eean

I'm doing a cable run of about 25m. It's going through a corridor that has loads of junk in it already, so won't bother trunking it. What sort of cable should I use? There is a beefy power cable (1 inch thick) that runs through the corridor already - obviously I'll try and steer it away from this. There are other electrics, in trunking of some sort, but I'll probably need to run along this.

Hi, We're prepared to pay LapSafe prices for a decent 15 bay laptop trolley. My concerns about the Smartline is the future cost (<£450 per 5-laptop module) for when we change the laptops. I'm not sure I can really justify spending almost 25% of the cost of laptop on plugging it in. So that leaves the Chargeline, a few worries: What's the cable management in it like? (Is there any?) The way the cables just appear is great on the Smartline, it would be nice if they were similar. The Power Adaptor is very close to laptop. I know there is a fan in the back but battery life is very dependent on temperature. Is the fan effective? How long have your laptops lasted (Our RMs are now 4 years old and the batteries are still going strong!) Our existing 15 bay laptop is twice the size. Is it not a bit cramped in there? Thanks.

They're manufactured by Compal, I believe: Try this: Compal Europe UK (http://www.compal.co.uk): 01204 799100 I think I called this number and got through to a guy who didn't really know. I eventually got the keyboard I was after but I can't remember how! Sorry.

So you've just got MAC address filtering to force the laptops onto the right AP? (i.e AP1 has the Mac addresses for 8 clients, AP2, for another 8 etc..) I'm guessing that the reason why you have 3 APs is to provide more capacitiy rather than extend area. The client will always try to connect to the AP with the strongest signal (even if all 3 APs are in the same place, one will be slightly louder than the others). It then takes quite a long time to be refused access via MAC address filtering. So it'll then try the next AP, and will take another 30 seconds to be refused a connection. Depending how the client is configured, it may also keep trying to connect to the loudest AP. - Check your APs to see if they can pool together (the Dlinks can do this at a VERY basic level). So once AP1 has 10 clients, it will force them onto AP2. Or (and I wouldn't normally recommend this), give each AP it's own SSID. Have each AP a different channel, as already suggested. Then configure each laptop to connect to either AP1, 2 or 3. If you have only 8 clients on 1 AP you shouldn't really be having problems (Ours can handle 15 no probs) so something else must be wrong. Also, we have thick old Edwardian walls and the signal goes miles. Its the newer parts of the building with thin walls and steel frame that have rubbish signal.

I've found this on Ebuyer: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131088 HP AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 2 GHz (Dual Core) 2GB ram 160gb hard drive. With Windows XP Professional: £459 - £100 cash back = £359. You can also get the same machine with Vista Business for £10 less (you can always install XP pro using downgrade rights). http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128182 Only probs is a 1yr warranty, but at that price I really don't care. I'd also prefer a 9 cell battery and 7200rmp rather than 6 cell and 5400. I was going to order 3 of these for staff tomorrow - so if anyone knows a reason why not let me know ASAP. Thanks!

We use it. Works fine.

I've always thought highly of their tech support. They fixed my laptop, even though it was outside of the 3 yr warranty. When we called to report 2 other broken laptops, their was a technition on site within 3 hours. One of the problems, however was caused by a the teacher pouring lemonade over the computer. It ended up costing more than the PC to fix

Check out this thread: http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=6925&highlight=wireless My method is the 10th post on the first page. It involves using the wireless setup wizard, built into windows XP. You have to trick it that is is running from a USB pen drive by using the subst command to 'map' a drive letter to a folder on the c:\ drive. As I say, I use it on our automated install CD and it's never failed. (yet).

Is there any easy way of switching the Recording options so that the microphone is selected as the default input rather than the line in?

Did you originally set the proxy via GPO in Active Directory? If you did (or even if you didn't): Go to the users section and check the proxy settings are correct. Then go to Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/System/Group Policy and select ‘Internet Explorer Maintenance policy processing’ and select the ‘Process even if the Group Policy Object has not changed’ checkbox. Also have a look in: Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Internet Explorer at Make proxy settings per-machine (rather than per user). If this is ticked you'll also need to check the proxy settings in the machine part of GP.

I use Plone for our website. It's backend is quite complicated, so it is quite difficult to set up but the front end is very easy and intuitive. I chose it because it has a permissions system, allowing all staff to update their bit without wrecking the rest of it. Eventually, kids will be able to add content (but staff will approve it before it goes live!)

Which method? method 3?

Here's a slightly new spin on the age old 'what PC should I buy' question: Thinking about getting 15 to 30 new PCs for our ICT suite before April and going to get 3 new PCs now. RMs current push on their EcoQuiet got me thinking... I applaud them for that (I don't applaud them for still making PCs that come with 256MB of ram, however ). According to RM, each computer would save £83 over 5 years, which isn't much really, so I can't justify spending a whole pile of cash on it. Anyone else gone/going down the Green PC route? I've done a some research and, surprisingly, not many companies have jumped on this bandwagon yet. The US have just released EnergyStar 4 spec, which looks quite strict, for a change. RM "100 watts less than standard pc" Windows xp on windows vista business downgrade. 1.6 Dual Core 1gb ram 3yr warranty £540 Lenevo ThinkCentre A61e Memory - 512MB DDR II SDRAM Processor - AMD 2.1GHz Athlon 64 X2 BE-2350 Hard Drive - 80GB Energy Star 4 45Watts 3yr warranty £271 + Monitor Dell Optiplex 755 Core 2 Duo Windows Vista Buisness 2GB Ram 19” monitor 3yr standard warranty Energy Star 4 £530 I can only find it with the large case, unfortunately. The Lenevo looks quite good VFM. How do the AMD X2 compare to the Duo's? The 512mb ram is a bit thin, but it's only just been released so hopefully more options will come out soon. What are Lenevo like? (Used to be IBM?) I've also seen Tranquil PC, which have no Fans and are about 20watt, but at £700+ for a decent spec, that's a bit steep. Anyone else got experience or opinion?

I think even the Tax man would be getting petty if he started clamping down on this.* Were would it stop? I mean, if you use a work PC during lunch hour for personal use, surely that's a perk. And therefore taxable. Half the country would get fined and then Gordon Brown would loose his job. * Legal disclaimer: I'd never use it, of course

I can't see how the LFT scheme would make a difference. The Laptop is still owned by the school. Here is a quote from the tes website: Seems like a fairly sensible way of looking at it.

Will the kids use it that often? We have it but it's only ever used by staff. (For making resources, work sheets etc...)

Do teachers have local admin access to their machine? If not, it would be hard for a virus or malware to install. Combine that with Virus Scan, and set windows update so it does force installs (but downloads from the public WU site not internal WSUS) and you've got a pretty tight system. Whilst they could visit a dodgy site at home, they would have to be utterly stupid to risk being caught (even if it wasn't 'That Bad'), the risk of embarrassment never mind the risk of loosing their job would put most teachers off. A clear AUP will spell it out. Even if the Virus scan didn’t update, (and why is it less likely to do this at home than at school?), the virus scan on your school’s system is going to stop it in its tracks. Many schools on here allow VPN connections, the security risks have got to be equal if not greater. On the flip side, if I can't connect my laptop to the internet at home, it is pretty useless to me as a work tool. My old man works for on an MOD site, so their security has to be tight, and he can bring his laptop home. Yes, there are risks but these can be controlled and the benefits, IMO, outweigh them.

I've made a msi that shuts down the computer. It runs as a scheduled task at 6pm but it won't run until the computer has been idle for 15 mintues. It then gives a further 15 minutes of warning before forcing a shut down, so the comptuter would have been idle for half an hour. if someone leaves it that long, they deserve to loose their work! Let me know if that's any use and I'll post it.

Anybody shed any more light on this problem? It seems to be happening more and more frequently now... (perhaps it's just that more staff have lost their original school usb drive so have bought their own replacement. ) It only happens on certain machines and happens with USB pen drives, even though they should be using the Microsoft signed driver. When you do type in an admin password, it warns that the driver is not signed (surely it must be!). Sometimes, once the admin password has been typed in, the machine is ok for a while, but with others, once they've taken this funny turn, will insist on the admin password every time the device is inserted! Argh!

I got quoted £80 for a replacement Sahara one. The projector is so sh** it's not worth spending £80 on it.

There is a long thread on the TES website here about this. 68 post later I am yet to be convinced as how they can be of value to me or my school. [Rant] The problem is that the government have gone into a secondary school where they have seen a VLE/next big thing that: - Is fully integrated - Technologically works - Is lead by people who passionately believe it works and will make it work - Who are well trained (often spent many hours self training) - solves a problem that already exists They've seen this and saw it was brilliant "Why doesn't everyone do this!" they think. So they've applied a watered down, non-integrated version to a primary school (where there isn't a problem to solve) and expecting someone who doesn't understand them and doesn't really believe they will work to make it work! You're not going to get the same result! [/Rant] I also sat through 2 hours of a LEA consultant trying desparately to convince me that I should spend my time, and my collegues' time, on it. The brunt of their argument was "it's a government target." I, personally, am quite happy to add it to my list of government targets I'm going to fail to meet.

:oops: Blushes and smiles I've just realised that I'm on just on 9.5sp4. I'd only thought of upgrading, and figured that the 9.5 method would probably work, but I'd forgotten that I hadn't actually done it! I will be doing it within the next month, so can give it to you then, if that's any use? Sorry to mislead.

GPO works fine. I used wise install tailor (free) to make a mst so that the tools wern't installed on non smartboard pcs. The registry key also works for the gallery also works fine. You can also set up a shared gallery in the same part of the registry.

The space setting only applies to automatic caching. IIRC, if you have caching of redirected shares enabled (as is by default) then it won't be included in this space limit, so it WILL just fill up the hard drive - I had this problem. This won't affect your network performance at all. Windows only uses the cached copies if the network is not available. Unless you have staff with laptops, you can keep it switched off.

Possibly not, I've just removed the driver files I added put to the CD. Is there any disadvantages of removing driver.cab - what would happen if i wanted to install, say, a usb pen drive? - That's about 100mb 512mb on this machine. So 750mb. Is it safe to reduce this?