kingswood

How do you know you have a memory leak? Have you tried the Performance and Monitoring tool in Server 2003 to check your virtual memory use? On 32-bit systems VM is limited to 4GB. If you have a large amount of RAM on your server (1-2GB) VM might become exhausted before a shortage of physical memory takes place (I've seen this once in fact). When that memory is depleted and is never returned- that's when you get a "leak". You might find that you either have an errant process not releasing memory to the system gracefully (in which case your application has a bug) or that you need more physical RAM to cope with the tasks the system is required to complete each day. Either way, got Administrative Tools > Performance Monitor and watch what happens with your memory allocation and VM. Let us know. Paul

We filter Google Images too..things got real nasty with those at the start of the year. Paul

Good posts Westbrooke. Very helpful- and I agree with you regarding roaming profiles in schools. Paul

I think there is a protocol definition for RDP in ISA Server 2000 for outbound port 3389 by default. You could create a protocol rule allowing RDP services and specify if you want to authenticate by users, source IP address, or any request. There's an excellent article here that may help: http://www.isaserver.org/tutorials/Publishing_Windows_2000_Terminal_Services_to_a_NonStandard_Port_.html Here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=294720 And here: http://www.isaserver.org/articles/2004pubts.html (They may not be applicable, but might give a general pointer in the right direction). HTH Paul

"Work is going on with people such as Cisco to look at developing an award (foundation degree in conjuction with Leeds Uni) that will cover pretty much everything from iPro (MCSE, CCNA, A+, N+, etc) and then the FITS stuff on top." My HND already does this, and locally the Tresham Inst. run a course for one week covering topics needed in the MCSA for installing and configuring a Windows 2000/2003 network (cost: £130). Perhaps I'm missing something here, but it seems that this is more management complexity on top of the same to garner more control (or at the least interference) of IT in schools than local government already has. I'm warming to FITS- in fact I'm studying through their materials now in order to get Kingswood moving forward with support etc. It's a "framework". So long as these ideas are flowing as suggestive frameworks I think most schools would buy them. What I think we need more is the money to hire people who already have the training and/or are paid enough to go off and do some more. Even so, if BECTA can concoct a nigh-on free course that will cover essential IT skills (and not just some BECTA-imagined skills) then I'm all for it. My *more* cynical side (can I be more cynical?) tells me that we already have these courses in place (A+ etc) and that these are already industry recognised and so it would be better if schools worked with their staff to obtain these certifications and training elements rather than offer courses that may not be as recognised. It comes down to one word: Money. Paul Me.Close

I haven't read the article yet, but will. I would say though that PC Pro aren't very "Pro" Mac or Linux/OSS- even though OO is on their A-List! That said, I think there is a huge difference between using OSS and turning to Linux as a full solution. An example is my trusty Dell laptop- XP Pro but running just about every OSS solution to a problem I can find quite happily (things like Apache, OO, Audacity, GIMP and even free AV a la OSS style). I'll post back when I read it... Paul

Now that does look good Secman...I'm looking into it as I type. Paul

Knoppix is really good! I also carry a copy of it in my laptop bag for those times when staff- I mean machines- mess up ;-) I recommend that you try and get a copy of the book "Knoppix Hacks"- very good for quick and easy solutions using Knoppix. Paul

I've never been very good at getting Debian installed, although when I have done have found apt an excellent package management system. I installed SuSE 10 OSS last night on my Dell Inspiron 510m, and everything works! It was a fantastic install and I think I might just switch from XP Pro to SuSE on the machine permanently. I have always liked the manuals with SuSE, and the system seems nicely polished. I also happen to like YAST- it's been a really handy configuration tool. The other thing I love is the depth of software that comes with the average SuSE package- just amazing! *sigh* getting all sentimental :-) Paul

@Ric: Yes- we tested the barcode reader on a separate machine and it read fine into notepad (one of the things they asked us to test). I then checked the port settings in both device manager and Alice configuration to make sure they were the same (no timing errors etc) and they match. The system will scan around 20 books and then it packs up. Softlink support reckon that we have been sent the wrong scanners/adapters. In any case, the head of support is out on Monday and will be re-installing the complete package. I'll be taking copious notes :-) Your cheque is in the post ;-) Paul

Makes me flip. More than I usually do. Maybe I should go to the doctors... Feels like I just sat right next to an Iron Maiden concert stage :-P Paul

Thanks Tony. I was informed by the head today that Softlink are coming out on Monday to take a look- apparently they think the scanners are the wrong ones or something. They did want £450 (or thereabouts) to come out- but we managed to get them down to just over £200. Still bad though. If the visit on Monday doesn't help, I'll make sure to call Stephen. Thanks again, Paul

Brilliant. Thanks Geoff! Paul

We can't get Alice to work at all really- having a real problem with their support. Not happy at all... Paul

Don't do it! We had a nice full trolly of Acer laptops at the start of February this year. We locked it in a room inside a room. A student locked themselves in somehow (with required crow-bar) and broke them out, stealing eleven of the buggers! Apart from security issues, I would say that wireless networks are a complete pain the a*** for schools and ruin a technician's day often. Go for a nice new suite of slimline desktops or something. Having said all that and been negative- the students do love the things (too much as you will note from our experience above). We use them for hard to teach groups and they actually get some work done while using them... Swings and things really... Paul

Here's one page that will help: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Knowing_Knoppix/CD_reading_and_writing Because knoppix runs "live" (i.e. from the CD) I have always copied files I need to backup to either a network share or external drive- say a HDD or memory stick; then I put them onto CD using a different machine. But if you really need this facility, try this: http://www.goosee.com/puppy/multi-puppy.htm Hope that helps. Paul

It is shameful. And I also agree that if it happened here where I am there would be a swift reaction from myself (and I dare say others too) away from education. This would hurt schools and colleges greatly as even more technical staff migrate from them to industry and leave those oh-so-professional teachers to fend for the network themselves... Local councils and LEAs need to think hard about this before dictating pay-scales based upon perception. You know, I get the idea that they sit at home and think: "Well, I just installed this anti-virus software myself--so how come we're paying those IT staff in [insert school name] so much for doing the same thing?" *sigh* Paul

I used knoppix with XP Pro (NTFS) with no problems- what you are talking about is perhaps writing to an NTFS partition which can be done now but *may* corrupt the file system (though it hasn't for me as yet). See: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/ http://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~decockd/site/myHowTos/applications/ntfsReadWrite/ http://arstechnica.com/columns/linux/linux-20050504.ars Paul

I like it- and have downloaded all the tools. VB Express 2005 and the web dev tools are pretty good. And for free? Excellent! Paul

I too use Knoppix- in fact it allowed me to rescue some very important files and work for a member of staff earlier this year...very good OS and very flexible. Paul

There's a good article on the ins and outs of Exchange SP2 in this month's Windows IT Pro magazine... Paul

The Wiki is superb! Great work ;-) Paul

I think the best thing to do is just deploy flash however you want...as long as it works for you :-) Paul

Sahara. Oh. Them. :-( Paul

Pure rubbish! I use DLINK APs (2000+ AP) and they are UP TO 54MBps... Laugh at them. Paul