grumpy_git

Am I being exceptionally thick here - why does the caretaker have his own wireless network? Surely the IT dept (i.e. you) are responsible for & in charge of all such things within the school?

I'm not sure why I put "nice" in that context - I think interesting is probably more appropriate.

One of our teachers was called up for it last year - he was paid his normal wage by the school, less the nominal payment which the courts gave. Another one of our TAs managed to get out of it as they supported an autistic child who reacted badly to a change of environment (such as having a cover TA for two weeks). I'd actually think it'd be a nice thing to do for a couple of weeks - certainly different from the norm.

1200 students; about 110 staff (excluding those who dont use the network e.g. dinnerladies, cleaners) Coming on for 600 machines and another 65 thin clients 9 servers Approx 60 projector/sound installations CCTV system with 15ish cameras 1 NM - full time 1 technician - full time 1 assistant technician (me) - part time Things have always been mad but improving recently as we've brought out newer hardware which doesn't die so often. Also a bit of staff education - we gave them all an A5 "crib sheet" on troubleshooting projectors, and now encourage them to email rather than phone so the workload is managed better. @OP - i thought teachers weren't allowed to manage the network as part of their 'workload agreement'? (though it has to be said, it doesn't stop one of ours from trying....)

Renting does put you at the mercy of dodgy landlords; but in the main it's possible to get joy from them with plenty of pestering and waving of contracts, rules etc around. Since moving into my student flat in September we've had plenty of repairs done - the cost must be in the range of thousands - all paid for by the landlord since it's their job to keep the property in good order (aside from obvious vandalism, etc). If the flat were bought, we'd have had to pay all that ourselves.

I don't think it would be so bad if they were closer - for example in two adjacent rooms they might be able to take equipment to both in quick succession, then uplift the old. But if one is at one end of the school and the other at the other end, it's going to take ages to trolley them down. Quite true - the previous head here was a big fan of plucking building projects out of thin air and declaring "we'll stick x computers here, y computers there" etc - but not doing anything about the fact that he was only adding to an overstretched IT department...

Our science technicians are in the main good - although one spends a lot of time on cigarette breaks he is apparently very good. Half their problem here is that the labs are randomly scattered around the school so chemicals, equipment etc have to be carted all over the place.

I think the anology of a school locker is a good one. The bit "Do not access the internet unless for study or for school authorised/ supervised activities (this includes online games, video clips, etc)" reads - to me at least - as if online games asnd video clips are authorised activities! Perhaps "Do not access the internet unless for study or for school authorised/ supervised activities (for example online games, video clips etc are not permitted)"? JMO . On a practical note the lines at the bottom of the 2nd page look a wee bit too small for a signature/name, so I'd suggest reformatting them slightly before the final 'print run'. You might also want to have a space for the student to put their username, if they're significantly different to their real one, I've found this saves loads of time when filing these things.

Isn't it possible (for staff) to include the AUP in your staff handbook - by which it's agreed by default as a part of their conditions of employment? That's what we do at the moment, and never had any problems with it... they sign a specific bit of paper for their toys, sorry laptops though.

I just have . Pretty sure it's InterWrite.

WinRAR will do this. Create your zip/rar file, open it in WinRAR, click SFX, choose "Advanced options" and there's an option to run a file after extraction is done. WinRAR archiver, a powerful tool to process RAR and ZIP files

The BOFH makes use of this - DUMMY MODE - The mode that users change into when confronted with technical detail which they can't process. DUMMY MODE ON = BRAIN OFF, FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS WITHOUT QUESTION. And it is a great way of thoroughly confusing users .

We do all cabling ourselves except fibre, or any stupidly big projects (e.g. putting 70 points in a new computer room within a week). Experience with our local contractors isn't the best, we've found they cut corners - 2 years ago they put cabling in about 20 classrooms, most of that has had to be repaired in some way (vandalism isn't that bad in our school, other ports have been fine). Although yes, if there is other stuff to be done and limited time then IMO it makes sense to get them in.

I don't mind the projectors, it's a nice chance to wander about the school when it's quiet. Lugging the ladder about is a bit tiresome but most of them can be reached by standing on a chair/table (look away H&S people). At the same time I usually go round the IT room machines removing dust from the backs of them, hoovering the benches etc which is less tedious than it looks. Desks are lovely when all the machines are lined up perfectly and the bench is highly polished. Unfortunately hours have been cut this holiday so I don't think I'll get round to that one.

I managed to get a nice cyan stripe on my jacket once from a used toner cartridge... and there's a wall in one of our basements which I always lean on, and always end up with a chalky/dusty muck all over. I'm down there next week and I'm sure I'll manage it. This is a good idea! Anything left on my desk tends to go walkies. I'm not much better myself, as the pen collection is usually replenished with various biros I've subconsciously uplifted from desks/floors etc.

I know the feeling - sadly my contract is "variable hours" and so the school can get rid of me or reduce my hours at the drop of a hat. Ho hum. We work closely with the Reprographics staff, A/V is shared between us. There are things which overlap, so we tend to share going out to set things up, dealing with camera downloads etc. This can be very useful when four teachers want projectors/OHPs in four different halls come assembly time! Perhaps once you're in your new role, and they know you have the experience, if there's ever a need for extra hours in IT in the future they know there's someone they can use?

I think we're one - if by this you mean there's a Beancounter department within the school, invoices etc are dealt with them and they scribble out cheques for things. Apparently we can't buy stuff online. The librarians hit this problem, as they found a book which was out of print but could be bought on Amazon - school couldn't do it and neither would they accept a petty cash. However, I don't have much to do with that sort of thing, as ordering etc is all done by the NM - I've only been involved in ordering / signing stuff off in his absence.

*shrug* I'm 19 and will happily get up at 5.30am and indeed on a couple of occasions have been at work before 7am; I've always been like that. I'm equally happy to lie in bed until lunchtime when I'm not working, though, just depends what I'm doing at the time.

I'm sure this can't be the case. If so we'd be on the phone constantly - "Hi, Chair of Governors, we've got an old keyboard which we'd like to chuck in the skip, is that alright?". Or the caretaker, "We've got an old table which needs thrown out, is that OK?". I mean, sure, we keep records - so if our Beancounting department want to know where something is, we can tell them. Our kit database includes a "disposal method" field so we can detail if it was thrown in the skip, donated to someone, sold for a nominal fee, broken to parts, or sent to the recyclers. But I can't see how getting permission from the Governors would be needed (or logistically possible!).

I am, I think, an "Assistant" technician - but I often do things which are higher than the "assistant" job description. According to our County Council's job description, an assistant technician basically moves machines about, sets them up, cleans projector filters, screens and keyboards, deals with toner/paper, and sorts out passwords/disk space requests. My badge used to say "Junior IT Technician", contract says I'm a "Relief ICT Technician" (no assistant to be seen) yet my pay is about the same as the dinnerladies (questions about how it is worked out are conveniently overlooked by management).

I'm a student at the moment so you can imagine my views on this. (Although I study in Scotland, I'm from England - so I have to pay a fee, but a lower one than if I went to uni in England). However, it's astounding how much waste and stupidity goes on - like in other places. At the moment, our university is batting on about how there's a funding crisis - they have cut lecture times (so they need less lecturers), reduced the number of lab computers, cut back on lab helpers, cut back on staffing, buildings maintenance etc. At the moment they're whining at people for not turning lights out at night! At the same time, they're throwing money down the drain on "rebranding" and "restructuring" departments, consultants for changing term times, a small fortune on a flashy new "postgrad welcome centre". Oh, and stuck speed bumps all over campus, which my back hates. Not to mention splashing out on corporate events and buffets for management (which by look of them they take full advantage of). It reminds me strongly of so many organisations - like the school where I work outwith term times. "There's no money" they cry at any opportunity - before proceeding to offer management pay rises, throw money at flashy reception desk, and pay "educational consultants" a fortune to do "mock OFSTED" inspections... I recall the look on the Chief Beancounter's face when I presented a receipt for about £3 in petty cash for power splitters - at the same time that (tens of?) thousands were being spent on LCD display screens to scroll propaganda! head.Desk.Bang();

Sorted - although the screws remain fast on! (Basically - for future reference - I found that the problem was occurring when the drive had been mounted on the board with a USB connection, then the whole thing was slid into a little case (presumably to keep it away from prying fingers). So, although it's not pretty and probably not recommended long term, slotting it onto the board and plugging it in without the cover worked). Thanks to those who replied, though .

A friend of mine's laptop has died, it was pretty old and they have another machine. But they'd like the data transferring across, so went out and bought one of those hard drive holders from RipOffWorld, to plug into the new machine via USB. So, as the stereotypical "friend who knows something about them computer things", I've been asked to help. Sounds pretty simple... Hard drive out of the old laptop successfully, but it's got a (hard to describe!) bit of metal which looks like it was used to hold it in position, which is sufficiently thick enough to stop said hard drive fitting in the holder. It's held in by two screws. These are proving an absolute b*tch to remove, the screwdriver is either turning in my hand, or it's slipping and risking wrecking the head. The only thing I can think of is holding it in a vice (w/ suitible padding) and using a power screwdriver! However, I'm away from home (uni student) and so I've not got access to anything like that. Does anyone have any bright ideas, before I do a wee bit of percussive maintenance?!

We don't have a "policy" as such, just we allocate them X credits per year. This goes from 275 in Year 7, up to 450 in U6th. A black print "costs" 1 credit, colour 6. We've worked out they can cover all the work they need to print in a year within their allocation, and the ones who go "over" are the ones who're being wasteful. Sell extra credits at 2.5p each. Of course if there is some genuine reason for them to need more credits this is worked out - e.g. if a teacher wants them to print an extra copy of coursework as an example, or if the printer is faulty and they get bright pink blotches all over!

Our noble Head of ICT has previously been known to refer to A level ICT as "A level Microsoft Office". I took Computing - which our school offered, until this year. The A2 group who finish this summer will sadly be the last, it seems. I'm a staunch command line user - although far prefer the *nix shell to anything MS-DOS. I think I might stick cygwin on my work desktop, a few times I've come across something which is a bitch to do in Windows but which I'd know how to do almost instantly under linux.