kingswood

Downloading fine here using the .torrent link at 1.2MB/s.

No.

The Cisco academy courses are great- in fact the CCNA courses cover the essentials of networking theory before anything else. Though perhaps not to the depth you need before jumping onto other things like routers and the IOS. Not to worry- grab yourself a copy of this: Amazon.co.uk: Network+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Third Edition: Exam Guide (All-in-one): Michael Meyers: Books If you have the time the certification itself is worthwhile as preparation for the Cisco course you are planning on taking. If not, just read and understand the material in the book and you will have a fantastic grounding in network theory and general configuration and troubleshooting of network issues. HTH- and good luck! Paul

My Karate instructor won't let me get fat Paul

It's still *true*, but system builders will be able to bundle it with machines until January 2009. HTH Paul

Hi. I agree that you don't *need* an OS X Server of any kind to have centralised storage. Your Macs will pretty much take their orders from an AD server if that's all you can afford, and even this solution will give you authentication and mounting of user home directories (normally stored on a Windows server). Where an OS X Server *will* benefit you (and the server could be OS X Server on a Mac Mini quite happily for this job) is in the management of the Macs. Basically, what you get when integrating OS X Server with an existing AD network is integrated authentication, storage, and managed settings for Macs (think group policies for Macs and you will be on the right track here). The advantage then should be obvious. Don't want students touching network settings or advanced preferences on the Macs? You can either suffer the tedious task of configuring each by hand or use a server from which to command your will onto the Macs centrally (in a god-like way So- take one Mac Mini (depending on the size of your Mac network it has to be said), one copy of OS X Leopard Server and what you have is a great way to manage your Macs (as well as image them, run a web server/wiki/blog/podcast server etc etc). You can find out more here: Apple - IT Pro Good luck! Paul

OK. To disable Airport (assuming you aren't using wireless with these Macs) and Bluetooth do the following: 1. In WGM (Workgroup Manager) select the Computer Group you want to manage. 2. Click the Preferences button on the toolbar. 3. Click Network. 4. Click Sharing & Preferences 5. There are three options-select "Always" and disable Internet Sharing, Airport, and Bluetooth. Click "Apply Now" and then "Done". That should do it. On my test LAN that worked fine for me. Of course you could also control this on each machine, but that would be a bit tedious! You could also try to lock down the preferences on the local machines using "dscl" and targeting the following attributes: com.apple.MCXAirport DisableAirport Always 1 and for BT: com.apple.MCXBluetooth DisableBluetooth Always 1 More info here: System Administrator Self Help » OS X I would try the MCX method first (from the server) and then if that doesn't work look at the local options in addition to MCX on the server. Just a thought. Paul

Hi Shane, Firstly, there is no sure-fire way of assigning wallpaper to groups in OS X Server (meaning you can do it but it may not work). The same is true for screensavers- there has been an issue with the com.apple.screensaver.ByHost managed preference for a while. It may have been fixed since 10.5.2 but I haven't checked. There have also been people on various forums with problems setting wallpaper. Perhaps someone on here has found that it works and will let you know how? The (only?) best book(s) on OS X Server out there at the moment are the Apple server manuals on the support web site, and of course the Server Essentials study guide from Peachpit Press. The latter is for studying towards the ACTC. I tend to use the PDF documents the most (they also get revised quite often). The Server Essentials book will not tell you how to do things like set wallpaper or screensavers (I can say that because I am studying it right now). What other issues are you having? Paul

Tony is right, Certforums is quite a good resource. What you need on a personal level is to study the PDF manuals on the Apple support site for both server and client; and perhaps even get yourself a copy of some study guides (search "Support Essentials" on Amazon). The entry level qualification you would study is called the "Apple Certified Support Professional" and if you search the Apple website you can get full details of what you would study and how to take the exam (should you want to). The server exam is normally taken after the ACSP and leads to your being an ACTC ("Apple Certified Technical Co-ordinator"). I'm not sure that you *need* those to be a capable Mac admin, but they are there if you want to do it "properly". HTH Paul

Thanks for the update. Like I said- it's a massive project and there are bound to be issues. I don't envy your position Thanks for all the hard work you are putting in so that this gets sorted! Paul

I second Tony's comments. We can handle most SIMS update issues (and to some extent expect them- it's a massive project), but what we didn't appreciate this time around was the fact that we *had* to apply the full update rather than patches to get the census off. It makes for major heart-ache during a critical time of the year (exams) and people aren't happy. Paul

Not a very cool response at all. You did say you were a teacher didn't you- unless I picked something up from a previous response that I shouldn't have? In that case you should be defined by a bit more professionalism. Sorry. We could equally state that "curriculum(s) to suit today's industry" needs teaching staff with adequate industry knowledge and work experience to be effective. But that wouldn't be nice Anyway- there has been misconduct on the part of major contractors and this just goes to show that LEAs and other interested parties need to be more careful when choosing who to work with. Perhaps the OFT should publish a list of approved suppliers whom they regularly inspect and "certify" as meeting financial regulations and obligations? Take care.

If you have a DMG image of OS X Server then you can *restore* this image using Disk Utility to a partition on an external drive that is set as a GUID Partition (in other words an Intel Mac can boot from it). There is a good process for doing this in easy steps here: How to Install Leopard from External Firewire Hard Drive at iUseApple HTH Paul

70-290 is a good exam- I thought it was relatively easy next to some of the 291 stuff! Basically I would use the MS Press 70-290 book with an Exam Cram guide for backup. The main thing is to pack in as many *different* tests by Transcender and MeasureUp as you can humanly afford- they will prepare you for the exama lot more than you think Good luck!

Erm... I believe folders are one of the problems with Entourage right now, but that may have been fixed in one of the updates. Unless they are publically accessible folders that is Then there are tasks, notes, receipt features for emails, tasks, proper support for calendars. None of those I am afraid are anything like the experience you would get with Outlook or OWA. Of course I may have got some of those wrong, but the general thing is that Entourage still isn't quite "there" yet with equivalent support to Outlook itself for Exchange integration. Hope that helps! Paul

That's a great question. And a loaded one too. You will probably get different answers depending on the roles that servers have played in particular organisations. For example- one strength of the new Server 2008 product is found in its improved Terminal Services. If you run TS in Application Mode then you will know that it isn't always good at what it's supposed to do (it isn't bad either- but has needed improvements across the board). It is my opinion that in 2008 MS have really spent time on this aspect of the product- from licensing all the way up to accessing applications and distributing those applications to client connections. Another area of Server management that I think they have really looked at is management tools. The new MMC version included (they started this in 2003 R2 I think) is a lot richer, and the performance and monitoring tools are very very good. Then there are kernel level improvements (file I/O, memory management, virtualisation, security) and NAP (Network Access Protection) as well as upgrades to things like DFS. Meh. I could go on- but those are the ones that I have noticed or caught up with whilst looking at the two. At the end of the day Server 2008 is the future for MS Server Products and the general direction they are taking this in is nice look at Server Core and you can tell they are actually getting serious about Server Roles and how organisations can use servers rather than just have servers). Just my thoughts on this... Paul

Hi, Entourage will indeed do this- and there is a great site here that helps with the whole thing: Exchange Support The Entourage 2008 blog is very good for information too: The Entourage Help Blog HTH Paul

Hi, Is it the PDF guides you are using (from Apple's web site) or the training guides you got whilst on the course? In any case, I have found that the PDF manuals are a little better at filling in the gaps for any topic I need to look at on OS X Server, and of course the Apple Leopard Server Support Forums are fantastic. As far as Zimbra is concerned: I have looked at it and don't like it as much as this- Kerio Technologies Inc. | Kerio MailServer - secure mailserver for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X It's horses for courses really. The built-in Mail Services in Leopard Server are *good* but they aren't going to get you as far as Kerio or Zimbra. Might be worth investing the time and learning one of those and getting it implemented rather than the default setup. HTH Paul

Hi, Couple of ways really: 1. Open Workgroup Manager and authenticate to the local /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1 directory using your usual username and password for the local account 2. Choose the group/users you want to set the preference for, and click on the Preferences button in the toolbar. 3. Choose "Finder" and then in the screen that appears click on the "Commands" view. From here you should select "Always" and uncheck the items you don't want students to access. The "Connect to Server" command is in the list, as is the "Go to iDisk" and "Go to Folder". The second way is more flexible if you want to customise network views for users when they use the Finder, but involves far more steps. You could use a "Managed Network View". I would try the above first and then if that works fine consider a more advanced (though as I said, flexible) option such as Managed Network Views. HTH Paul

In that case I have a PDF I created for another poster here that I could send you if you email me/PM me. It is Leopard centric. Like I said, let me know. Good luck! Paul

Hi Damien, The links to documents you have been given would work on a vanilla AD network if you want AD-OD integration (in other words you would like to be able to have your user area mounted on the OS X desktop when a user logs into a Mac). I don't know much about RM CC3, but their site is pretty informative as to how much does/doesn't work when integrating with their tool set: Apple Macintosh Shared Resources Service for Community Connect 3 Have you spoken to an RM representative about the issues you have been having? One of the things I *do* know that CC3 provides is access to the user's Windows home area when logging in- check this page out: Apple integration with CC3 If you have Leopard Server I don't think it is supported *yet* but will be in a future release. Other than that you might be able to follow one of the tutorials and see if it works. Like I said, though, I would contact RM and see what they could do for me. Take care, Paul

Hi there, No problem: computer lists are simply groups of computers you are managing (in this case Macs) and can be managed through Workgroup Manager on OS X Server. The process to add computer accounts to Workgroup Manager is below. 1. In WGM (Workgroup Manager) choose the /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1 domain from the Directory menu 2. Click the Accounts button in the toolbar (the single "square" icon along the bar) and you will be presented with a list of computers already registered with your OS X Server (Leopard populates this with your Server in the first place and then you add other machines later) 3. Click the blue "New Computer" plus sign on the toolbar and enter a machine name for the machine you are adding, a short name for the machine, and then enter the machine's ethernet address (you can get this from "About this Mac" on any machine). Click save. If you want to manage groups of Macs, simply use the icon that looks like several squares strung together instead of the icon with a single square, and use the "New Computer Group" button on the toolbar. Afterwards you will be able to name the group, and in "Members" click the "+" sign to add machines listed in your Computer List. What is "nice" though is that you can also click the "..." button and from there select computers registered on your Open Directory domain to add to the Group- easier than manually entering a MAC address for each one individually!! When you have a computer or computer group to manage, you can simply press the "Preferences" button in Workgroup Manager and use that to manage machine-specific settings. There are options here you don't get for users or groups of users, so it's handy to know. Hope that helps some! Paul

Good- but the delivery cost is astounding and the total price with 'nout added is around £175.00. Not exactly £99 that they initially state. On top of that, Misco do some really cool Intel based HP servers for just a little more. Victor Meldrew(sp?) hat off now...

This is silly. That's all I have to say

Yes, yes- but if you are a criminal/cracker who wants to exploit bugs in code or otherwise harness information on systems belonging to other people then Windows is the *obvious* choice. So many business and home users have this system that you would target that to get to your main point (wouldn't you?).