Steven_Cleaver

I work on a five year for Desktops as my supplier now provides 5 year Warranty I also try to buy a reasonably High spec so they last a bit longer. Laptops 3 to 4 years although I have a few older be just used as stand alone laptops.

I have used both RM & CSE I found both these systems OK & CSE much better than RM for support & their systems more stable but over the last couple of years, I have had found their support to not be quite as good as it was & both these providers can be a bit pricey as in past experience they charge a License cost per machine & per extra piece of Software Tool you want They both also provide a software solution that can be a little inflexible, try these guys Burconix Ltd Burconix - Professional ICT Solutions for Education and SME they have their own set of Network Management tools but also are very flexible in providing solutions that fit your organisation.

You could also try Italic which is free it seems to do most the things that the commercial ones do including share screens, lock computers, view pupil screens etc, I have been using this here for about year now & staff seem reasonably happy with it.

Another vote for Stone their equipment is very good, reliable reasonably priced with some negotiation & on the rare occasion a machine does have a problem they are out the next day. Also have always found their delivery times prompt. I get 5 year as standard onsite from them on new equipment from about 18 months ago, they will also pre-install an image for you on the machine if you wish. I deal with someone their called Joseph Shore who is always really helpful.

We have had some of the same boards I think, you will probably need ActiveInspire software, you can download this from their website you need a key off the Activ Studio software. All the drivers are included in the ActivInspire MSI. see link English : ActivInspire : Software : Support : Promethean Planet, you will need to register if you don't already have an account. Hope this helps.

I'd like to see some photo's when it is all finished & with all the equipment in.

We use some software called PRISM it takes a snap shot of a machine you then install the software or make what ever changes to the machine you want finish the snapshot so creating a package that incorporates all your changes. This can then be distributed to all your machines in the network very quickly.I have been using this for about five years now and this has saved me loads of time. Also when you rebuild a machine as long as you keep the same name it re-deploys any software associated with that machine.We purchased this through a company called CSE although you can get this directly.

I haven't played with it that much but I have tried live snapshotting so without stopping the Server it creates a small file that holds the settings about 8Mb but it also creates a virtual disk for that snapshot the same size as the Virtual disk on the snap shotted server. You can then create a new VM from this snap shot so again this would take up the size of the original server (make sure if you do it live you copy in the Mac address from original VM) so for a short time you would require at least three times the space of the original server. You can then delete the original snap shot and the Virtual drive it created. This all take a few of minutes at most to do, so is really impressive. I am not to sure I would live snap shotting on my DC's with AD running or my SIM's server but have tried this on the print server and application server shutdown the old server and restarted the new VM I created from the snap shot everything worked fine really impressive. I am not to sure if this is the same if you stop the server first, but I'll give it a go over the weekend.

We have just had Visualisation setup at are our establishment and are using Xencenter 5.5 wow. Live Migration. Snapshotting. And so much more Wow again.

I was wondering if anyone could help me I am trying to find the XP drivers for an Advent 7111 laptop Particularly the Sound card, I have tried various sites and got most of the drivers but am having a real issue with the Sound card driver. Would rather not pay for a driver as I am fixing the machine for someone else tried the Advent site (Tech Guys) but this doesn't seem to quite work. Many thanks

I have always found a company called Computer Village (now part of RTL)RFL Computer Village very reasonably priced if you contact Mathew Creed and give him my name (Steven Cleaver) he will sort you out with a quote.I have dealt with them for four years now and they have never let me down. Their install service is also very good no moans (although you are not looking for this) about extra electrical sockets or things being taken off walls etc. extremely helpful nothing to much trouble, they are also happy to fit round school hours or work late to get jobs done.

No access to students work here, staff come and see us if they need to access a students work,so that someone else can witness what staff are doing I have a number of reasons for this. 1. If staff have write access they could obviously alter\delete students work either on purpose or by accident. This could mean that students could be advantaged or disadvantaged. 2.If staff have read access they can not only read or access course work for their course but all other documents some of which could be private, we all know and explain to students and staff shouldn't store private documents but we know this happens. 3. Having another member of staff as a witness when students work is being accessed also covers staff in case a student were to claim a member of staff had altered\deleted their work this is particularly critical when we are talking about course work. 4.As part of Teaching Staff Performance Management here, their students Achievement\Attainment is taken into account. Due to this their is always the fear that some unscrupulous staff could improve students work to increase students Achievement\Attainment for personal gain. I am not saying this happens here as far as I know it doesn't, just that it is opening that can of worms and to give the staff the Mechanism to do this by allowing them write access to students work may not be the best idea and may be irresponsible on our parts. This is what I explain to staff when asked as regards giving them access to students work, which they seem to understand I am not trying to be awkward but am trying to cover their backs as well, if they haven't got access on their own then no one can say that they have altered\deleted students work.

We have been using Cunninghams Impact system using Biometrics for around three years now, it works very well with the odd glitch which is usually fixed in a couple of minutes. The support is very good usually answered straight away or call back within a few minutes & they use remote access to fix any issues. If a reval is damaged they are usually out the same day. Parents can pay online & although this had a few teething troubles at the start it works really well once these kinks were ironed out.

I would agree run with some comments as regards about CSE but disagree with others: I have been using CSE for eight years at two different establishments. Good points Their application deployment software (Prism) works really well & has saved me an awful lot of time. Internet tracking software again very good. Printer solution works well. Their network management Software is again good & can save you a lot of time. Bad Points Workspace Explorer is very resource hungry. When they moved to Workspace .Net I personally felt this didn't anywhere meet their original ideas for this product & I personally had many issues with this product & even after three years have not upgraded to this version. I also feel they have provided over the years has degraded & feel their company has become more sales driven, as someone else has stated.

Quality.

Logmein here too, have been using this for a couple of years now without any issues.

Cheers Holly, hes a good lad and has worked out really well.

Yep still using it here they did some science tests using the DPS software were a lot better to be honest than the old ICT tests more drag & drop & multiple choice much easier to set up less issues. Its sitting on one of our 2003 Servers. Apparently the results were better than some of the same tests done on paper so they are looking at expanding these.

We went with Kaleidos from RM here because the LEA were offering it at a reduced cost as they were trying to get all the schools in the borough using one VLE.We thought this would be a good idea all schools working on the same VLE supported by LEA & RM. To be honest we didn't find the system very user friendly, didn't really catch Staff or Pupils imagination we have spent about 18 months using the system & although it was OK some staff were using it in lessons etc it hadn't moved on very far. It is nice that it integrates with SIM's reasonably well. We decided to have look around at this point as we didn't feel that we wanted to continue with Kaleidos & we had some issues over the proposed upgrade to the new version their were other reasons but I don't want to go into too much detail. We have spent the past few months looking around & have decided to go with Frog we were really impressed with their presentation & they also set us up on a dummy system where you case can take a look at some of the functionality. We then visited a couple of schools that were using Frog & spoke to a number of people their we also went to a presentation by a couple of schools that had been using Frog for varying lengths of time. What impresses me most is the potential of the system for both curriculum & Admin the more we look at the system the more potential we can see, also they seem a very open to suggestions & idea. I have also seen a lot of positive things about Frog on the Forum & have done a fair amount of research. But be aware Frog is not cheap in initial setup costs but as someone has already mentioned it is a good idea to get them both in & weigh up the Pro's & Con's. Personally if you have got the money go with Frog as I truly think this is the best I have seen as a VLE. You can also give staff\students access to school systems\apps via secure gateway at an extra cost. Hope this helps.

I looked at HP, Dlink & Trapeeze & Aruba before deciding on going for Aruba here, we have found this to be very good & once set up I have had no issues with it see below for some of the features it was installed by a company called Burconix & the information below is from their site.I have found this to be a very reliable & high performing system & it covers our whole sixth form block(12 classrooms,Conference Room & Lecture Theatre) with 4 access points upto 20 laptops at a time with no issues.We are looking at expanding this into the main school over the summer which can be done easily by adding extra Access points. With advances in technology and centrally managed wireless networks where each access point is aware of neighbouring access points, these issues are now resolved and schools can deploy secure, fast and reliable wireless which runs itself with little or no input from the Network Manager. This enterprise solution is highly versatile, and can be designed to your deployment requirements. To give you an idea, here are just some of the features you could expect: - Broadcast multiple SSID's/Wireless networks from a single antenna, allowing you to create multiple networks for guest, multiple managed, and/or voice networks. - Provide a single point of configuration, configure a set of policies for your establishment, or buildings/departments and push the configuration to all of your access points on the network in one go. - Broadcast a guest network that securely allows visitors to gain access to just the resources you define via the built in firewall, such as an internal intranet or guest internet access. - Configure your guest network so that when users associate, they will be required to logon using a web based portal. Users can be forced to first authenticate against your existing active directory and/or an internal guest database when they first try to access the internet. - Setup guest manager accounts, so that receptionists/librarians can create temporary guest accounts with expiry times for visitors requiring temporary internet access. - Distribute your managed wireless setting via group policy, so when you image a station it will automatically pull down the wireless configuration. - Assign users to a specific firewall policies/VLANs or cabled ports based on the credential used to authenticate (or by group membership of that user integrated with existing Active Directory). - Dynamically load balance your clients on the network with adaptive environment support. So that in the event of an access point going offline, or high load in one area, other nearby points will increase antenna strength to compensate. - Centrally controlled automated channel adjustment to best cover areas defined. - Real time monitoring, see which devices are connected to your network, and their physical location by triangulating their position from 3 antennas, or using the SNR values. - Real time detection of interfering devices and live coverage maps, showing coverage and signal strength across the whole school from a single interface.

Happy Birthday and have good one. I have really enjoyed some of your posts.

Same as everyone else I have been using stone here for Five and half years they are excellent for their support when required which isn't often but is nearly always next day. Again five years warranty on their kit now which is very good. They perform really well overall, their engineers & Sales people are very friendly not pushy at all no endless phone calls or emails if you have a quote off them. In all I would highly recommend them.

I am using some software called Prism Prism Deploy - Automated Software Deployment from New Boundary to create packages & can be used to deploy I have used this for about five years very successfully can deploy whatever you like reg keys, docs what ever you like very quickly. It takes a snapshot of your machine you then make changes, deploy software, change registry key whatever ,name the Package and push out to machines. I have been using something from a company called CSE (CSE Application Manager) to deploy the packages although you can use Prism itself but I am looking at some software being developed by a couple of ex engineers that left CSE that can also deploy MSI's and has other functionality Burconix.com - Network Solutions for Business and Education in the Management Tools section.

Hi dtester Quite agree with you about buying into a concept and the pertentual for growth and expansion of use across the school, thanks for the link I will take a look as I am trying to do as much research on FROG before we go for it.

We are looking at using FROG here I have previously used Learnwise, Uniservity, and Kaleidos and have not really been happy with any of theses. Frog on the other hand has really impressed me. I was just wondering if anyone was using Frogs Secure Gateway and Parental Portal and how they have found these, as we are looking at a one stop solution for VLE, home access and communication with parents.