kingswood

No problem- I'll get her to pass me on some details and let you know.

Apple? Is that who you are talking about? How misinformed you are if it is Apple products you're "joking" about. I wouldn't mind the laugh if it were based on fact. We run OS X on a G3 and G4 as well as G5 and now Intel Macs. We never have to buy Apple's superior design in hardware when they udate their OS. We simply want to. And the price argument is plain dumb. Good day to you sir ;-)

Here's an interesting take on it: http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid1_gci1225802,00.html It mentions volume licensing customers typically having downgrade rights.

So- are we saying that it would *illegal* to downgrade a machine that comes preloaded with Vista to XP Pro? Is there any hard evidence from a Vista EULA that says this or anything we can read that is authoritative? Blah. No wonder I am a Mac person. M$ shaft you sideways then want it both sides...

..and it says "support" will not be provided for the downgraded software product used in lieu of XP Pro. Makes sense to me. If you want to use XP Pro rather than Vista (if the EULA is the same) then you can- the deal will be how long MS support XP after Vista is released. And that in turn will depend on how much software with the Vista label M$ sell when it is released.

Do you believe that XP will be classed as "downgrade software" in the same vein as Windows 98 SE is in that provided quote when a system comes with Vista?

I know a trainer at our school very well who has completed a similar survey as part of her MSc in IT. If you can wait until next week and PM me your details I could ask her to get in touch with you if you want?

No plans to really. XP does everything the school needs it to. And I'm with Geoff- any hardware that comes with Vista will be downgraded. :-)

Update: we moved *all* of our print management to the R2 tool set last week. Easy to deploy and works first time. It's good to go!

"Well, so Semthex claims - proceed at your own risk. In any case, the code will boot up into single-user mode, which has a certain interest for Unix and command-line geeks, but isn't going to get Mac fans rushing off to buy cheap Dells instead of Apple machines." I wouldn't run OS X on a cheap Dell anyway!

That's right in so far as the iMac has the screen (and a very good one too) built into the same enclosure as the components. But every Mac is complete in the sense that they come with the OS and applications you would need to get you more than started. The Mac Mini requires that you have your own keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Hence it is cheaper.

IE7. Is pants. Now I've got that off my chest I think it's fair to say it is better than its previous incarnation. The new "see all your tabs at once" view is nice. But it sounds like Apple are dealing with this better with Leopard. So all in- not a bad upgrade for those who use Windows all the time. For Linux or Mac users there is nothing really new that you couldn't do with Firefox or Opera with a few well placed plugins. :-)

iMac. I have an iMac G5 2GHz and it still screams using pro applications, dreamweaver, office- even world of warcraft. With the new Intel Macs you are getting a hell of a lot more than that! I also have a MacBook Pro running at 2.16GHz- and as a comparison- it boots much faster than the iMac G5 and just about beats it at everything...except noisy fans. The G5 has a nice air circulation system that could be used in any decent server room. Buy one now :-) In my opinion the Mac Mini fits a niche market, where those switching want to try out a Mac; there are Mac hobbyists and supporters who use the Mini for other things (we want a new Intel one to replace our G4 so that we can use it attached to our TV), but in the main moving to an iMac from a Mini would be like...well...different...better really. Much better. :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6071230.stm Could be good...

I like- and support- Tony's assertion that becoming more educationally proactive in our roles would be an ideal way of showing the value of having in-house technical support. But it is hard, and with no guidelines and/or training this might be, for most of us, impossible. I'm not actually worried about BSF (in a strange way) because I want to teach ICT. I might be on the other side of the fence. But I am worried about the technical and operationa impact this kind of thing would have on schools per se, and on the good people (like those who post here) who would lose their jobs to crappy companies like...ermm...you know the ones... Perhaps the Edugeek conference could start focusing on ways- at least in one or two sessions- managers and technicians can add educational value to their role and support the education of the students through their support and implementation of ICT? Paul

I can hear the sarcasm in that from over here ... I'd be interested to pop over and see how it is progressing. We are still pussy-footing around technical, political and financial stuff at the combined one between us, and the other 2 places. It is making for an *interesting * project ... and we can see certain things are going to decided on for the wrong reasons. Me? Sarcasm? Never. Best time to come over is after the Humanities department tack on to it- and John is already setting his sites on some (apparently) nice built-in Channel 4 content for some lessons they are planning. Time frame for that would be some time in November. I can let you know if you like? The company that sold the system to the Head are *really* pushy. We recently had two weeks free trial of Securus- which they have priced at nearly £6000! They are now dancing around us when we have requested they lift their equipment- the Head and I agreed that we should wait on that one. But oh no- not this company. They want to ask the Head about tacking it on to our TALMOS agreement (over three years). I don't really like their style. And I won't even mention exactly how much TALMOS is costing us over those three years---it's scary. And it's way more than the £18000 another school here quoted. :x

We are starting to use it now- if you want to know more or need some advice let me know via email or PM. It's certainly an interesting system!

Yes- it has something to do with the way clients search through GPOs looking for printer assignments. We installed the R2 printer management tool today and it works brilliantly! Much better than our seriously failing printer start scripts applied by our friends at CSE....

We use file screening to block executables being stored in user areas (pesky games). It seems to be working fine for us. We also block MP3 files the same way- and scouring the areas with tools like Agent Ransack show that it's working. Give it a go but slowly slowly catchy monkey.... ...I could catch a monkey..... .......if I wanted.....

That's kind of what we have too.

Well, here I go sticking my neck out again: I think this is great. Not this last Friday in a meeting with the Head, I discussed with him the disadvantaged as we looked at ways to provide better home-school links using ICT. The Head at my school feels passionately about the digital divide- and it's a reality. The divide means that where one child can take their work home and learn more by engaging in the use of ICT outside of school, another child can only go home and dream about doing all those things (and yes- even playing doom, chatting, and making web pages on MySpace like their more well off friends). I don't (frankly) care whether support would be extended for laptops or computers- and nor do I care about having to undertake that support either. If it means more students get to engage ICT for educational purposes and that they also get to *use* a computer for fun stuff then I'll do it. Yes- the government are using the poor to strike another badge for themselves and social decency. I don't care about that. Neither will the kid who gets a new laptop or PC and can be equal with their friends. The least of our worries should be who reinstalls Windows when the machine needs it!

Cool. This is great information--and very timely ;-)

Same here. But I am learning VBScript and other things at the moment and might change things in the future at some point. Traditionally I have loved batch scripts- but my HND course has moved us away from "easier" to "bloody learning curve"

Get yourself along to your local PC World where they have been selling some pretty good AGP and PCI Express Graphics Cards now for some time. I picked up a 256MB 76xx PCI-E for £139!

I have Parallels on a MacBook Pro 2.16GHz with 1GB RAM. It works fantastically. But as mentioned it doesn't steal RAM for graphics (it has 256MB for itself). I use Parallels with XP and Server 2003; if you use the guest OS in fullscreen it's basically the same as running the OS from Bootcamp. And the VM is portable. I can take a copy of my XP VM and put it on a DVD, transport it to my iMac and load it on there using Parallels. Speed? Well, it runs C# and the .Net IDE very well, networks, IE is fine (actually pretty fast) and videos etc as "normal". I haven't really bothered shutting down things like iPhoto because it wouldn't have been a true test. Everything seems fine. Vista? Sucks. Virtually and natively. The OS just sucks. In my opinion :-)