Duranis

I don't really have any issue with this at all. As a portable device an iPad Air 2 is not a bad choice, it has a sim slot so doesn't need a wifi connection, its simple to use (judging by the actions of some of our MP's this is important ) and its easy to lock down. Supplying a cellular device and a laptop to an employee doesn't really seem that odd to me. Personally any Apple device wouldn't be my first choice as I hate them, but in this case it is a good fit.

Wish the person that I took over from was as thoughtful as you, came in to zero documentation/information and it seriously made the first few months a nightmare while I tried to figure everything out. If you don't already have an internal KB they could access then I would include a list of common/ongoing issues and fixes/work done so far. Also if you did any regular work that they might not expect then a heads up could be handy (when I started nobody told me it was my responsibility to update all the login details for all the pupils on all the websites they use, it wasn't until a teacher asked me when they where going to be ready because they where waiting for them that I even knew anything about them).

I started getting into LOL awhile back. I would say if you don't take it too seriously its a hell of a lot of fun. There are a few people that are complete asshats but you get that in any online community. Honestly I have found the majority of people I have played with to be fairly friendly.

I got this last weekend... Have to say I have put in WAY too many hours already. The other night I went on to "just play for an hour" while my mrs was having a bath. Next thing I heard birds chirping and realised the sun was starting to come up. Worst thing was about all I had done in that time was mess about tweaking the road system. Only annoying thing is that the parts of my cities where I don't plan anything and just chuck the roads down where they look pretty work perfectly. Then I spend hours planning out the perfect layout and it ends up getting gridlocked almost instantly. Also have a bad habit of restarting every time I learn some new trick just so I can use it from the start.

I didn't think you had to do this if you was using an MSI? Actually now I think about it maybe I have to import an MSI, not create a package out of it........ Edit: Lots of posts while I was typing. Yes I think the problem was I need to import with MSI not create new package.... THIS time I will document that properly so I wont make the same mistake again (maybe..) Thanks a lot guys

It is quite possible that I'm just doing it wrong. Only had to build a couple of packages since I started here 6 months ago and that was when I first started but I'm sure this was what I did. I cannot see any other places to do it though (File>New>Package is also greyed out).

Trying to create a new package in RMMC but the option is greyed out. Only thing I could find on RM support was that if the option was missing then assign RM application wizard to the machine running it. The option isn't missing just greyed out but I tried this anyway and still same issue. Any ideas?

Thought that might be the case but was hoping I was wrong Really good tip on removing the windows updates from the build process though. Thank you both very much.

Just wondering if anyone has tried this (and there is probably many reason why it wont work but...) I have a bunch of new laptops that I need to set up on a CC4 network and on the test system I tried yesterday it took close to 6 hours to complete. I was wondering if I set up one laptop and then took an image of it onto a flash drive could I then use this image on the other laptops, rename them locally and then rename them in CC4? Not sure it is going to be that simple but would be nice if there was a quicker way to do this.

I really love Samsung but I'm not sure on the S6, No SD slot and non-replaceable battery are a big no-no as far as I'm concerned. Depending on your usage though (i.e. how much storage space do you actually need) it may be worth it (depending on how easy it is to get inside it to replace the battery). Batteries are a weak point on even the best phones so I always want to have the option to be able to replace it without having to buy special screwdrivers or breaking out the heat gun.

My youngest is in year 5 and normally gets 2 maths sheets (around 20-30 questions on each generally following on from what they have been doing in school), 1 "other" piece (normally a research X subject or create a poster/information sheet) and then has spellings and reading. He has a week to do it all except reading which they are expected to do every day. Normally the homework takes about an hour depending on how much he drags he heels about it Then we spend between 10-30 mins reading before bed (I don't count this as homework though as I would probably try to make him do this anyway). To me this seems about right for his age. It helps us see what he has been learning about and pick up areas where he is struggling/doing well in and it helps him reinforce what he knows and get used to working in a non-school environment. As we always try to give him the choice of when he does the homework as well he is learning a little bit about time management "do I do 10 minutes each night and spread it out or spend an hour all in one go". Normally he picks the putting it off until last minute and then having to do it all on Sunday in one go which takes longer as he gets bored. I keep hoping that one day he will understand the fact that doing the 10 minutes a day would be so much easier, but then again how many of us ever do? I definitely think "some" homework is always a good idea for all ages of children. However it should not need to take hours and hours (for younger children at least) and it should be a quick reinforcement of stuff they have already been doing in school.

I have been on Android since I first got hold of the HTC Dream Dev version and have been running the Samsung Galaxy phones for the last few years. If you are looking at Android I would ask yourself a few questions. Do you want to Root it and install custom ROMS? If so check out XDA developers forum first and see what devices have the most community support there to create your shortlist. Want a stock Android experience with quick updates soon after they come out? Probably best to go for a nexus, generally will get the updates quicker than other devices and is a more "pure" Android experience. Want a solid phone with good spec then look at the Galaxy S5, Nexus 6 or HTC One M8. Galaxy Note 4 is also very nice if you want a slightly bigger screen. The Samsung and HTC flavors of Android are pretty nicely done too. One thing to note about Android is that there will ALWAYS be a delay between updates being release and you finally getting them on your phone. This is because it first goes through the manufacturer who does there own stuff to it and then goes to the carrier that does their stuff to it. Therefore depending on your carrier and the phone it can sometimes take quite awhile for updates to roll out. If you are used to having an iPhone where everyone gets it at the same time this may annoy you. The Windows phones do look pretty nice and there are some good spec, well built, devices out there but I personally find it as restrictive as Apple iOS. However if you are really into a lot of MS services already (xbox live, etc) then it may be worth taking a look. Also like iOS its also a pretty user friendly and solid platform.

Have been told this afternoon that it is going to become a requirement to store child protection data for 20 years after the child has left the school. From what I have been told this data is: Not used on a daily basis (accessed maybe monthly). Is mostly all paper at the moment so will need to be scanned for digital storage. Probably will not take that much space to store the data (rough guess 100mb per child max, this is a complete guess though). Is obviously highly sensitive and needs to be secure. First thing that came to mind would be 2 external hard drives with encryption (hardware based). Use one as a working drive which will be kept on site in a safe and plugged directly into the laptop of the staff that need access to it. The second would have the data copied to it once a month (I would prefer more but was told this would probably be enough) and would otherwise be kept off site in the safe of another federation school. First question is, does this sound viable or would there be a better solution? I thought this would be a good way as its simple (staff are all used to using encrypted flash drives), the data is secured (not shared on network, easy to physically secure) and it is self contained (not reliant on other software, computer setups, etc to be usable). If this is a good way to go does anyone have any suggestions on what drives to look at or specific features I should look for? I'm also not sure I would trust any drive to store data for 20 years reliably so will have to look at specs on this as well to put in recommendations for checking drive integrity and when they should be replaced (suggestions on what to look out for?). Edit: Hmm this should probably have gone in the hardware section......

I used to design folding keyboards for mobile devices back before Blackberry was even a thing when none of them had HID support and we had to hack together software to run them through the SPP profile The MS one is nice looking but the massive gap in the middle is a pain for touch typing. The Jorno keyboard is never going to be made. There are a LOT of Chinese factories chucking out small Bluetooth keyboards now so plenty of selection out there and cheap prices (but also a lot of junk).

Only leaving "gift" I was ever given was £5k when I quit a job I had in recruitment. It wasn't so much a gift but more of a "We will give you this money if you agree not to talk to anyone in the industry for at least 12 months". They where fairly scared I was going to take my client base with me and go and join a former manager they had fired who set up a competing business or that I was going to let people know why I had quit. I had no interest in staying in the industry so was quite happy to take the money - - - Updated - - - lol I'm glad I wasn't the only one to have this response...

Yeah I don't have anything available in my RM downloads which is why I have been stuck with trying Smartclient which had already been installed. Thanks for the info though that is very helpful. I agree 100% that had this been a vanilla network with the neglect that it was given my first job would have been a total rebuild. Also I'm very much aware that as a primary school, if for any reason I leave this job it would be a lot harder for them to find someone comfortable running a vanilla network than it would to run one using CC4, which is pretty much the main reason I would want to keep it in place despite how i feel about it. I really like this school and I would hate to leave them in a difficult situation. Also while it might sound like I'm blaming CC4 for this it is in fairness much more likely to be my lack of experience with it that is the problem.

Thanks, that is the document I was using to try and get smart client going. It gets to a point (see's the CC4 server, connects and gets added as a machine but will not install any packages so far). I do not think we can add it to the build area and I'm reluctant to pay out for that if it will not help. Also I mistyped above which may explain this. We have the follow versions: CC4 2008R2 Client - 1.25.0.0 CC4 Package Update - 1.4.0.1 CC4 SR1 - 4.2.0.0 Server Build CC4 SR2 - 1.45.0.0 Server Build CC4.4PR - Windows 8 Smart client for CC4 - 2.2.0.0 Maybe the issue is here that we are not on 4.3 and smartclient does not work on 4.2? Thanks to everyone else regarding the 4.5 upgrade. That is pretty much what I was expecting unfortunately. I'm not opposed to keeping CC4 in place if it does the job but the combination of it being new to me and the previous IT people leaving things in a bit of a mess has soured me on it quite a bit.

Short version of the story is that I have not long started in this job and I'm looking to get in some very nice 2in1 tablets from VeryPC running windows 8.1 pro. The issue is that we have CC4.3 here at the moment which means having to use the RM smartclient to connect up Windows 8.1 devices. This is giving me no end of issues (I have yet to actually get smart client to work as it should do. Even when I do eventually find out how to make it work, its still more of a workaround than a solution). I'm hoping to move over to a vanilla MS setup but having only been here for a fairly short time I think it would be best to leave that as a project for summer, next year. So as a short term solution (at least 12 months) I was considering upgrading to CC4.5 which supposedly adds proper Windows 8.1 support (and is planning win10 support for later this year). Was just wondering if anyone had already done this and could give a little feedback on what is involved and if it is worth it?

What kind of media resources do you have available? Some chromakey (green screen) stuff with them would probably be a lot of fun. Could get them to storyboard a short sequence, make up backgrounds in whatever image editing software you use (or go out and take photos and then edit them) and then record clips over a green screen (there for sure must be some A1/A2 green paper/card you can get to improvise a screen). I remember there being a nice bit of chromakey freeware kicking around a year or 2 ago but cannot for the life of me remember what it was called Covers a lot of areas and could be spread over a few weeks (coming up with a story, making background images, recording video, editing it together). We run afterschool clubs here (runs for 5 weeks at a time) and I have been thinking about volunteering to do a media/ICT club doing this or maybe stop motion animation. I'm at a primary school as well and it is hard as kids (mostly) don't really care about the history of something or how they work. They just want to be doing something fun which they are getting some kind of "reward" from completing (i.e. I programmed this and I made the robot do that, I took these photos and edited them together to create this mega monster picture, etc). The end result needs to be interesting and unusual enough for them to put the effort in. Building a PC doesn't really give them that reward at the end because "hey I spent an hour sticking these boards in and installing windows and hey... its a computer.... just like the one over there which I could have just turned on and used in 5 minutes". A lot of kids are fairly used to using different OS's (from iOS/Android and whatever PC OS they have come across to Xbox/Playstation/NDS) so showing them another OS that does the same thing but looks different isn't going to be a draw. Not saying all kids are like this but most of them are (My 9 year built his own PC and loved that he had put it together himself, I guess also he had a larger reward in that he had his own PC at the end of it as well). Just need to either have a large enough "reward" for large amounts of "effort" or lots of small "rewards" for small chunks of "effort". Alternatively does your school have anything like purple mash/skooville, etc. Some of the teachers here run a skooville club (which I think is actually pretty unstructured, the kids basically just play on there together). The kids seem to enjoy it though and if you wanted to put a bit of effort in you could offer rewards for them completing things (our old IT teacher used to use skooville coins as rewards for doing stuff in IT club and the kids loved it).

I have been asked to look at deploy iPads today and this was post was really useful as it was exactly the way I was thinking of doing it. One question though, did you need an APNS to use Meraki for app deployment and if so did it cost anything? I have seen that it was free but then it was mentioned somewhere I was reading that you need a dev account which was around $300 a year.

That is perfect, thank you. I did do a search but was looking specifically for Configurator\Meraki, should have widened the net a bit

I have been asked today to look into the logistics of deploying some "test" ipads for classroom use (primary school age). I suspect we will be looking at around 10-20 initially but if they are useful I think this will ramp up quickly (unfortunately....) I haven't had to set up a mass deployment of Apple devices before so looking at the options. I was hoping people that are already running them might be able to give a few words on things to look out for, useful app's to look at and best practices, etc. From my understand (which is, admittedly limited at the moment) I could use Apple configurator (on a Macbook I have gathering dust here) to create an initial "base" image which could be installed on the iPads and then use Meraki as a free option to lock them down and deploy future app's. Is this correct? The other thing I'm concerned about is how the purchasing and licensing works. I believe I can use one Apple account and volume purchasing to buy apps for all the ipads but I have also seen a few things saying that you need a separate account for each ipad (which didn't seem right, but this is Apple we are talking about). Also I have seen that I would need a APNS to use an MDM solution which is available from Apple. However I have also seen conflicting info about this (some saying its free and others that its $300 a year). In short I want to be able to: Install/remove Apps and set up things such as WiFi from one central location (ideally remotely). Lock down the iPads so that users can not install apps/change settings. Use 1 apple account to purchase and deploy all apps with no user interaction required on the iPad end. Not pay a fortune for Apple licensing fee's/certificates. Am I on the right track with Configurator and Meraki or should I be looking at alternatives? Thank you so much for any advice you can give. Its the first real project I have been given here since starting a couple of months ago so want to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible and that I have an exact plan in place before they starting buying them in and dropping them on me Edit: Really sorry just noticed the sticky about not posting about mobile devices in Mac forum....... Feel really stupid now as I never even saw the mobile section and was wondering why I could not see any posts about iPads here..........

Couple of bits of advice that I have found useful in the past (helping setting up small businesses and working self employed). Use local Facebook/freead groups. Most you will have to pay a small amount to advertise on but there are often ways to work around (look for people that ask about PC help, etc. Get a facebook page setup for the business and use that to get involved in discussions. Ask happy customers to like the page and help spread the word (you would be surprised how many people will do just that if you ask them directly face to face). Be firm in your resolve. I'm quite a soft person and I find it REALLY hard to charge the people for work I do. I have often found myself working for no real gain (and occasionally at a loss) to help someone out who was in a bad situation. I'm not saying that you should never do this (it occasionally helps spread your name about) but do it too often and it will burn you out. Also some people will just completely take the piss. Set your prices, tell them what you will be doing for that price and if they want more make sure that you bill them for it first. Also people will want the impossible, don't be pushed into promising it to them. For example you may often have people asking if they could get it done with X time because they really need it for X. If you already have 5 other jobs ahead of them and you have not had any free time to yourself at all do not give in to them. Regarding pricing do a bit of resource and get pricing for the regular jobs (windows re install, virus removal, etc) and then depending on the price undercut it by 10% or offer something extra that they are not. You wont make friends with the other local businesses this way but it can work (at least as a starting point). Another way to do it is to get friendly with the other local small IT companies and see if you can find a way to work it out between yourselves. I have done this with similar businesses in the past. Got on friendly terms with the competition and it was very useful. Anything I wasn't comfortable dealing with (or didn't have time for) I could send to him and vice versa. Was also useful for that occasion when you need a part quick that you didn't have and for bulk purchasing spares and splitting them. Doing it this way also means that you don't all end up getting in a price dropping war with each other where you all try to undercut the others and all end up working for next to nothing. As already mentioned above make sure you set hours for yourself and stick to them. Having spent over 8 years self employed it completely burnt me out and I had very little time with my family (Spent 9 hours in office, came home, had dinner and spent another 2-3 hours working there before going to bed). Now working in a primary school as the ICT tech on worse money then I was earning when I was 17 and loving every minute of it