kingswood

I just ordered the DVD pack. Even though BT upgraded me at home to 8MB/s, they cap you. Sooooo...DVD was the best option. Probably get it around January...

I would definitely not put it on a DC. It's just that this thing becomes your one update source for all of your clients and servers and runs things like SQL. Even a low-end box would let you test it out to a degree. Paul

Hi. Thanks for the input. I'll check the other items in your suggestions soon- but I can tell you that I realised they had the wrong year chosen...duh! They had been running comparitive reports and left the year as 2004/2005. I saw that and told them and when we changed to the correct year SIMS moaned that it didn't have anything for July 2006! OK. You've given me a lot to look at and this isn't my department- so I may be some time! lol! Appreciated greatly. Paul

SIMS isn't my job at the school, but today we are having a visit in connection with attendance (BIP school etc) and the reports being generated by SIMS we are using to show attendance are way out- in some cases showing a 31% attendance rate when it should be more like 90%. The reports are also showing attendance for 2004/2005, and not 2005/2006. Anyone have anything like this with SIMS before or know why this is so that I can give an answer to those above and help them out a little? If not I'll just call our MIS person- but calls at home on day off is a big NO... Thanks!

A direct comparison would only work for so long. I talked with someone this last week who told me to get my CV out into industry. I said I didn't have any certification and he laughed: you don't need it coming from education, because industry know that if you ran a school network you can probably run an office network easily! I was shocked. I think you are correct though in that some of it is similar- I mean apssword resets, imaging, AD, profiles- you get the idea. But it's the unique way that this happens within a school that batters the opposition. It might be that we find although the skills are even fundamentally different they are so similar that there can be no clear-cut answer, making defining the "education factors" part even more difficult. Is it *really* that different working in education than in industry? Well, I've done it and it is to a degree. We may just have a case. I agree too in that Edugeek stands in a unique position to communicate those differences to NAACE and other organisations/bodies so that we can begin to frame a picture of just what it takes to make ICT in education work. I was just playing with ideas. And I think that's what we should all be doing to help Edugeek fulfill this intermediate role. After all- *we all* are Edugeek(s)...

Thanks for the quick reply! Sounds OK- pitty it doesn't work with GNOME though. OK. Will give Kubuntu a go then at the weekend and see what Karoshi is like. Isn't it an integrated network services solution (AD, Proxy blah blah)? Sounds worth looking at...

Does it work with Ubuntu then?

Do that and I'll donate some cash very quickly....

Yeah- the logical question that would come to my mind would be: who defines what those "education factors" are? How do we define ICT in education as fundamentally different than ICT "out there" in workplaces across the UK? I know they are different- not at every point- but they are unique; but how do we define that difference so that we can take from that definition an idea of what skills we need to take into account in awarding someone an "IT Mark" in education?

I think the idea of being educationalists is a poignant point- and one that is being discussed elsewhere. I also think it is the right direction to go in, so from that perspective anything that helps the ICT worker in schools become better at being in IT *in education* is a good thing; so long as it doesn't burden the worker down more than they are already ;-) But I also wonder why it is that industry qualifications (I think "vendor specific" would be a better description now) aren't taken up with as much interest inside of schools when often those qualifications reflect the skills used by staff every day (an MCP for example in XP or an ECDL in Office). It probably depends on the school. Anyway, a great discussion. In the end if the IT Pro mark hits the road it can only be good for those of us who like working in education and integrating the technical with the academic in effective and pioneering ways. Aherm. Good sales pitch. Because in the end what it will really mean is that we have to do the same work we do now, only with a certificating mark that says we *understand* education a bit more than Joe down the road.

Do a DCDIAG and see what the results are. http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/f7396ad6-0baa-4e66-8d18-17f83c5e4e6c1033.mspx?mfr=true When you installed your Exchange Server, did you run ForestPrep and DomainPrep first? Paul

I'm going to join NAACE and see what's going on. But yes- if the foundation degree is what you go for and the IT Pro NAACE Mark is aligned with that it will be good for folks who are studying that degree...

I think what these schemes really say to me is that ICT in schools is in a mess. It doesn't look like anyone really has an idea of how to regulate ICT in schools or how to manage or support ICT staff in schools; we don't know in addition to that how to monitor/manage/recognise skills level and we haven't got a uniform pay grade system that we can look at relative to skills or years of experience. A NAACE mark, mostly self review (if you have the time) would help in a lot of these areas but is still subjective (i.e. focused on the requirements of that particular school and therefore almost irrelevant to any other school as employer). BECTAs framwork of competencies is a good step in the right direction, but it is rarely adhered to or used. I had to tell my Systems Manager at the time that BECTA actually *have* a web site dedicated to cooking up job descriptions and looking at skills levels! Pay is an issue across the board- and when management ideas come from the ether like this my initial thought after a knackering day at work is "sod it- that's crap". Of course anything that can be used as leverage (those badges are nice ;-) will help- and if this will genuinely help then I will contribute and support and do the work to get it. But if it will be futile and overly subjective and just * be another badge* then I haven't the time to do it. Keep up the good work men. I don't know where you get the energy from but I'm with ya in spirit :-)

I think they as much admit that it would be kind of a subjective assessment of a person's technical ability- and that's why I suppose they preface each point with "..conforming to relevant school procedures.." That could be a problem- unless we use a framework of skills level (enter BECTAs Framework here) then how will the mark mean anything to a new employer (that *is* a question, not a point- amd I know the PDF document says that too)? At the moment though it's hard for schools with little IT experience or knowledge of the industry to assess a technician's ability to meet certain technical standards in absence of industry qualifications and/or experience. The qualifications are there for the taking, and adding something like NAACE *in addition* to those qualifications would be a nice touch.

If you have another 2000 Pro system then just copy it from that one. Use the sfc /scannow first though (run that from the command line). Paul

Have you tried re-installing DirectX? The alternative would be to get a known working copy of the USER32.DLL file and put that on your machine. It isn't working now, so if it doesn't work you haven't lost anything. Paul

I spoke to an Azzurri technical bod today- in fact he was at our site for around 2 hours. They aren't a bad company at all and have an immense amount of technical experience and knowledge. We are using Azzurri for our TALMOS install (which went very well), and they are coming out to do a site-survey with one of their Cisco engineers this month. The bod told me all about the buy-out and it's a very positive thing for them. The school have chosen Azzurri to be our technical partner through our new build, so we have to like them :-)

Well- it is "free" to distribute if you have filled out the distribution form on the Real Networks web site. That's what I just did over the weekend and more than covered us for a projected install-base so that we have the papers from Real to say that I told them I would be doing it... The Enterprise edition is better- but like you say at £2 (from) a pop it's steep. Then again, you get all the central management features you might need to make your job easier, so from that perspective it isn't all that bad. All I will have to do this week is move 30 machines away from this version to our licensed free version. Not so bad. What are technicians for anyway? ;-)

Agreed Tony. I have been looking into this even more since my last comments and some links provided in earlier responses led me to the relevant licensing page where I could fill out the distribution form. I will move all the machines we had on Enterprise to the Basic edition this week to make sure we are in compliance with our newly agreed terms. Thanks for the info. Paul

"The RealPlayer Enterprise is also free to use, provided each one is individually registered and installed" OK. Been reading this through again. Some points: 1. How *on earth* can a school's NM or technicians be expected to individually license RP Enterprise installs? OK, it could be done- but the means would of themselves be "illegal". ". A redistribution license for the number of licensed computers 2. The ability to generate your own customised RealPlayer Enterprise installers with silent and minimal user interaction installation. The installers are then redistributed across your networ" 2. So this really does mean that we are supposed to pay a fee in order to "distribute" RP across a network. So- I think Tony's question on reflection will come back with the same answer. Distribution by definition would include the means of distribution- MSI, Prism, Imaging etc etc. I will be taking RP off our network this week until and unless this is sorted and we get a more definitive definition. If you could pass on to me this person's details Tony it would be appreciated. Paul

Soooo....we have to *pay* to put RP on our networks? Is that what I am reading here? I think Tony may be on the right track questioning what this means: "If you wish to redistribute it" I'll wait and see what it means.

Some good points there- I look forward to reading the rest David.

We use CSE- if you want an indepth look at their stuff I can give you lots of info (the school has been with them for 7 years now). They are quite good- have their moments like every other solution out there (including "vanilla"). I suppose it depends on the size of your network. We are approaching (fast) 700 machines (laptops, admin and curriculum- with some Macs thrown in). It's nice to have (for the school too) an extra layer of support. CSE have quite good engineers- and I can pass on some names to you if you PM me. We have had trouble with some of their tools in the past- but with their new .NET software arriving soon it would be worth your while taking a look at what they do and getting a demo. On the management side the CSE ToolKit helps you manage application deployment (Prism Deploy), Printer Management and Deplyment (scripts etc), group policies (they plop them in for you and you can then tweek away), and project folders, VLE solutions, internet tracking/application blocking blah blah blah. An aweful lot of it is a Godsend. And that isn't knocking the vanilla method (I would like to do that too) but you will often find that you still need some tools to get you working properly. Enter CSE who offer a packaged solution that you still control but that makes your job easier (a little anyway). As I said- get in touch with me if you need more information. Paul Systems Manager, The Kingswood School Corby

Mid June as far as I know- but with all the complaints we might be able to expect it sooner...

I can confirm that this runs very nicely (though can slow down a little) on Ubuntu 6x. I ran it under an nVidia 6600 GT (128MB GDDR3) and the effects are pretty good (on a par with OS X). I took it off because when running VmWare Server it slowed down even more- and I need to study for my MS exams. On the subject of Ubuntu- it's cracking. Even better than the last version I tried (v5). Worth a look.