matt40k

You mean 8080? If the service is running and the settings are correct, I would try TCP and a different port.

I think this is a very good point. If the money has be spent, rightly or wrongly, you need to get as much out of that investment. It's important to reduce the damage as much as possible, too often systems\services\software gets written off rather then the effort to push forward trying to make it perform as best of possible - even if this is just getting it working.

I'm not a fan such scripts. Use the windows screensaver with a password. It falls over when you, run a report that takes an age to run so you lock your workstation then head to the kitchen \ go to lunch and return to find it's closed SIMS. Like @elsiegee40 says, SIMS isn't the main worry, normally Excel is open with sensitive data. Also close SIMS would = problems. If Capita had a "lock" feature you could get away with it. But it doesn't.

What Alt + F4? lol Not sure I get what your trying to do, leaving a workstation logged in is almost just as bad as leaving it open with SIMS open.

Makes a bit of a mess as it'll generate a new GUID so you'll have 2 records. Also, not sure you can remove it when it's locked install active - basically it's starts installing then the "helpful" person pulls the battery mid install or whatever.

It's called a screensaver with a password The other option is to raise a CR with Capita for them to add it to SIMS.

Not sure if I should take that a complement or an insult.

I'll let you off as it's Monday morning mate. The original deployment says fails, why doesn't it update - I guess the correct answer is it DID fail and in order to preserve the historical record it needs to remain as failed. Otherwise when you come to pull off reports on the success rate of SIMS deployments it would be 100% every time. It needs a "deployment status" - the status due to that deployment, and a "current status" - ie the status you spent the last 3 hours trying to get to Ideally you'd want a dashboard that shows your current status of all your machines so you don't have to go hunting. The DNS question, it relies on DNS because we don't assign static IP address and we don't work well with large numbers, so we have to rely on a central database that has a friendly name and it's (IP) address. Capita are right not to rely of NetBIOS as they are reasons why it's a legacy protocol.

I've made a very basic spelling app, basically you put a load of images named what they are in a folder then it prompts you to enter the letters. I'm not 100% happy with it but I'm a bit stuck what I can do to improve it with my limited skills - I'm also after a graphics person to make it look pretty and a musician to create some sound. HELP!!! http://spelling.codeplex.com/ Cheers

I've heard rumours about what you guys over the border get up to, but that's impressive, losing a whole IT Technician! I mean maybe a bit of flesh, but a whole person! Would love it be there when you sneak that into your list of orders, yer I need more toner, half a dozen new monitor, a lava lamp, few extra licenses... an ICT Technician, a new motherboard...

Best bet is, as you say, upload static pictures regularly, ensure cache is switched off and you've got a javascript auto-refresh or something, or use something like ustream where you stream to them and they broadcast it, so you're no worrying about ports being opened or however much bandwidth you have.

So in theory, if Capita need to replicate it they just need to : have a workstation with SIMS open, run autumn upgrade via s3. Workstation fails, reboot, SIMS works, Exams fails. Should be pretty simple to fix.

If one of the files it was trying to register is locked and in the PendingFileRenameOperations, would it register it when it reboots or would it re-register the current version. If that's the case it's a "simple" task of killing the processes before upgrading.

@scebe427 - that's what we thought, but @zag has had this with it being deployed via S3, assuming it's done correctly, it would be installed as the local service account, so it won't be permissions. The only thing I can think that it could be is if the virtualstore came into play, but this would only affect a certain user and you would have a entry in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\... blah blah. The only other thing I can think of is session 0 but I doubt it. Still we both no the true answer - rewrite Exams etc in .net!

It's still positive. OK Capita only lost 1% of its customers this year, but that's about 200 schools (I think?) in England, add in the fact the market grow by 50 odd schools from last year, now lets say it's £1k per school, that's £200k lost from a possible £50k profit before taking into account one of the big 3 pulling out and another being sold, they shouldn't be dropping. Just proves what a little forum can do to the big corporate machine.

@synaesthesia it'll be alot easier in a cloud environment, you not worrying about the 99 ways of the user has configured SQL, or if the hardware is the best it can be. Also you can actually run proper performance monitoring on the environment so you'll pick up some weird scenario that they've never seen before. This is assume you get a performance SLA of course!

Your right @localzuk, it's like buying a pc based on the min spec of today without thinking about what it will be towards then end of the life of the pc then wondering why it won't be usable as long as the warranty. Question @Millgate, what happens if they agree to it, the take the device into say CEX and trade it in, then stop paying? Is the school liable? Surely school shouldn't be teaching bad money management let alone promoting. Get proper phone mate. My Windows Phone - slate it if you will, allowed me to download Nokia maps and I've managed to navigate everywhere from London to Wisbech without any problems - signal or not. PS: Great to hear all the "why Apple" comments, always nice to hear your not the only one running into the "it's the best because the nice ad told me so".

Yer, well CDN bandwidth charges. Not bad for these kinda stats - www.matt40k.co.uk (History)

+1 for RackSpace, signed up for Cloud Files, got the Cloud DNS for free - it's costing me about 5p a month for about a dozen static website with ridiculous speed and zero down-time - and I do mean ZERO downtime! Other option might be to move the whole domain away to someone like Mythic-Beasts are totally awesome unlike 1&1 who are going down hill all the time. Mythic-Beasts are the guy who host the Raspberry Pi website, customers also include Putty and BlinkBox.

Worse feedback ever Go on, I've taken the bait, (I'm assuming this place is based on logic which is based on facts and not gossip) why is it the worse piece of software you have ever used. List your woes as I doubt it's the first piece of software you've used that was constructed by mere mortals. (Sorry, if it's rather sarcastic it's just been one of those days)

You don't want much do you!! I should really go to BETT so I can cash in all these favours lol

I knew saying SIF isn't the answer would get you posting Until I hear of a school migrating their MIS system purely using SIF, I don't think it's the final answer. You point about vendors like cashless catering using SIF is a brilliant example. This is my point... eventually.

Yer, that's why I like the export routine idea

That's the killer question @vikpaw. With VLE the idea was SCORM, so you had this open-format that you could move YOUR data between platform without dataloss. With MIS systems I suspect the "answer" will be schools Interoperability Framework, Systems Interoperability Framework (UK), or SIF. However I'm not likely the idea, it's too over complicated in some regards, regardless, this will be the main turning point in the MIS market in the UK when a solution is agreed upon. I'm hoping the DfE will step forward and publish an open standard, such as extending the CTF to include alot more of the data that is actually captured at the school level - like staff details! So you have a common point for all MIS suppliers to aim for. In theory you'd end up create a "MIS system" at this point. So you could hit the export button, either look at the raw file, or import into a basic shell of a MIS - then either go back to the current MIS supplier and go hey, you're not export particular fields or go to the "board" and ask them to be add to the standard. I think the little players would support it as they wouldn't be having to bend over backwards to get data out correctly from the big 3 and the big 3 aren't having the same issue about a little MIS system. Going forward would be a solution with a more module approach, so you could interconnect individual modules between different suppliers - so you could have a ScolarPack as the core, Bromcom as the e-reg, SIMS as the assessments suite and be able to inter-swap each part. But that's along way off personally - it's kinda what SIF is trying to do. I think the key is a standard "export" facility that works across the board, DfE controlling this like the CTF format. If Capita was smart they would be pushing this as they could control it to a large extent.

I think I'll need a drink or two before I put in a FOI asking for that - pretty sure that's not going to show me anything I particularly want to see lol!