Pottsey

Not really we don’t need it yet but we are a small school. When ever we get new PC’s I make sure they have 1gbs network cards and any new switch’s also have support but it’s more of a slow phase in then actually being any use.

Why not have an assembly mention IP address and how you can trace then back to a precise location and time. If you mention the police as well you might be able to scare the children into taken the content down even if you don’t plan on following that path. “There is no right to internet access, it is not a necessity for schools to provide it.” Its not a luxury any more it’s a must have item that we cannot take away. Every child is meant to have online storage space by 2008 or something like that. Every child should be using the Internet at some point in IT lessons and taught about it. In Nottinghamshire every child has to have internet access and should already have online work space for pupils and teachers. Perhaps not 24/7 acess but its got to be there. We all have to have EMBC broadband and should have access to the online learning network here.

When I was cleaning out the storeroom and looking around I found the old style pre cat5 Ethernet cables. I think you call them Coaxial cables with BNC connectors, bit before my time never was sure on the name. Along with all the old style hubs. So who knows when this school first had a network must have been a very long time ago.

“Covens are over rated ... usually full of wannabe mystics that annoy the real wiccans and white witches ..." You can say that again, I gave up looking for a decent one years ago. The nakedness bit is true in some groves. I keep away from those my self. Some are just about getting drunk and doing silly things.

We where given login details for http://nsd.embc.org.uk/ which controls, our school filtering. We can set up different filtering for different times of day and set website to be unblocked or blocked. Its a 60second job to block a website and blocking goes active pretty much right away. On rare times when I do run into websites that need to be blocked or unblocked and the above doesn’t work I use email as its easier then trying to spell out a long web address via the phone. Mostly its emails I run into problems with as they dont give us the same control over email filtering as they do websites. Last time I looked over 70 to 80% of emails that came into the school where blocked.

I did a 30 ish mile endurance ride and another time I spent over 6 hours in the saddle but didn’t cover any where near as many miles. That was a fun day started of with a 6 riders ended up with 2 riders by the end. One of the horse’s thought it would be fun to throw the rider off in the middle of nowhere where, cars couldn’t get to us.

2 more PC’s are due in out CDT room, which is full of dust, but it’s even harder this time around to find dust covers that fit over the monitors and base unit. Anyone know a place that sells and has covers in stock?

Didnt think of sheduled tasks. Thanks.

“Daft question but what utilities (anti-malware, etc) do you have set to start with each version of Windows?” Pretty much the same I try and keep as little as possible running in the background. Avast is the only program of note, which is on both, XP has quicktime and some colour gamma correction program along with the Creative sound package but most of the Creative package was disabled. The XP 64 bit build is over a year old, which accounts for some of the slow down. Different hard disks as well, both the rated as the same speed but never tested to check they are. But still due to the new sleep mode Vista gets to the desktop long before XP gets to the login screen.

I should have given a few more details it was my home PC although its 5sec for some unknown reason every so often it takes at least double that roughly 10 seconds. Never understood why the boot time change’s like that. My first guess would be something to do with the software running in the background when its turned off/sleeps. But the software is always the same. Last weekend I booted back to Win 64bit to get some files and it was painfully unresponsive compared to Vista getting to the desktop felt like it was taking for ever. That’s timed in my head didn’t use a watch/stop clock. It’s my home PC as well not a school one so pretty fast hardware. Vista Ultimate 64-bit, cannot give the full PC specs without going home and checking. I could be imagining things but I am sure Vista has got more responsive since it was first installed. Some people are put off as the first few days are slow as Vista is indexing and learning what programs you use. Readyboost makes a difference as well as long as you dont use a cheap £10 USB stick.

We don’t do it. But when I was at collage we used to buy CD’s/Zip drisks off the collage so it must be possible.

Vista is excellent it’s more then twice as fast as Xp 64bit and very responsive. Boot time is super fast at 5 seconds.

Is anyone aware of a way to add longer times in the power save list? We would like the hard disk and monitor to turn off either after 12hours or better yet at 7pm every night. Right now the PC is standalone so I cannot use the shutdown scripts from the server. What do other people do with digital signage PC’s? Do they leave them and the screen on all night, manually turn them off or use some program?

Expect a lot of none IT questions like if a child comes up and tells you a secrete but only if you promise not to tell, what do you do. I also like to mention quick fix’s. IE do a temp quick fix to get things running during lessons and do the longer real fix later.

Vista is made to be used with the new power state your not meant to turn the PC fully off. Unless your doing upgrades or not using it for weeks. The new power state should get you into the desktop in 5 to 10 seconds. (so about 30 on a school computer ) Its brilliant all I do is turn my monitor on and the PC is on the desktop in 5seconds. Strangely some days it takes double that time for no apparent reason.

Yes but I am naughty as I use the main server as my workstation. Will change that in the summer holidays when I setup a real workstation for me.

This is the old version of the wallpaper I use http://www.beechhill.notts.sch.uk/files/Wallpaper.zip It’s a simple blue page with a bunch of useful links down the right hand side. Some of the links point to folders on our server or C drive.

“I have been away on a residential trip with the school for the past week.” Wait I thought everyone around here are IT techs or along those lines. You mean they let you out the office! Did you find some dirt on a Teachers or heads laptop? How did you pull that one off.

EDIT renamed them self’s to ICT services and its Nottinghamshire LEA based team.

I thought the idea of online backup are only the files that change are backed up. When EDIT talked to us about it they said someone would come down and back everything up then after that only new modified files will be backed up online to save bandwidth. Backups are done at night.

Are you within driving distance to Nottingham? I used to work at Fountaindale closer to Mansfield then notts and they have lots of software along with a switch clinic. I am sure if you give them a ring they will let you come down and take a look at what they have. http://www.inclusive.co.uk/index.shtml have a good catalogues well. What are you goals with the software? It’s hard to recommend any without a few more guidelines of what you need. Are we talking single switch user’s? children with talkers? Pressure pads. Eye switch’s? What type of motor imparement? I recommend IntilKeyboards for visual impaired. (think I spelt that wrong). But its in the inclusive calalogue.

We gave up trying to buy a package instead we bought everything and put it together, TV, software, computer, stand e.c.t It was much cheaper that way.

Extra happy hours could be good if we get paid more don’t most of use work late anyway unpaid? What worry’s me more are special schools are some children cannot handle people they don’t know. I don’t see a bank of IT techs sharing schools working. Special Schools need the same people around who know the kids. Anyone know how BSG effects IT techs in special schools? Are they expecting mainstream IT techs to go into special schools? Reading the PDF now, thanks for uploading it.

If it wasn’t for the lack of money I would work with horse’s. Most likely as a stable hand not a riding instructor. Although ideally it would be a stable hand that trained young horse’s and did a few lessons here and there.

I moved over to Vista fully about 2 week ago at home. Very impressed with it now much faster then Windows 64-bit and more stable. Mutitasking works much better and Vista seems to be learning what programs I use and it has them ready loaded in memory.