kingswood

Hey- I need someone to license me! lol! :-)

They don't cost £40 ;-)

I'll keep that in mind- great idea. My problem is limiting what I say to less than 20 words...but I'll try :-)

I'd go with Dos_Box on this one. If you can't then Acronis- and today I saw Symantec Livestate...might be worth looking it at for future reference.

Yep- we use the internal email facilities of Server 2003 and it's fine for intranet use and small-scale deployment. It isn't a solution but it can work. Some of the Open Source solutions would be best though- something knocked up with an easy distro like Ubuntu might be a good start..

Ahhh...secure PHP...

We heard about this one early last week. Good job really. There is a fix coming.... 8O

I agree- the test will move on regardless of the technical perspective from NMs and technicians. I would also say though that that we ran four very successful sessions this past week with two groups of students and found it quite good. Feedback was taken by myself and teachers during the test and recorded- with that information and the technical monitoring of the test I carried out whilst it ran we hope to be even more prepared than the two months I had to prepare this year! Students thought the test interface was complicated and that the questions were obscure in the first part of the summative test (Test 1); however, in test 2 they finished on average with 20 minutes on the clock left (there are only two tasks in that one) and told us that they found this one "too easy" and some even said it was "boring". We had problems with one student account that refused to restart the test even when we logged him on to another system (we made sure that there were four systems spare in case...), and apart from that the APS ran very well and all DPS systems uploaded their results without much problem (some slowdown as the test ended at the same time as other students througout the building also logged off their machines). It's not *that* bad really. A lot less than I thought it would be anyway. Paul

This is a bit of a funny one really- if you are using FBA then you *have* to (AFAIK) use Basic as the authentication method. You can then use SSL to secure the connection so that you can't suffer man-in-the-middle attacks and HTTP stream redirects. I think you kind of said already that you had checked ESM. Did you look at: Protocols > HTTP > Exchange Virtual Server The "compression" option on mine (looking at it now) is set to "none". You should check the box is ticked to enable Forms Based Authentication. You should have gotten a message when you did so that told you to enable SSL. DB was right- you need to enter credentials like this: domain\username But OwaLogon definitely only uses Basic Authentication and protects that plain text mess with SSL. Other than that I'm now stumped. I had a similar problem myself that meant I couldn't authenticate; tried sending an email so that it "unlocks" the account. Didn't work. I had integrated security checked and thought that OWA would work with this. It didn't seem to like it, so I took some good advice from an MS MVP and enabled Basic Authentication for Forms Based Access. Boof. Worked. Not saying this is your issue- but it's worth double checking to make sure (or decca-checking since you are no doubt sick of looking at it by now)! Paul

Hi Paul. Are you using FBA (Forms Based Access)? Paul too :-)

Hi. In ESM, and when looking at your OWA authentication methods window, have you also checked "Basic authentication..."? OWA cannot use anonymous authentication (that's for SMTP I believe) but needs an authentication mechanism. The three it can use are: 1. Negotiate 2. NTLM 3. Basic IE 5.0 and above uses NTLM if the desktop belongs to the same domain as the Exchange Server. Current versions AFAIK use Kerberos, otherwise they use Basic. All Basic does (hehehe) is pass the user's name and password across the wires in clear text (that's why *they* recommend you use this with SSL). Anyway, just thought I would throw that out there. You may have already enabled Basic anyway- and if you have discard; or you may use SSL etc already...again, discard. Hope you get it fixed soon! Paul

I've been looking at Cisco gear- and especially the Aironet stuff. Seems most have an outdoor range of 600-700m. That's good enough for my PE people who want to use PDA lesson monitor registration. Anyone have an idea how good they are at this kind of range? Other than that we have three new (el cheepo) D-Link APs coming in to replace ailing older D-Link APs. I don't like D-Link. They turn me off my breakfast....

No problems with Dell for us- and with a three year on-site (NBD) hardware warranty we can't complain at all. It means less of a support burden for us (as far as hardware replacement is concerned) and standardisation of desktop hardware. I am also in the process of completing some Dell PowerEdge training that means I will be better qualified to understand and implement their IT Assistant software and tools...not bad at all. We just ordered 60 new machines from Dell- 30 of them dual core with 17" flat panel monitors for a little over £500 a piece and 30 with CRT (170L) and they cost £400 each after some nice woman at Dell slashed another £40 off each for us :-) I like them.

Thanks for the info. That makes it a bit clearer for sure. I'll have more of a read later. Paul

Yes- this is one of the most stupid things to come out of blackhall in...ooooo...a week. Just keep sending the WPA rotated keys to their server (or wherever) and have 10 dedicated access points just for that purpose. 10 from each school should keep them busy sifting through all your "private" data nicely... I like how this equates the desire to have private (and by implication safer) email conversations and shared data traffic with terrorism and other nasties. Are these people for real? Next they will ban head scarfs because terrorists wear them. Tut. :-(

OK. I thought I would be able to resist taking a peek, but I'm not that strong. Especially when Tony has done such a great job representing our concerns and interests and getting the information to us in the way he has. So- here's a long-ish reply to some of the points found in the "Functional.." document. I will do the same for the technical document if I have the time. The start of the document (1.2.1) is interesting- it speaks of reduced administrative burden on the one hand and taketh it away the next! Reduction of administrative burden is something we all strive for, but with current structures the way they are that may not happen too soon (or ever). It's a kind of management panacea- where they keep their jobs looking for this thing called "least burden" and we keep trying to fix things as they pile more onto us (OK- cynical view there). It would be nice- but lets see what else they say. 1.2.1- They talk here of online curriculum resources, NEN, access to a "range of devices". They then say that the institution will need to decide which access devices are needed to meet the demands of the learner and educator. Of course, we do now don't we? So although this is a good thing to bear in mind as an ultimate "this is why you are here" thing, it really should be happening now. 1.2.5- Secure email services. Yep. If you have an email server in your school that isn't "secure" then you need to change job. Now. 1.2.6- "Should" have access to a learning platform. Agreed. And a good idea. 1.2.7- Collaborative tools. Again- this is a sound thing for schools. We are buying into TALMOS for similar reasons, and it doesn't look too bad. If you have the money. 1.2.8- LA/RBC advice on access devices. The term "should" is used here. According to Tony's definition of these key words this can be translated "highly recommend". OK. I concede that sometimes the RBC has your best interests at heart and will give you sound technical advice in an impartial manner. Sometimes. That hasn't always been my experience- but I'm sure this will be milk and honey to heads and SMTs who need that advice because they are undertaking large changes in their infrastructure. It's generally good advice and probably worth following. Flexible working and ICT section has me a little worried. The overall theme is some kind of remote capability (what about remote viewing ;-) There is a good focus on avilability of resources for SEN students and those who for whatever reason find themselves out of school for long periods of time. I think this would be worth looking at some more. 2.2.1- Parents having access to the inst. "services"? What does this mean? And 24/7 access- I wonder where these ideas come from at times. Have people thought about support needs for this 24/7 access and what this means for ICT departments who are underpaid, undervalued, and underfunded? 2.2.3- Parents access to child's work *and* administration data related to that child. What? So if I look at this sideways it perhaps looks like a good idea. But then see above. What with remote access security needs increasing with each idea that is bounced off the wall, it becomes necessary to smoke something very hard-core before you can look at this one and smile and catch the flame of it; and then to get excited about it? You would need to be brain dead. This is a proposal that stinks of Freddy from Elm Street... 2.2.4- Sounds good. What do they mean by tools? We need more definition than this of exactly what they mean. I'm thinking things like TALMOS and collaboration again. Would that be right? I don't know any decent technicians who would object to this or stand in its way. But please define it more than you have. 2.2.5- Yep. That's obvious. Wired networks have better security, better speed and scalability. Nothing new here. Move along. 2.2.6- Secure wireless that will complement wired networks. Yep. And obvious one that. I like it more now. 2.2.7- I know this is written for perhaps the less technical person but this is a given. Wireless security is better now than it has been, but it still needs a lot of work. But good points. Protection from inappropriate content, data security and integrity (4.1.1), content and email filtering systems (4.2.1) and although I would question how this should be "managed by LAs/RBCs in discussion with institutions" they do concede (thankfully) that this filtering should be "refined" at institutional levels. This is extended in further sections to cover "safe and secure internet access", documented security procedures for all the above, and protection from both internal and external attempts at damaging the network or (I suppose) its data. A good section with some common-sense attacks at dangers "out there". 4.2.5- This is probably at the top of any clean-living systems administrator out there (are there any clean living ones ;-). I recently updated our disaster recovery plans (there were none in place and never have been before this) and made ASR tapes, boot floppies, installed recovery console, make tapes for off-site keeping and utilise external backup media as another layer of safety. This is basically what I think is being promoted here- there needs to be some way to make sure that your school's data is safer and recoverable should the possible happen. Good common sense ideas here that you find in about every good Windows Server manual. 4.2.8- SSO. It's called Active Directory Directory Services Authentication. Or Open Directory if you use Macs. But what do they *mean* by "external resources"? And how are they proposing this SSO? This isn't a rant- just some observations and a summary of what I've read from the document. It's good- but it's just fluff with very little substance. As Dr McCoy pointed out- there are too many admins out there who have far too much to do than worry about BECTAs latest and greatest research/findings/data/proposals. It's nice to have them, but *how* are we going to put all this in place with things the way they are now? Sorry for the longevity. Spank you kindly for reading. Paul :-)

Too true there doctor. Good points.

Thanks for the information Tony. I'll have a read of the documents over the weekend and may/may not comment. I am wary of "you need to implement FITS first", because I'm having a rough enough time convincing people that problem-management processes are actually *worth* looking at let alone asking them to hire a service-desk bod! Paul

Moodle is excellent. I am still testing some Moodle stuff at home and learning from various sources its ins-and-outs, but will hold off implementing it now because I don't think we have just bought into the TALMOS VLE-like solution; we have also (it seems) bought their attendance deal and also their web filtering stuff too. Oh boy. Summer can't come quick enough for me :? Paul

Let me see what exactly TALMOS offers and I'll get in touch with you Tony if there will be no overlap. There's definitely nothing wrong with using more than one place for stuff, but increasing complexity breeds increasing support-- and I don't have the manpower to cope with much in the way of additional support needs right now. Having said all of that, email me some details of what you are doing and how/why and I will look it over. Or you could all just buy TALMOS ;-)

He has signed :-( The server will be installed on the 2nd of June. It seems like it could offer some nice features- but I'm passing this one up to the Systems' Manager- lol. Your collaborative learning gateway would have been good Tony- but this is what Talmos is touted as being and you can have clusters of schools all sharing the lesson materials and stuff throughout the cluster. Blah. This should be fun anyway... Thanks guys. Paul

Hey Indiegirl. I love your blog, but when trying to get to it from work today found that EMBC had blocked it for having "sexual content". Woohooo. When did you post that then?? Paul ;-)

Anyone heard of this- and if so- what's it like? Our head has committed us to three years of this without any explanation and the "server" is being installed in three weeks' time! You can email me or post here- any help appreciated. Paul

They are excellent pieces of software. I have been studying C sharp and am enjoying it greatly. Highly recommend these tools to all.

lol :-)