woody

Average 30 secs to load up new page on edugeek. Everywhere else I've been pretty instant.

Getting SMT to sit with you every time you feel that something is suspicious is not practicle at all. I suppose it must be at the stage where you realise that something is serious. But the thing is, we NEVER know what we might stumble onto and if the page has been viewed on our PC, even if it's only the first link, we need to have something to cover our own backs.

It was a while back now when I started a discussion about what procedures should be put into place to deal with pupils who access porn deliberately and there were some good points mentioned at the time - http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=679 But I'd like to turn it on it's head now, and it is something that recently happened here to me that has prompted me to ask about it on edugeek. The other week, I accidently came across an mpeg in a user area that had a very dodgy filename and upon opening it did indeed prove to be of a sensitive and most definatley illegal nature. It sent a shiver down my spine and I felt edgy knowing that 1) it was on the server under my control and 2) I had actually viewed it, even if it did only take me 5 seconds to confirm what it was. Because of the severity of it, I immediately went straight to the headteacher. In our job most of us do come into contact with material that the pupils are viewing. The majority of it turns out to be pin-up posters and the like. But occasionally, we get something more hardcore. My question is, how do we cover ourselves? How do we prove that we are policing what is being viewed on the network, and not looking at that material for our own gratification? Yes you can prove that a user has actually been to a particular site, but what if I have had to access that site on my own computer to identify it's nature in the first instance? Or like my recent experience I had to view the mpeg to make sure it really was what it said on the tin as it were? Does anyone have a policy signed by the headteacher that specifically contains language to cover themselves when it come to viewing such material in the interest of pupil safety? I am certainly going to put something together myself but if anyone has already done this, I would be interested in looking at it.

First of all, do you need an amplifier or is there one already there? Second, how old are the speakers on the wall? (This is important as if you haven't already got an amplifier, newer amplifiers could be too powerful for older speakers.) Third, you say that it must play audio CDs and Tapes. What about public speaking? Do they use a microphone in assemblies? You can buy a tape and CD player in one unit. Sounds like that is what you could do with. The company who installed ours is called Rythm of Life, but again you would be better finding somebody locally, so they can support you if it stops working! If you are particularly interested, I can give you the make and model numbers of the Amplifier and CD/Tape player we have got.

If this is the way your LEA controls IT in schools, it sounds like they have some serious issues!

Just installed a new HP Laser 2430dtn in the front office. Installed the latest driver as per usual on the print server and shared it. But when you look in Printing Preferences at the paper source, there is only tray 1 (manual feed) and tray 2. What happened to the extra tray 3 on the bottom? I have tried the HP website but no help there. I know the printer itself recognises tray 3. If you leave papaer source on 'Automatic' and pull tray 2 out, then it will pull from tray 3 quite happily. But the whole point of getting the extra tray was so you could choose which one to print from so you coulf have letter head in one and plain in the other. Any ideas how I can get this to show up in the printing preferences? I thought it should work automatically.

I've found that Sophos AV running in the background can be detrimental to the SIMS upgrade service. If you have it running on a PC and that PC is slow to load or upgrade sims, just stop the sophos AV service while the upgrade runs. Watch the difference!

I've just sent that article to my boss and asked for a payrise!

Snuffkins: Sent to your email address!

I finally got them to send me an updatd version of the Remote Setup software which allows you to change the channel number of the receiver and also change the timeout on the remote handsets. Thanks for the instructions!

Snuffkins, please can you send me the instruction manual so that I can change the channel numbers then please? [email protected] The number on the bottom of the receiver is '4'. Does this sound right to you?

Anybody had a bad experience with this crew? We were interested in their GeneeUs (notice the spelling) voting system. 1. We invited them in to come and demo it. A sales person rang back and arranged a date. The first date available was over a month off. This was in January. 2. Call from sales person same day as Demo was to go ahead. I had broke my back trying to get as many staff to come to the after school demo. She said she could not come because her Laptop HD had stopped working. (The thought - bring another laptop came to mind. Or even install them on one of ours.) Anyway, new appointment made - had to wait three weeks for that. Now in February. 3. The demo was less than inspiring. However, the handsets looked good, software looked good, and the price couldn't be beaten by competitors. Another important factor was that the handsets had numberical buttons on as well as alphabetical. The Promethian ones only seemed to have alphabetical buttons. 4. Day after, we put an order in for the handsets. The next week was february half term. Towards the end of feb half term, I got a call on my mobile from the Sales person. She asked if we had put an order in yet because the hand sets were going fast and she had ours reserved but hadn't received an order. I ring her back on the Monday back in school. She apologized and said they had received the order, but we would have to wait for the second batch to be manufactured. What happened to our reserverd ones? 5. After two more phone calls, 2 months of waiting, and a not-so-very happy Maths teacher, the handsets finally came. Excitedly, we got them out of the box and installed the software. Not much documentation. The handsets just kept saying 'no network'. 6. Rand up the phone number on the website. Asked for technical support. Told me they would ring me back. 7. 10 minutes later I get a call on my mobile from a call centre somewhere not in the UK. Struggled to understand what was being said, but finally managed to follow instructions to no avail. Was told to ring Interactive Education back up because I didn't have the latest version of the remote test software which I needed to register the hand sets to the receiver. (didn't realise I had to do this in the first place due to no documentation.) 8. Rang interactive education up and explained to the rep what had happened. After asking her not to get the Indian guy to ring me back because he had told me to ring her for the latest software, she went away and then came back to get the address to send the software out to us. Seeing as the remote test software was only 4.5mb I asked if she could just email it to me. She didn't know if she could so she was going to ask someone else. And I asked her to post it anyway. Phew. If you've got this far, thanks for sticking with me. Question: At what point would you have given up and told them where to stick their voting handset? I would be interested to here if anyone has had a similar experience.

Right ok. I've been into several user folders directly on the server. For some reason, even when folder options is set to VIEW hidden and system files, I can't see the greyed out 'desktop.ini'. However, I know it is there because I can open it with the command: 'notepad d:\\desktop.ini' I have tried opening the file when logged on as a pupil and I can edit and save with no problems. However, I just can't see our pupils going to that legnth. Maybe I underestimate them, or maybe they have a small util that does it for them? Either way, my next question is: How do I stop it? Is there an automated way of replaceing the desktop.ini at all levels of folder heirarchy? Can I set permissions on it? What happens when they create new folders. Will a default desktop.ini not also be created which they can edit?

No, they only have access to their own documents area on the server, through the My Documents icon on their desktop. They somehow alter the text format in there. I think it is to do with the desktop.ini file in some way. I just need to get the time in amongst the chaos of this place to check it out for shure!

Right here goes: Users don't get access to Display settings full stop. They can't view hidden files in their user area so I can't see how they can edit desktop.ini unless they are configuring one at home and bringing it in and overwriting it in their folder.(Can't see them going to all that trouble personally) They can't right click in the windows shell. They don't have access to folder options. They access their files directly on the server through Folder re-direction in the group policy. So My Documents is actually on the server. The screenshot above is actually of a folder on the server, not looking at it through a client. So when they change the text colour of folders / files, it is actually changin it directly on the server. But I just can't see how they are doing that. Maybe I should threaten one of them to tell me?

Nothing is wrong with Windows Movie Maker but it is a basic editor. Emmanuel wants something BETTER than Pinnacle studio. WMM doesn't fall into that catigory.

@ danIT, Emmanuel's question was this: We want a computer to do video editing on. Should it be a Mac or a PC? He didn't mention wanting to do music or art or web stuff. Just plain old Video Editing (if there is such a thing!) So for that SPECIFIC purpose, I recommend buying a Mac since it is also in Emmaniel's budget for a SINGLE computer. Therefore, garageband iphoto etc are not under discussion really, although these do intergrate into imovie. However, if Emmanuel bought a Mac and wanted to expand it's use, then all of the software you mentioned for the PC is also available on the Mac. ie. Cubase, Photoshop, Macromedia Studio, etc etc. Oh and you can get MS Office of course.

Sorry but that doesn't work. It is the text within the folder that has changed colour. I have attached a screenshot of a typical example. You can see where I have highlighed some of the files, but the rest are invisible (white).

The Kids have started to format the text of the folder names in their user areas to white, so you have to highlight them to see what they are. I can't see how they are doing this. Even more annoying is that I can't see where to change it back, or if there is a GP that will stop them from doing it in the first place. Anyone???

We have just bought 4 20" Intel iMacs. We are mainly a PC school and i am not a Mac Geek, but as soon as the deputy head said "video editing", I immediately thought "Mmmmm, Apple definately." The iMac cost £1048 with the standard spec apart from 1gb ram rather than 512mb. This was from Apple themselves. And I must admit, the Apples are great. I have installed Bootcamp on one of them and dual booting in Windows looks easy. I am just waiting to get hold of an XP install disk with service pack 2 on, because my XP disk didn't pick up the partitions correctly. iMovie is great for quick professional looking videos but you should go for final cut if you want to do more advanced stuff. OR, for middle of the range, you can get Final Cut Express which is probably the one I would go for but beware, Apple haven't recoded it as one of their 'Universal' Applications that will work on the new intel chips yet. Should be pretty soon though. I have a copy of Final Cut Pro and it is pretty in depth. Pupils would definately need guidance on how to use. Why go for a PC? If you were on a tight budget that would be a good reason, but if you have 1 - 1.5k then you would be silly to buy anything other than Mac. If you put together a PC with the same spec you get in a mac (and this is including the fantastic quality of screen inbuilt in the iMac) then you would probably be looking at around the same cost as buying a Mac. And with the Mac, you get iLife including iTunes free! If you have any specific questions about the Mac feel free to ask!

My brother has his own little side business setting up wireless networks and fixing PCs in people's homes. Several times while setting up wireless networks, he has noticed unsecured networks next door or a few doors down, and offered to fix this for a nominal fee. Granted to say, the response he has received has been favourable in the main, and he's earned a few quid more.

Ric, thanks for your advice and offer of chat. If we were to go thin client, there would be two rooms back to back of 64 clients. I can guarantee that for many lessons, they will all be in use at the same time bar one or two. But reading your other posts, it's not the cost of licensing that puts me off. I know that you can do it for at least the same price as standard desktops. What worries me is the processing power. I just know that in the IT dept, they will want to do full screen video and video editing, and other processor killing tasks like that. Now then, put into the picture 60 or so thin clients editing 20 minutes of video in Adobe Premiere. Will a thin-client system live up to that?

Thin client mainly because of space (they are pretty small rooms), and for physical security. Somebody here has put the idea forward of having maybe shuttle pcs and putting them all together in a cooled secure cabinet with KVM leads out to the desks. Has anybody done this?

Thanks Chris. Now you have pointed out the thin client forum, I have been reading the other threads and got a lot from them. What I mean by the clients running XP, is that I would like them to 'appear' to run XP or similar. Basically I am unfamiliar with the whole thin clients thing, but I guess I am asking for a best case cenario. All the equipment is going to be new - I don't need to look at resurrecting older kit. The servers too. If citrix works best and is easier to set up, then that would be good. But basically I am open to all suggestions. I think I might try to get to the conference.

Woops, my mistake!!! Doh! Thanks Chris