garethEds

I really hope Microsoft are not getting rid of SkyDrive - we use it as a family based cloud solution for our photos. Gareth

Hi, Anyone know if it is possible to deploy SkyDrive (easy enough) to machines and then when a user logs in with their username it maps the drive? I can map the network drive without any issues but it doesn't seem to accept %username%. I realise each user has to have a SkyDrive setup. Anyone know of a way to mass setup SkyDrives accounts? Gareth

I know what you mean - however I have been told that £20K is being directed to Secondary schools and £10k to primary schools. £27million is being shared out between LEAs. Now all we have to make sure is that the school let the funds go to ICT and not to a new roof. Gareth

From what I gather this question has not been answered yet. The project ends in 2015 - so it has been thought through to the end. They are looking at alternative funding streams - from SLA to LEA buy in. I cannot see how they can charge in the future as the resources that are on there have been re-packaged from NGFL Cymru (which was free). The Office 365 aspect is free. The only paying aspect seems to be the bits from the company providing the secure areas. Maybe that will be a seperate module we can buy into. Any questions for the Hwb can be directed to: [email protected] Users can also direct feedback to the Hwb team through the website: https://hwb.wales.gov.uk/HWBSupport/Pages/Home.aspx Regards Gareth

One of the best methods of reviewing your department would be to follow the questions outlined in the NAACE (old BECTA) Self Review Framework - it provides you with an excellent set of questions upon which you can benchmark your department. We are in the process of appying for the ICT Mark. Do not however underestimate the work it takes to complete the form. However once it is done then a quick review each year should be easier. It also fits in with the Common Inspection Framework used by OFSTED and ESTYN. If it's all there in the SRF document then you do not need to have inspectors chasing you for information. Just present the document to your Headteacher/Line Manager. Another point - the SRF is meant to be a whole school approach. Naace SRF: Welcome to the Self-review Framework (SRF) Once we have gone through the process I would be happy to send you our document/pdf report but would like to wait. Maybe others have theirs that they would be willing to share. Best wishes Gareth

An amazing announcement yesterday by the Welsh Assembly First Minister. £40m to be pumped into broadband provision to schools with LEAs getting £27m to upgrade their provision and then secondary schools being given £20K each and primary £10k each to put into infrastructure improvements or hardware improvements. Link: Learning Wales Brilliant. Gareth

With a £40m investment announced yesterday one would hope that our broadband feed goes down ever again :-) £27m for LEA's and then £20K per secondary school, £10k per primary. Not bad at all. Gareth

Can anyone remind me the specific GPO setting for allowing access to certain directories on the C drive? We block access to the C drive but exam pupils need read/write/modify access to a certain directory for the WJEC SecureAssess software to run. We are using Windows 7 Ent. I've created the GPO and altered settings - I've tried where I thought it was - but it hasn't changed anything. Appreciated Gareth

I'm going to take a look today using Virtual Box on my PC here. Two installations - one for development and one to trial on our network. The LEA have just updated the admx store to include the newest admx versions so it should be fun. I see a day when we are all writing our own tiles that adapt to the user that is logged in (can that be done?) Gareth

Can I just say that the Go Compare Guy is a very nice man and is called Wynne Evans. Very chatty guy and nothing like his character (obviously). The other 3 - agree totally. Gareth

Without sounding like an arse I'd be careful how you phrase that - not everyone can have kids. For some people not having children is a stressful and upsetting time. Some people go through tough times whilst trying to have children and some never succeed. I know you didn't mean anything by it - but it's amazing how people sometimes say things without knowing. Gareth

Am I being thick? What link?

I have a son who is 2 and a half years old. With a daughter on the way. Regards Gareth

Any experts on here regarding tax? As most know I am a teacher and am happy to earn what I do. I pay the 40% rate of tax for earnings over £34,371. AmI right in saying that people who work can write expenses against their tax return? So if I was to be paid for a piece of work (freelance consultant - £1500) and bought a 27" iMac out of that could I avoid paying tax on it instead of giving 40% of it to the taxman? Did that make sense? I'm sure my builder friend has income and expenses which the accountant plays off against each other. Or am I totally wrong - which is why I need an expert :-) Gareth

@localzuk - Your PM box is full. Cannot send direct until you empty a bit of it :-) Gareth

Well even with what Richard has said and what has been discussed on here today - I'm none the wiser. As I said - might be easier just to replace boxes. Box for box and so on. Gareth

Spooky - just been speaking to a refurb supplier about these. Gareth

So maybe I am just better getting 5 powerful box servers and not virtualising anything. Could be cheaper. I'm sure there are some nice Dell racks out there or some refurbs from ICT-Direct - could save me a packet. The big question is - do I need to virtualise? Gareth

Thanks for chipping in. Gareth

We've been told that for now and until we can afford it that cat6 would be okay. If that's wrong then we cannot afford fibre channels at the moment. Maybe it would be better if we ditch the virtualisation option and just buy 10 cheap servers :-) Bugger the Eco/green credentials. How should we be linking them together? Gareth

How about this kit: SAN 2U Supermicro 12 Hotswap Bays, Redundant 1200W Power supplies, Dual gigabit LAN, KVM remote management X1 intel Xeon E3-1230 3.2Ghz 32gb DDR3 1333 ECC RAM X10 600Gb 3.5" 15K SAS 4 port 6Gbps SAS Raid Controller Inc Battery back up 2 x 1U Supermicro 4 hotswap sas/sata bays Redundant PSU Supermicro ServerBoard, x4 GB LAN, IPMI X2 6 Core E5645 2.4Ghz Xeon CPU's 128Gb DDR3 1333 ECC Registered RAM X2 500Gb Enterprise Sata * the servers above now have a total of x4 1gb lan ports with x1 dedicated LAN for remote management Any opinions? They are from ServerNation who were recommended to me by a fellow Edugeeker. Gareth

So there is £10K to spend on improving back end systems. This means getting rid of some servers that are between 6 and 9 years old and hopefully moving to HyperV solution. What should I get? This is based on an old project that was shelved the other month due to lack of funds - but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Was thinking of 2 servers and a SAN. Has to be reliable. Had a quote from HP and fell of my chair. Gareth

We are considering purchasing a SAN from ServerNation but it appears it doesn't come with software - so do we have to look at something like OpenFiler? How does that work? Does the SAN have somewhere where you can install software? Rather naive I know but I just assumed you would plug it in to the network and your servers would see it :-) Any advice appreciated, Gareth

We use MDT2012 and like someone above me clearly states - "It rocks" - it does indeed. Check out the sticky post in this forum which contains links to books, blogs, articles etc etc. Great piece of software for lite touch deployments. You'll also get a lot of help on here. Gareth

Thats Mate, I hadn't thought about drivers however I don't think we are going to be virtualising current servers - we will be re-building them from scratch and taking our time to do it. Some of the servers are running 2003 (not even 2003R2) so we've decided to go slowly with fresh installs. I think this will be better for us. I will be mving WDS and MDT first - from scratch. Then de-commissioning the old ones after testing - these are non critical. Many thanks Gareth