Chris_Cook

Munki can do this as well as deploy other software.

I've done something similar on our mac server (a g5 powermac) in the past. it let us roll back when it all went wrong. We didn't have a raid array, but I can't see any good reason why it shouldn't work as you have it planned. I think you can set the default startup disk in the system preferences. Insert usual comments about taking backups here. When I did it, I removed the old drive so I didn't accidently install to the wrong drive. I also made sure both the drives were correctly labeled (both physically and in the os) so that I know what's what.

From the second page you listed:

Do you have a test environment setup? You should be able to get evaluation versions of server, windows and exchange and various other products from technet. You can run these with virtualbox or virtual pc, or something similar. That way, you can get more familiar with the software. I also found that quite often there was some small detail in the question that was important. Sometimes you have to read between the lines and make assumptions. For example, they could ask a question as "Whats the best way to do X" or "Whats the quickest way to do X" which might have an impact on the correct answer. You need to read each question about 3 times before you answer it.

Could you use netstat, wireshark or some other diagnostic tool to find out which macs are connected, and what they are doing? What are the mac users doing? Does it involve sending large files over the network? I would also echo the suggestions of installing antivirus software on the macs. Do you have network home folders setup on the macs, and are you mounting any network shares at login?

You need to push the client out, either using your normal software deployment tool, or using the console. I think the console picks up a list of computers from active directory, you can select the computers to deploy to. There is an option in a menu somewhere to deploy it. There should be a guide on the atomwide support site which tells you what to do.

It sounds like the default configuration for the types is being overridden latter in the config.inc.php file. The config files are just php code, and are executed sequentially, first system defaults, then config.inc.php. They are done line by line. My guess would be that is repeated later in config.inc.php. If you can't find it, then feel free to pm me your systemdefaults and config.inc files (minus the database passwords etc) and I can have a look if you like. But I suspect that if you use 'find next' in notepad (or grep if you host on a linux box) you can find the source of the problem. Maybe if you even move the type configuration to the end of config.inc.php it will solve the problem.

Is this a new projector, or just a new lamp? Have you reset the lamp hours if you just changed the lamp? Otherwise, do all these projectors work in other locations? If they do, try the projector with just the power plugged in. If you still cant get the projector on, then there might be something wrong with the mains power supply in that room. You will probably need to get an electrician in to look at it.

With the new system, the factory defaults are stored in systemdefaults.inc.php, your settings are in config.inc.php. If there is something you want to change, then you need to copy it out of systemdefaults.inc.php and put it in config.inc.php. This is so when you upgrade, you don't lose your settings. for the entry types, you need to put above your type configuration. Ours is included below

Does it work without pcounter? I would also check the settings on the printer itself. Make sure its got snmp enabled, and any multiple copies settings are correct.

A lot of projectors can be controlled by serial ports (or service ports on the sanyos). I've got this idea of hooking up a raspberry pi board with a serial cable and a cheap wifi interface. Retro-fitting a network cable to each projector seems like a lot of work. I wonder what the cost is of running projectors without turning them off, and how much it would be worth spending financially automating it? I think at the moment, setting the timeout and getting staff to turn them off when not in use is the most workable solution. Staff are never going to have the patience to workout how long until its next going to be used. 'Turn it off when you leave the classroom' might not be optimal, but its better than leaving them on all night.

We have ruckus, it works really well. Haven't had many problems (and none recently). Can't really comment about the changes mentioned in the first post, but I can't say I'm worried about them either. I was impressed recently with the meshing. We had a partial power cut a month ago. We ended up with a chain of 5 aps across the site. It was quite a slow link, but it worked and kept a fair few people working - the ones that still had power at least. You should demo the equipment and have a look first hand. Maybe even find a school locally who is using one of the different systems and see it in action.

We have a hidden (and secured) network share with a copy of most of the software on it. There is a folder of sysadmin-type stuff on there. For each new program, we create a text file with the serial number or licence key, and a note of how many copies we can use. Once we make a copy of the software, we try to give the original back to the department to look after. At one point we had a massive box of old software and not much clue what was still required. Departments can manage that better than we can. As glennda said, many software suppliers can tell you what you've brought. I've called several recently, including RM. Something like spiceworks can be quite useful to get an overview. It wont pick up every computer on a large network straight away, but its free and pretty quick to set up so worth a try even if you don't keep it.

Serif MoviePlus is working really well for us.

Did you get a breakdown of the individual costs for that quote? It doesn't sound completely unreasonable for a good job. There are two routes to go with lighting, the cheap way, which will last 3-5 years and be rubbish. bulbs will blow, it won't really every do what you want, and it will look cheap. As someone else said, after a while it won't get used anymore, and will either have to be replaced or written off. Then there is the expensive proper way that gives you a good result. The room looks quite tall relative to its width and length. I think having the lights at the roof height won't give a good result. A parcan at that height will light a good chunk of the hall, which might not be what you want. I suspect they might have included some rigging to drop the lamps down a meter or two. They probably have included a higher end desk, and profiles and fresnels which are much more expensive than parcans (more like £200+ each). Dimmers are expensive too. Given that dimmers will probably be left on, and use lots of current, you don't want a cheap and nasty one. Most of these are designed for small temporary jobs, and only to be used for short periods of time. I would really recommend not buying the very cheap lighting unless you have quite a bit of experience of using this sort of thing. Most of it really isn't worth the time. Cheap desks are horrible to use. Cheap lights tend to be quite dim. Cheap movers will be missing features like remote control of the focus and the beam size, which will effect the end result. When doing lighting, its more important to think about what you are trying to achieve than what equipment your are buying. When you pay for the install, you are also paying for lots of experience that they have working in different venues and for different clients.

Good point about the maintenance. Three months is a bit excessive, unless your in a really dusty place. Movers are much more flexible if you are restricted on using a ladder. Movers do take longer to program, but you have a good selection of colours and gobos (Shapes) available. Its all a compromise. All these lamps will need regular lamp changes every couple of years. That will depend on usage obviously. Taking a larger head down can be a bit of a challenge and requires a certain amount of competence to put it back up safely. the 250 watt heads are quite heavy. Bigger ones will be a 2 person job. If you are going to have the stage in different places, then I would go for 4 single heads, forget the multi head and maybe get some cheaper disco lights if you need them. Martin make some nice stuff like the manias. If you run them of a dmx switch pack (not a dimmer!). then you could have quite a good disco rig. I would push the lights out to the sides if you aren't using proper back lighting. If you have 4 of them, then maybe set them up in a square, two close to the stage, and two far away. I think that would give you best coverage of both the stage areas. Having one in the center isn't necessary with this set up, and if anything will just annoy anyone on stage (the light will be more in their eyes). Depending on which heads you are going for, it is worth comparing the cost of traditional lighting. You might be able to get more fixtures that can be left focused in a useful way. 4 movers is still quite limited. If they arn't going to be used with other lights, then you won't be able to do much interesting with them. I think you may also want to factor in some training on this project too. Whilst its not a problem to teach your self the desk, there is an art to using the equipment well and safely. The end result will be much better and much more professional. Edit: I hadn't seen the photos or the posts after that when I wrote that. I think to get a good result you need to get the pros in.

The dmx cable runs should be fine, as long as they are well made. You can have up to 30 devices on a correctly run cable. I've used 100m dmx cables before without problems. If you have dodgy cables, or use stuff that isn't up to the dmx specification, then you can get all sorts of problems, even with short runs. You might be best off talking to a local stage lighting company or a theater to look at the positions of the lights. It depends on both the shape of the venue and what you want to use them for. You will want some light from the front (where the audience is), one each side. These need to be high enough up/far enough forward that the light doesn't shine in the acts eyes, but not so far as to cast shadows on their faces from their noses. You will also want some light from behind and from each side. This makes people on stand out on stage, and not just blend into the background. Take a look at some other venues that do similar events, and see what they have. If you can talk to a lighting engineer and get them to show you how all the lights work together, it will help you do a much better job of your own install. Are these moving lights complementing a set of generic theater spot lights, or are you using them instead of spots? If the movers are complementing, then they are best above the stage, either behind the act, or to the sides. Directly above isn't that much use. Will you have anything other than the 3 movers and the 1 multihead?

We have been having similar problems (not quite sure if its exactly the same as in this thread). I updated the firmware to whatever was listed on hp.com this afternoon, but that didn't help. It might not have been the one you just posted. What did seem to make it work was to delete the port on the server, and add it again. After that I installed the latest universal driver for this printer. I now need to find the right combination of drivers and settings that makes it work with windows 7, not just windows xp.

Yes, Our head of ict had this the last 2/3 days. I was very confused, not found a solution yet. With the number of odd bugs and breakages I've seen this week and last, I was starting to think it was me causing the problems. I'm now happy, I know I'm not going mad. Whats your setup with regard to servers and network storage? Any virtualisation? Server 2008? Edit: Apparently it was fine last week for us.

Ive not used that system, but it should provide some logs that say why the jobs didn't print, or if they even made it as far as the credit system.

Which print credit system are you using?

Running python programs on windows will give program the same security restrictions that the user would have if the had access to the command line, windows explorer or the save/open dialogs in most windows applications. They could run any program on the system that they have read and execute permissions on. If you have denied students access to a file/folder/network drive, then they still can't get it, because they will be running python under their own account. However, one thing that does occur to me is if the students hand in a program (in any language, not just python) to a teacher and the teacher runs it, then it would run as the member of staff. If a student were crafty, they could get the program to access a confidential file and send it via email or network share to themselves when the teacher runs it. Staff marking the work would need to be very strict about reading the code before running it. I would also give the staff a restricted environment of some kind to run it in, Maybe a vm or linux server, or another un-privileged username. Unless they can find a privilege escalation type bug, then they shouldn't be able to do any admin level stuff. That is assuming you have the PCs locked down properly. I think the worst they are likely to be able to do is crash the pc, or maybe corrupt the python install. Neither of those should take long to fix (either reboot. or reinstall python). You probably want to make sure the rest of the network is secured properly, with firewalls, backups, system images, etc, but any vulnerabilities there are present if the students can bring in their own equipment, or use VMs/ssh/raspberry pi or Java or Visual Basic. Its possible that they could create programs to do denial of service or other attacks against hosts on your network. This applies to any network however, with or with out development tools installed. This is based on my personal experience with python, I don't use it in a teaching environment.

What I like about chrome is that it just gets on with it, and applies the upgrade on the next restart of chrome. It seems every time i start firefox, it needs its hand holding through an update, and then says its broken half my addons. I think chrome uses its own gpos independantly of ie.

Group policy allows a few people to manage and configure large numbers of pcs very quickly, for example setting up a new proxy, adding a troublesome site to the trusted sites group, or setting it to use compatibility view. If everyone is running their own favourite browser, then these all need to be configured or the settings distributed to end users who then have to become admins of their own computers, rather than doing the job they are paid to do. Even having a few PCs with unique configurations can take up a large amount of time for the technician, who should really be doing other stuff like making things work. Unfortunatly in this job, you can't please everybody, and its a mistake to try. Without meaning to sound harsh, the technician is paid to provide a working solution, not to provide everyone with their perfect setup.