Richie1972

No, Blackburn with Darwen is a Unitary authority and has no links to Lancs BSF. Blackburn is effectively Capita, hence why we are distancing ourselves from them lol We are also a voluntary aided school, so BSF won't have as much power over us as some other areas.

We do have an RBC (Blackburn with Darwen), but it is very restrictive, not brilliantly reliable and doesn't give us the control we want. We're trying to distance ourselves as much as possible from our county provider - we're going our own way with regards to anti-virus, web filtering, etc.

There are, I believe, few ISPs offering bonded ADSL and it seems to also be less than reliable. Splitting the load between two - or more - providers would offer the school an "apparently" faster internet, as they won't "clog" it up so quickly. If it only uses IP based lists then,yes, it would be a bit limited - that's why I'm hoping someone on here might have used one of these 3300's

We were in a similar situation in the past, but now... well, most of the time the ICT Co-ordinator just deals with curriculum stuff (if he interferes I just ignore him lol). With regard to what's allowed on the network... students have a 200mb disk quota and can't run exe or zips. I've not blocked MP3s as students in music to need them. Everyone has filtering; staff and students (students far more strict). There is some eating and drinking in ICT suites by staff - but not allowed by students. I am slowly chipping away at staff rights on computers - theyr're soon to lose local admin rights and any access to drive C and software installations. The sooner staff (teaching staff) see that they have responsibilities to the integrity of the school's network, just like the students, the better. As others have said, ensure that there is an AUP that students AND staff have signed and agreed to.

Continuing on with the task of providing the school with a half decent (and fully controlled by us) internet solution, I'm now looking into upgrading our existing 1MB ADSL with Zen to 8mb (they tell us it might only be around 4.5mb, but I reckon it could be more). I'm also considering someone like http://www.bethere.co.uk to provide a second link (ADSL2+ at "up to" 24mb) - by using two separate ISPs I'm hoping that any problems don't take out our web access completely. I've found that a Draytek 3300V could offer what I'm looking for (http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor3300v.html) and was wondering if anyone has any experience of them, plus whether I'd need to have two identical ADSL connections, or whether different speed/suppliers would work. Just built my first Ubuntu Linux box with Squid and DansGuardian for the content filtering side of things - once tested we could then be pulling the plug on our websense!!!

Having done further research it looks like I can just get 2 ADSL lines and connect them to a Cisco 1841 router to provide greater bandwidth (and backup in case one line fails). What I now need to find out is what interface cards need to be plugged into the cisco and where to buy them from.

I think it is better that all users get a generally good download speed, as opposed to individual users getting a fast speed

Hmm, if i use two different ISP connections, though, I'll not have the "faster" downloads/uploads that bonded would provide. However, if I use two different ISPs, it would provide fall back support. Something to consider, I suppose

Openswan sounds like the way to go then. Thanks

We're looking to upgrade our ADSL provision in the school and was wondering if anyone has got two (or more) ADSL lines bonded. If so, what ISP are you using and what hardware to implement the bonding?

With our current ISA server setup, I'm able to use RDP to connect to any computer in the school, would Shorewall still permit me to do this?

We're not looking to spend much at the moment, so we're not going down the road of Smoothwall, etc (might change in the future, though). Openswan? not heard of it... off to google i go.....

We're currently looking into reducing our reliance on our LEA provider and are going to be setting up Ubuntu Linux with Shorewall, Dans Guardian and Censornet to provide filtered web access via our own broadband. At the moment we have ISA 2004, which provides VPN access from home via Remote Desktop into our network. Is there any Linux VPN software that can provide similar, or is it just a case of opening the appropriate port(s)? Will it also enable Active Directory authorization for staff logging in via VPN?

We're currently going through our very restricted LEA link - 8mb (supposedly) - and using a basic 1MB ADSL as backup (plus connection for our VLE to the outside world). We're looking at upgrading to 4.5mb ADSL (possibly two bonded) and using the LEA link as backup. I'm not sure we'd be allowed to ditch the LEA altogether, but I am hoping we can bargain for a reduction on our extortionately high bill from the LEA based on the fact we'd be using a lot less of their "service"

'Not Configured' is not the same as disabled. What Not Configured means is that it won't alter the item's current setting. So, if you set it from Not Configured to Enabled, then set it back to Not Configured, the item's value will still be set to Enabled Richie

Unfortunately as security is a prime concern and just locking a workstation is a pain for the next teacher who comes to use the machine, there is no alternative to the logout. They may well complain, but if i point out that someone could come along and delete months/years of work they might see sense.

In the end with both Sibelius 4 and Cubase 2 i had to create MSI's from a wininstall le snapshot. Sibelius is licenced via network and - so far - everything seems ok

We've just gone down the road of implementing auto logoff just on classroom whiteboard machines purely because of staff leaving them logged in. We're using the winexit screensaver that gives the user 3 mins to cancel log off. There may well be tears, but tough as security is more of a concern than forgetful teachers

Ok, so if we wanted to "upgrade" our seven TDS boards, how much is it likely to cost?

I'll be looking into pushing out the latest Sibelius and cubase sx 2 via GPO over the next few weeks, so i'll let you know how it goes

We had a trial of Securus and thought it was an excellent piece of kit - except for the explorer error on logging off the client machines (although we have been told there is a fix for that). The cost is the thing that's putting us off, so I'm toying with the idea of developing something simpler myself... We have around 300-400 machines that the kids have access to, so to put securus on them all would cost us a fortune

Something to consider is a similar problem we have had. We have a number of LIDE20,25,30 and 35's. All but either the 20's or 25's work with ToolBox 4.9, however the ones that don't work with 4.9, don't work with 4.1 either - but they do work with version 4.5. No sure why, but having Canon Toolbox versions 4.5 and 4.9 on means that all our scanners work (i've had to push out both versions and the drivers via GPO) Richie

Our school's got around seven TDS boards and it's a pain having to explain to staff that they can't have activstudio 2 on them. The fact that there's different electronics is irrelevent, as the staff only use the basics - surely the only real hardware difference is that the TDS boards don't have the built in wireless comms that the promethean boards do. We have a site licence for Activstudio 2, so can't we be supplied with a version that will work with TDS boards? Or is there a firmware update that would help? I can't imagine our school going for what I would think is a prohibitively expensive upgrade Richie

You could try seeing whether this location is defined in the registry and then modifying the registry in the logon script

Hmm, if I'd read the download info before replying I'd have found that one download does them all..... Right, have updated the drivers, so will try it out later today