting the server, as well as searching the net for any solutions. Stuff comes up about printing from dos as an issue on lpt1, but I can't think what would have been printed from dos. McAfee anti-virus shows nothing either. The event viewer log records a record in the system log section, with source being print. The Information for each record shows ''Document 688, Remote Downlevel Document owned by MARNEL-38104374$ was deleted on Panasonic Photocopier. ". Nothing noticeable has changed on the network over the past few days. Any ideas or suggestions would be gratefully recieved!