CM786

Ok...I'm even more confused now! 8O Would the general consenous be to go with Windows XP 32bit for the clients and Server 2003 64Bit for the Server? As you can tell, with 15 clients (for now) the server is hardly going to be pushed, whether it is 64bit or 32bit. The printer (Konica Minolta 2430DL) has Windows XP64/Server 64bit drivers. The SMARTBoard software should be fine (just rang and asked) hm....

*Edited due to naughty request* dos_box

Hi guys, I just rang Microsoft up to get some serial number for some new licenses we have bought. I was offered license codes for either 64bit or 32Bit versions of Windows and Windows Server. I'd really like to try the 64bit version, but not sure if its worth the hassle. This is for a small primary school ICT suite (15 clients - 1 server) Server Athlon X2 Dual Core, 2Gb DDR Ram, Asus A8N-SLi 250Gb SATA HDD Radeon X300 Graphics Card Clients Biostar IDEQ N1 http://www.biostar.com.tw/products/barebone/ideq/n1/index.php3 AMD Sempron 64Bit 2800+ 1Gb DDR Ram 80Gb SATA HDD nVIDIA GeForce 6100 Graphics Their seem to be 64bit drivers for everything inc Printer.. Is it worth it? The main software to be run will be Office 2003, Spark Island, 2Simple, SmartBoard software. Any advice appreciated. I'm tempted, but will it just be not worth the hassle? Thanks,

Thanks Tony I'm back in the school this afternoon, so I'll have a word with her.

Hi Guys, I appologise if this is a poor question, but my knowledge of SIMs is very limited. I have no training in supporting SIMS and the LEA have no local SIMS team either. Basically was told to not touch sims and leave it up to Capita! :oops: One of my head teachers is plannng on buying a laptop for our (newly promoted) office manager. He wants her to be able to work on SIM's data from home and then when she comes into the office, link the laptop up to her office PC and synchronise the data someway (rather like a PDA); saves her coming into school during holidays and frees up some more time for her. We cannot use VPN (LEA don't allow it), so is this kind of sych between laptop and desktop thing possible? I know the question is sort of vague since I need to ask the office manager, what exactly she wants to be able to access on her laptop. This is for a primary school. Thanks

You really know how to inspire confidence buddy! Had problems with the Dlink wireless print servers (not doing that again!) but the hard-wired ones have been relatively trouble free apart from a the occasion reset every few months. I'm keeping an eye on ebay for Axis print servers. They cost a fortune to buy new, but I've picked up a few bargains in the past (as little as £5!!). Personally I think they are the best! Use them both at home and work and not one issue.

Hi Chris, The 3200N (which has the built-in print server) is an extra £140 so I cannot really justify the spending when the head also wants me to buy interative whiteboards, more PCs, wireless kit, laptops etc (you know how it is ) I do however agree with you - I have used Netgear, HP and Dlink print servers and to be honest most have been pants, needing constant resets. I now avoid wireless print servers like the plaugh! The only print server I've used that has been FANTASTIC is an old cheap AXIS 5400+ print server which is used with that Samsung CLP-500 I mentioned earlier. It has been in for 1 1/2 years and I've not had to reset it at all. Fantastic peice of kit. Much better then the newer ones I've used. DLink seem to be okay, not had as many problems with them, but not as good as Axis. The print servers I have laying about are DLink.

http://www.oki.co.uk/fcgi-bin/public.fcgi?pid=4&cid=125&chid=10&pdflag=1&prid=532

Hi guys, I plan on buying two OKI 3200 Colour Laser Printers for use in an infant school I look after. We have had so many inkjet printers die over the last year due to the kids. Found printers with crayons, pencils, staples, paper clips, sand, bluetak and play dough inside them! Frankly the teachers can't really be trusted to keep them out of harms way. I want to have two decent quality laser quality printers kept OUTSIDE the classroms to serve as shared printers. They will be shared between three classrooms each. I already have two print servers I can use so all I need are the printers. Most printing is will be drawings from 2 Simple, text docs from the teachers and photos. Photo quality is not a priority since the staff can use the inkjet in the ICT suite. The OKI 3200 s only £155 from PC World Business and the consumables are reasonable. Anybody got any experience with the OKI 3200? I have another school using the Samsung CLP-500 with an Axis 500+ print server that works fantastically and the ink bill for the school has reduced dramatically. The printer is now the main printer for Year 1 to Year 6. Thanks

I have used CDN Networks in most of my schools and they have been great. Very good tidy installs, highly competitive prices and great customer service. http://www.cdnnetworks.com Ring Don Wilson direct on: 07976931007 Much better then certain suppliers used by the LA

There was a mouse (rodent kind! ) in the staff room of an infant school I visit. The school had all female staff with just myself and the caretaker (who was out) being the men! The women were screaming and running out of the staff room. I was asked (!) to go and catch the mouse armed with a cardboard box and abit of cheese! The head teacher said "your the man, the hunter gatherer, the protector" I couldn't keep a straight face! (I'm more of a wimp) Anyway I went into the staffroom with all the women outside looking in through the door and I spent about 15 minutes hunting around like I was from the SAS trying to find it. :twisted: I got abit bored in the end so I told them that I saw it run outside; there was a hole next to a heating pipe that ran outside which is how it must have come in. I filled it up with bluetack until the caretake came back in the afternoon. Also had the old classic where the monitor on a PC in the nursery is upside down! LOL! CLASSIC!

Geoff your like a mine of information. Both seem great! Thanks When I get home I'll upload to my web host where I have a few free MySQL databases and have a play.

Not sure if this is the right forum, but here goes! I have been wondering about the possibility to store information about the inventory/assets in the schools I visit on the web. What would be great is some kind of online web app that allows me to login and store data about the PC's we have in school. So that i can keep a record of serial no., PC No, Warrenty Expiry, Software installed etc (the usual), maybe even a photo of the peice of hardware. I think this is so much better then a paper record and it should be updatable quite easily. A Free PHP/MySQL version would be ideal. FREE being the important word! Thanks for any info!

I think that if we didn't have a sense of humor we'd be in serious trouble! LOL Billy and me are big mates. Seriously however. I know that OSX Server with new iMacs would have been another option, but the Head, ICT Coordinator and Staff all wanted PCs. They claim that alot of the (primary-level) educational software they keep getting recommended is PC only and the kids all have PC's at home. The governors (one who is some IT-bod) also decided on the PC route. So they have kept the new iMacs with OSX 10.39 in the classrooms and PC's in the suite. Since I am only their half-a-day a week (work in 7 schools over a week) I was not involved totally in the decision making process but I am in the buying process. I think that since its a brand new very simple 15 PC + 1 Server + 1 Network Color Laser primary school network with no email we shouldn't have too many issues if the machines are setup right. Single-point of failure - yes I was aware of that, so I think I might twist the ICT coordinators arm and see if we can buy 2 or 3. Still cheaper then tape.

We still have nice new OSX Imac G4's in the classrooms if its a comfort!

You've got a nice rolling upgrade stratergy there. Not sure if your being sarcastic or not? We are changing platform from iMac G3's to PCs! Yippeeee! We have been contemplating the move for a few years and with this years budget being especially big for ICT ( not sure why??) and alot of our software being dual platform thought we may as well go for it! Yeah, think i will stick with the USB HDD, its much faster then tape. The LEA are quite keen on us getting a tape drive but I think we can leave it. Thanks for the advice Geoff. This forum is much better then the (dead) one offered by the LEA which is just full of "special offers" from the LEA "ICT Team" and LEA suppliers. (Sorry, off topic)

Current Network speed is just 100Mbps Ethernet. :oops: However all the client PCs (shuttle) have Gigabit LAN and so does the server, so 1Gb is an easy upgrade. I could just cable up a switch just for the itsuite running 1Gb Ethernet only between the PCs in the suite, but its not worth it at the moment The ICT Coordinator has the idea that while she has the budget and approval to get the best possible kit, because she is sure she will not have the same amount of money again next year. So from the sounds of it 10K Raptors are wayyyy overkill. Might be worth just investing the money to be spent on the faster HDDs into getting a tape drive instead of the USB Hard Drive. Nothing critical is going to be stored on the Server yet, but as the kids work builds up it will get more and more important. Cheers.

Geoff, Wouldn't it be better to RAID0 the Raptors, and then set aside partitions for the OS and Swap File?n Quicker....No?? I know that the Raptors are overkill at the moment, but the plan is for the server to start having more and more clients as staff realise the benefits of it, eventually the whole school. Then again, I can just save about £140 and just go with normal drives.... hmm. I have much larger schools that "survive" with normal SATA drives. Thanks for the advice guys.

Me Again! Just a quick question. I have been asked to spec up a small server that will act as the domain and file server for 15 PCs in a small IT Suite. Its a SATA2 based server running RAID 0. I was thinking: 2 x 36GB WD Raptor 10K HDD SATA (RAID 0) 1 x Seagate 200Gb HDD SATA2 1X USB HDD for backup Now what do I keep where for best performance for the clients? Is it best to have the most frequently accessed shares on the Raptors or keep the OS on them? Should I have a seperate partition for the Swap File? Thanks for any advice offered. CM786

Thanks to all those that have replied so far. I have decided that (for now) to go with: 1 x low cost Windows Server 15 x laptops I can make the laptops clients of the domain server so they can be locked down and redirect My Documents/Desktop/Start Menu to the server. I am keeping this really simple so just having one account for the students to use, where the have their own folder in My Documents (by year group). I am concous of the slow wireless connection which I why I don't want to go with individual accounts for each child. I will get the iMacs to mount the same share where the PC's store all work on the server so they should be able to save/open from the same location. Hopefully I can keep this share mounted on the desktop. The iMacs are already quite well secured from kids messing about on them. I know its not the best solution but its one that I think should work. The Windows server can always be changed to a linux one at some stage when I get better at linux, or we could look at a Mac Mini with OSX Server on it in the next financial year. Now.... any recommendations for decent laptops with quite a long battery life? Looking to spend under £500 on each and was thinking that Centrino would be the way to go? Thanks

Thanks for the help guys. I don't think that the linux solution is quite viable for me at the moment since I really do not know enough about it and doubt I would have the time to learn it well enough to be able to recommend it to the school within 2 weeks, but the idea does appeal to me. When I looked into linux a few months ago it did seem quite difficult to learn (?) but distros like Edubuntu with Karoshi do look good. Wonder if it would support OSX clients ? So a Mac Mini (with Server OS ) and a decent AMD/INTEL PC (With Server OS) should be all I need?

Thanks for the replies. As a small Primary School (145 on roll) I don't think the head could afford both a Mac and Windows Server. I personally am not a fan of Laptop trolley suites, but we don't have the space for a proper IT suite. Linux is interesting....... 8)

Hi guys, Great site you have here! I work or a range of Primary schools in Oldham/Manchester/Rochdale as an ICT Technician and have found this site really useful over the past few weeks. I would like to ask a question. The fantastic head at one of my schools (no....I'm not being sarcastic ) has an Apple iCart which works pretty well with regards to allowing the kids to get on the internet wirelessly, access espresso, use MS Office and Print to the Airport USB printer server. The laptops are 12.1" Apple iBooks running OSX 10.3.3 (I think) With this years ICT budget he plans on getting more laptops and has bought another Laptop Trolley (got it from another school cheap) which he would like me to stock up with Laptops. PC's this time! We want the kids to be able to use dual platform. Now I could just buy 15 PC laptops, with a Wireless Access Point and a printer for this cart too which would work but..... The biggest issue I see is administration. When the Apple iCart was setup 18 months ago I had to install all the software and configure permissions and user accounts individually on each machine which was a right pain and took ages! So I was thinking about a better solution. Maybe having some kind of server that can be used to authenticate users (like y1, y5, y6 etc) so that permissions are assigned to them centrally. Would like it to act as a file and application server too, so that alot of the software that would usually require CD's can be imaged to the server and the kids can save their work to it. I know this can be done with Windows XP/2003, but what about the macs? Can things like group policies be applied to OSX? I would rather use a Windows Server then mac because I am more confident in using it. Wouldn't mind trying a linux solution, but I'd need time to learn since I know nothing about it! (Want to learn it in my spare time at some stage!) Also what about speed? This is probably my biggest concern. Remember that all this needs to take place over (so called!) 54Mbps wireless which I am not sure is up to the job. I wouldn't use any roaming profiles and the server would just store kids work (which will be mainly word, excel documents). Any ideas on a reliable solution that allows easy administration? I am only in the school half-a-day a week so it needs to be as trouble-free as possible once setup. Thank You