Pottsey

jcollings said “I'd love to hear how those people with very short login times achieve it. Our PC's seem to go quite slowly when applying settings etc. and I've tried various ways to speed them up - any suggestions gratefully recieved!” I wouldn’t do this in a large school but my trick to keep as much as possible local. Never install and run programs on the network when you can install the program locally and put the save folder and/or userprofile folder on the network. Don’t use a BMP as the background use a small HTML file, or I guess a small JPG will work. Icons and scripts are when possible stored locally in the all users start-up and desktop folders. I just use \\pc10\c$\ or whatever the PC name is to update scripts form the server. Haveing the profile cached on the local workstation, then set large folders like my Docs with folder redirection and you should be able to get login time down to under 60sceonds. The less going across the network the better.

From the logon screen 30 to 40 seconds if the user hasn’t been on that PC before. If they have been on before 10 to 15 seconds for the desktop to load and be responsive. Some of the older ones take up to 60 seconds for the first time login.

Only just started looking into it today but my first thoughts are if encryption is needed get everyone doing it and make it the same for everyone. Its good practise and it’s much easier to say everyone has to do it then only some. Plus if everyone is doing it they can in theory all ask each other for help as they get used to the system. Laptops don’t worry me its people bringing in their own USB sticks.

1) I thought we would be rid of Wired by now and have a decent replacement. I thought Synetrix would provide a more stable network. I never expected it to be perfect but am surprised at how bad as it is. Downtime although improved a lot in the past month is still far from at acceptable levels for us. Not just in school hours but its bad outside school hours as well. Surprised at the lack of upgrade speeds. Our speed hasn’t changed in years. While home users in the same time frame have had 3 to 5 speed upgrades. Upload speeds are fine but 2meg download seems rather outdated to me. The major improvement with Synetrix over Fujitsu's are the feedback pages letting us know the status of the core network and when you have problems you get feedback and a response in a timely manner. Along with the control, it’s far from perfect but at least we have decent control over email, internet filtering rules and the like. Overall Synetrix are doing much better then Fujitsu's but the downtime is still at unacceptable levels, although slowly improving. I don’t like going though ICT Service's with problems, it was much faster when we could go directly to Synetrix If we where a company we would have left Synetrix ages ago due to the all the problems. But they are improveing. 2) The two major things I would like to see from Synetrix are a more stable network and better download speeds. Upload is fine as it is for us. It would also be great if everything could be more merged. 1 single username and password for everything like the good old days. Was there a reason why wired and email got split? I would like to see a learning platform that replace’s Wired and has email merged into it with only 1 username and password so staff have less to remember.

My guess would be someone dropped it out there bag while on a bike at a semi high speed. That or they somehow ran over it with a car.

A while back I had faulty ram which all the memory check programs said was ok. The ram messed up windows and after months deactivated it. Over more time the OS got so bad it couldn’t boot. It took a good 5 to 7 months for the OS to become unusable.

Although I voted no that was for school use. For home use I would never go back to XP on my main PC. The key to Vista is ram and lots of it. Once you hit the 6+ gig mark with a nice fast flash drive set as ready boost it’s a nippy OS. Wouldn’t dream of using Vista on a 2gig or less PC. Hi to all the Eve online addicts.

Fish or Seahorse’s only use an old CRT monitor as the tank. Stick an old tower base unit with a window next to it with one of those USB hamsters on a wheel. Or if you fancy the work make a real hamster cage out the tower case. Dont forgot the echo sticker. See how many staff ask you for the screensaver.

“Once the big money and masses of new kit is dangled in front of the Head loyality will mean nothing..” Surly that depends on the head. What if you’re a smaller school so instead of millions you’re talking 100k? If you already have relatively new shiny kit perhaps the head will stand up and say no managed service. There has to be some heads out there that care more about IT in-house and staff over shiny new kit and a managed service.

Well there goes what little social life I had.

Its about time Wired was replaced with something that worked. There is another doc posted for heads. This is the text from the staff doc. "Staff Update July 2008 08449 808080 [email protected] July 2008 Individual’s name Individuals address Dear Colleague Job Evaluation in schools- update for support staff I am writing to you with regard to implementing job evaluation for school based staff. I know that many of you will be anxious and concerned about what is happening, so I hope this letter will both inform and reassure you. As you should be aware the County Council and the recognised trade unions are working jointly to ensure as far as possible a smooth transition to a pay and grading system that is fair, transparent and consistently applied. The unions involved in this process are the GMB, UNISON and Unite as they represent staff employed on Green Book terms and conditions. Over the summer the Council, trade unions will be working to try to identify a broad list of jobs across schools in Nottinghamshire and for each of the identified jobs to produce a set of key tasks and responsibilities. These will not be formal job descriptions but will set out the main areas or responsibility which might be relevant for each of those posts. This work is also being supported by representatives from schools including head teachers, governors and senior support staff. We hope to have completed that work part way through the autumn term. When we complete this work we will send these profiles out to schools. At this stage we will ask head teachers to identify where the profiles match jobs in your school or where they do not and where a separate evaluation may be required. You will be asked by your head teacher to sign the profile to indicate that you agree, or to state briefly why this is not the case. We will also be asking head teachers for copies of job descriptions and structure charts which reflect support staff roles and responsibilities at September 2008. I would like to emphasise that the indicative evaluations which were completed last autumn as part of the consultation exercise on the new pay structure will not be considered as part of this process and should therefore now be ignored. These indicative evaluations have been removed from the website as they will not be used in this process at any stage. When head teachers have completed the initial matching of posts against the job profiles we will then seek to finalise agreement on which posts in individual schools will be evaluated, either as part of a group or as an individual evaluation. This will mean that the County Council will not start any evaluations until this has been agreed between the head teacher and staff in school and that both the recognised trade unions and the County Council are also in agreement that the post is being evaluated. If you have any queries about this process you should consult your Trade Union or Head Teacher for advice. Obviously there is a lot of work to do before formal evaluations can start and therefore it is likely to be at least Easter next year before that happens. In the meantime there will be no changes to your pay scales. I do understand that many of you are anxious about this process but would hope that you agree that it is important that we are clear about the job you do in your school before we begin to evaluate your role. In the first instance we will be evaluating jobs which reflect duties and responsibilities as at September 2008, and the score will therefore relate to the job you are doing now and will avoid the difficulties which have been experienced across the rest of the County Council with jobs being evaluated as they were at 2002 without reflecting the changes since then in the formal evaluation. Implementation of any changes will not take place until the evaluation of posts in all schools who are part of this process has been completed. This will mean that you will not see any changes in your pay resulting from job evaluation for quite some time yet, probably until sometime in 2010. Finally I would like to reassure you that the Council and Trade Unions remain committed to achieving a fair outcome for school support staff and that the process we use is both consistent and fair. Neil Clifton Head of HR, Children & Young People's Services, Resources, Nottinghamshire County Council.

Not sure if the JE is a public document that can be uploaded. Sent you a PM with a link.

Wired has a few new docs with new info The main points I could see are “I would like to emphasise that the indicative evaluations which were completed last autumn as part of the consultation exercise on the new pay structure will not be considered as part of this process and should therefore now be ignored. These indicative evaluations have been removed from the website as they will not be used in this process at any stage.” “You will be asked by your head teacher to sign the profile to indicate that you agree, or to state briefly why this is not the case. We will also be asking head teachers for copies of job descriptions and structure charts which reflect support staff roles and responsibilities at September 2008. “ “This will mean that you will not see any changes in your pay resulting from job evaluation for quite some time yet, probably until sometime in 2010.” If you log into wired and click LEA Communications it should be near the top. 30/06/2008, Its a 3 page doc with a more info then above.

“Are you keeping a log? ISA is very handy for this. Show it to your LA and start talking about money back.“ Sort off, there logs show the problem, they acknowledged it’s a problem and I spent hours on the phone. Just they have no idea how to fix it. I do feel sorry for their support guy as he really has tried hard to fix it and we spent hours on the phone. But as nice as he was it doesn’t change the fact it’s still not working. Wasn’t even aware we could get money back.

”As if a memory stick makes up for the crap service we've had ....” You can say that again it’s never been working since the change over for us. Since the changeover we haven’t had one single day of 100% working internet access. Every single day we effectively lose internet access after mid day. If this was a real company not a school they would have been scrapped ages ago for the very poor service. Eveyone here is getting really fed up up with the Internet and mail going down every day. It pretty much works 100% before midday.

Meetings or more precisely getting ready for meetings and trying to explain technical stuff to none technical people. I was never was verygood at that. My real pet hate are people who don’t try. I don’t care how bad someone is at computer use as long as they try. But it really bugs me when someone is able to do something but doesn’t bother to try and just shouts for help.

No it’s not just one event. Just getting fed up sending emails, ringing up and getting no response amoung other problems like the one before the holiday. A lot of my calls and emails seemed to drop off the radar and I have to ring up to see what’s going on. “Your network sucks – mini hubs hanging off everywhere, a hub in the main cab, you’re running 2003 server on an old hp pc connected to one of those hubs. Money and finances are not an excuse, just speak to the head at John Davies. Which brings me to another of your points.” I know it’s not ideal but it works, the system is fast and works so I don’t think it’s fair to say it sucks. Still there are more switches then what’s ideal. We have 6 small switches’ all of which will be gone soon if everything goes to plan. As you know £20,000+ is way out the price range of a small 70 pupil school like us. Luckily it’s all being fixed for a much more reasonable price. “I take exception to you speaking for other schools, and none of the schools I visit feel the same way you do Pottsey. If you want a list of schools I visit I will be more than happy to oblige when I see you in 2 weeks.” No need, I know your good and it wouldn’t surprise me if your other schools you go to are ok. I apologise for sounding like all edit are bad. It was a bad few weeks when I made the first post (please check the date) and I shouldn’t have posted in the way I did. I have no complaints about you or your work. Though I still have problems with other areas not to do with you directly. “I really feel disappointed you have slagged us off like this, and didn’t even mention it yesterday when I was there.” I didn’t mention it yesterday as I forgot I made that post as it was made weeks back, during a stressful week. I don’t think it was you who came in for the problems was it during the last 2 weeks of team? If not it will make sense next time I see you and explain it. I don’t have a problem with your area of EDIT your helpful. But still my first post was more negative then it should have been. “You are not forced to use all of our services, yet you still buy back at the second highest level year after year - why is that? Surely if we offered such a poor service you would only opt for the most basic options?” The guys in the workshop are great and so are most of you who come down to schools and you offer a Virus checker package that’s a good price. My post wasn’t very fair is coming across as all of EDIT is bad. Sorry again.

We have the platinum plus support contract with EDIT I believe. No idea how it stands with Synetrix or if we have any agreements. Originally I went to EDIT and they told me to go directly to Synetrix.

Seems about right to me as long as that includes software price’s. It might be a little on the high side but I wouldnt want to go below £600 and for sure not below £500. I aim for £600 to £700 with software. We like to get high end laptops then when teachers are due for a replacement the laptops are hopeful still good enough to be handed down to TA’s.

It didn’t mean it as slander it was personal opinion from how they have treated us and schools around us. Anyway I edited my post to make it clearer and sound less like possbile slander. They have treated us very poorly and even without that, adding in an extra line of support is not an improvement. Instead of going to straight to Synetrix it’s now to EDIT then to Synetrix which just adds more delay. I don’t see how this is an improvement. My concerns have been met so far. I rang up EDIT about Internet filtering times have stopped working and having different filtering during different parts of the day with Netsweeper. There response I don’t know what you’re talking about, didn’t know you can do that e.c.t So I have to spend time explaining how Netsweeper works. Then I have to explain the problem and then wait for them to speak to Synetrix. A process which took days now takes much longer. To make makers worse from experience I find EDIT doesn’t even get back to you 50% of the time.

Just when I thought EMBC/ Synetrix couldn’t get worse. Change in way you report problems and get help “With effect from Monday 2nd June (i.e. immediately after the half-term break), the ICT Services Schools’ Service Desk will provide a single point of contact. This means that all issues will be reported to ICT Services and not to Synetrix directly. One of the benefits of this new approach is that schools will no longer be asked to contact Synetrix if the Schools’ Service Desk is unable to resolve a request or problem. Instead, under the new arrangements, the Schools’ Service Desk will report the issue to Synetrix and will retain ownership until it has been resolved to the satisfaction of the school. Synetrix support staff will still contact schools directly if necessary, however schools that contact the Synetrix Customer Service Centre after the half-term break will be asked to contact the ICT Services Schools’ Service Desk first on {REMOVED - ZH}. This new approach represents a significant improvement as schools will have a single point of contact for all embc-related issues (including internet connections, e-mail and access to the Nottinghamshire Learning Network portal). “ I don’t see this as a significant improvement knowing how poor the ICT Services Schools/EDITare based on how they treated us over the years. Although I had a lot of problems with Synetrix at least they fix the problems and respond in a timely manner. We try and keep away from ICT Services as much as possible but are now forced to use them. Anyone else not looking forward to this change?

Various place’s, the last one was a Health and safety Workshop a few months back. I was told about the gloves and toner a few years back a well as at the workshop. HS put up these around my office http://www.lhc.org.uk/members/pubs/factsht/76fact.pdf which explains the dangers of Printers and photocopys "3.Siting and ventilation – ventilation is crucial! Ensure that the area in which the machine is sited has a complete change of air every hour, that the exhaust vent is kept free of obstruction, and that no-one is situated next to the exhaust vent of the machine.Where possible no-one should work in the same room as a copier and where this is not possible no-one should be within 3m of the machine.Machines should not be sited in clusters or in rooms of total volume less than 25 cubic metres." I used that one to get the photocopy moved away from me. That and the noise one as I couldnt make phonecalls.

“is this the next on the list of harmful things in ICT as the wirless access point waves thing has died down a bit?” Accept printers really are harmful it’s not a fad/unproven like wireless. You must wear gloves when changing toner cartridges and not get toner on the skin if you do wash your hands right away. All techs are meant to be given a stock of medical gloves. You’re in your rights to refuse changing ink without gloves. You’re not meant to sit xxx distance near a laserprinter or photocopier and you must have good air ventilation. Saying that it takes something like 8 hours of none stop printings on modem laseprinters to get the air at toxic levels without ventilation. Photocopyers a lot less time. If you can small the Ozon which is a sweat kind of smell the levels are too high and harmful. The laser on the photo copier damage the eye and shouldn’t be looked at, you should never photocopy with the lid open. Apart from the Health reasons the lid open user's something like x10 more link. Without good ventilation you will get lung damage over time if the laserprinter and photocopier get heavy use. The toner is toxic as well as it seeps into the skin. “In a bid to save costs, it has been suggested to me that I start emptying waste toner bottles myself rather than sending them back to manufacturer and buying new ones. What are people's thoughts on this“ Will they give you a mask, gloves and eye protection? Empty it where? Pretty sure you cannot just put the waste into the bin. It has to be disposed of correctly.

“80 % thats alot of teaching/support time. is that really a technician's role or a LSA/TA role??” It very much depends on the time of year. After new budgets its very much a technician's role, during quite parts of the year like now it’s more of a TA/teacher role. 70% of that 80% is all computer and IT work. The IT co-ord is away for the week so I have 4 IT lessons with robots and roomers to do today. Then 3 lessons of maintenance. It’s partly because we are a small special school and everything for the most part runs smoothly. When there are new computers coming in or major upgrades I go back to being 100% IT tech. It works out well; I get a nice verity in the job and school trips without all the extra paper work of being a Teacher or TA.

“interesting thread. do you guys do any teaching of ict when teacher off for any reason or support in leassons, and how much holiday do you get is it paid???“ Unless there is a major project or problem I spend 80% of my time teaching lessons and as classroom support. I get the same holidays as teachers baring the odd problem when I have to come in but I get paid overtime for that.