Richie1972

It's done to turn schools into businesses like they did with the NHS (which is, strangely enough, starting to head away from the centrally managed IT again, I believe). We had the "consultant" from Tribal (a "Cleve St Hill") who tried to sell us the bull**** (including them saying they weren't wanting to go down the fully centrally managed route - obviously he just wanted me on side). BSF, at some point, will crash and burn, but not in time to save us in Blackburn - we are being railroaded into the new company possibly as soon as september next year. So, looks like I'm on the market for a new job (I would struggle, morally, to work under such conditions). I have tried, on numerous occasions to see the pros of BSF (yes there are some - new buildings and equipment), but the losses in terms of staff, communities and resources (experience, personal contacts, etc) is going to affect schools very badly in the long run.

We've got an Ultrium 2 drive that's got a lovely error light - looking to get it repaired, but can't seem to find anywhere... you mention Cristies, have you got any info on them? The problem with our drive is that there was a stuck tape that we manually removed (as per instructions on Quantum website) and now when the tape is put in, activity light flashes, tape comes out and goes back in a few times then error light comes on (had it work ok once or twice, but not at all now). I reckon it's the carriage that's misaligned (I'm no tape drive expert) Richie

I think it needs to have change as results are recorded by the student, ro read and execute are not enough

It seems to have handled the database connection. The folder permissions are handled by a batch file. I think we are still on 6.0.4 Richie

We've just bought a second LTO2 drive to increase our backup capabilities, but when I insert a tape (new or existing) the error light comes on. I used the XTalk diagnostics tool, which suggested using a cleaning tape (I did... repeatedly). It then said if that doesn't fix it there must be a hardware fault. So, I got a replacement sent out... it does the same thing. I got in touch with Quantum and the person I spoke to was very thorough - I updated firmware and drivers for both the tape drive and SCSI controller. This made no difference (I didn't think it was as the existing drive, a Certance LTO2 - identical to the Quantum, is working fine). I swapped the Certance and Quantum, made sure settings matched and even tried a different SCSI controller on a different server - all with the same results. It seems very very very unlikely that I just happened to get two faulty units, so... anyone else have any ideas or have you had the same problem with a Quantum LTO2 yourself? Richie

Yeah I think that's our problem - we have fibre, but most of it is not in use yet as the school hasn't forked out for the new switches to use it. Doing a few PCs aty once works - occasionally a room of 25 works, but more often than not at least one fails and has to be restarted

Nope, not a cable issue - if I restart the RIS install from the beginning it usually works - that's why I think it is something timing out

It's not down to the network card detection - it works most of the time on the same computer, hence why I think it might just be something in the join network part of the install timing out.

Alternatively just run an Active Directory query against user or computer accounts based on last logon

I think the OP meant the "Welcome" logon screen. This is something I have seen a few times when using RIS/WDS to re-image a PC. It seems that, for no apparent reason, the computer fails to join the domain - all I then do is just start the RIS off again from scrath and next time it works. There seems to be no pattern to it, so I guess that something simply times out during the attempt to join the domain part of the process - if there was some way of lengthening this time period, maybe the problem would be solved

I just used WinInstall LE to create our MSI and it worked fine - the reporting DLL registers on first login too Richie

I've just had a play around with it, but think we'll be sticking with getting more licences for AB Tutor Control. iTalc was a bit fiddly to install and there seems to be no way of changing the client's ports (we are already running vnc clients on 5800/5900). Also one of the main features of AB Tutor control is the policy system for blocking apps/websites, which is missing from iTalc. Still, apart from those gripes it's not a bad piece of software - well worth the money

Having looked at the website Papercut doesn't offer the functionality to do this either

@Nij.UK: Yeah I know, that's the banner page, but I don't want to go wasting a page for each print job - i just want user name on each page.

just checked them out, but they rely on Linux, but my print server is windows 2003. Any Windows software that can do this?

I knew of the internet explorer and office document methods, but there are other apps that need to print, hence why I was asking if anyone knew of any software. I'll check out Pykota and Tea4cups

Not sure if this is the right section, but here's what I'm looking for: some means of adding the user name to the header (or footer) of every print job. We're not after any sort of billing, etc. we just want a user name adding to the top of every page (NOT a separate banner page) Anyone know of any software that will do this? Thanks

@Messa: We don't actually use the internet blocking with the frog system (we have websense), but I seem to recall that you can only block computers, not users @Grumbledook: Thanks for that, I'll have to have a look. I've been doing some looking around and it looks like there is a free version of sharepoint - I'm guessing a cut down version. Sharepoint Services? Anyone created a VLE with this???

Reading data from SIMS can be done for free - I've got a report that gets exported as a CSV daily. I then use this report to enable students to view their timetable (I import the CSV into an SQL Express database). Getting back to the original topic, though, we have a Frog VLE. It's pretty good and easy to use, but it's web design side is non-standard, so teaching the students how to design a website on it is pretty useless if they aren't going to work in an environment that has a frog VLE. It's totally web based for management, has a very basic integration with active directory (passwords are integrated, but there is no way to create/edit/delete users outside the frog web management system). It's got email (but no spam filtering). There's web filtering (dans guardian) There's ict room internet control The SIMS integration is pretty new and can be a bit of a pain to set up if your users (staff and students) are split into groups across servers. On the whole it's a good system, but, if I had the time, I'd like to have built my own system - or used a free one that I could customise to our own needs (I think moodle is the only free one, isn't it) Richie

I'm having a problem pushing this out via GPO. If I run the MSI as an admin it works, if I run it via GPO it reports that it can't create the resources folder (I used a UNC path). The folder (and resources) already exist and the SYSTEM account already has FULL CONTROL. Is there a way of editing out this check in the MSI?

I'm also looking for the Google Earth 4 MSI. If someone has it for download, then please PM me if you can't publicly mention it on the forum. Thanks

The documentation we got from the westfield centre says that to install FMS on a clean machine, as opposed to an upgrade, you have to have 6.79 installed and then upgrade to 6.8 (which then gets upgraded a few times to 6.83). So, to install FMS you install the 6.77 (or 6.78) from CD, then use the 6.83 cd to upgrade. Typical of SIMS.net - the whole thing is a dogs dinner, which they should have just built from scratch, instead of gradually upgrading sims!!!!!

I've written a system for our school that, with a combination of asp.net and vbscript handles creation, deletion, password and internet control for students. There's plenty of information on how to do it if you google it. If you feel confident enough with vbscript then try searching for stuff like "vbscript ldap active directory": http://techtasks.com/code/viewbook/2 http://www.activexperts.com/activmonitor/windowsmanagement/adminscripts/usersgroups/users/

or alternatively use GPO to push out RealVNC and import a reg file on startup to change the password when required (the password is encrypted, so anyone with access to the reg file can't see the password)

Burnley, I believe, has had no end of trouble with BSF