_Bat_

I've been to PC World several times. I usually go on behalf of a family member, once or twice I have been on behalf of one of the schools I work for and once or twice I have been for myself. When I go, I'm usually out of work hours so I tend to be dressed very casually, probably almost scruffy. However once I did go during work hours and I was in a shirt and tie. I found it very strange the difference from when I visit the store looking casual and when I looked smart. When I visit the store in casual clothing (and I probably hadn't shaved), I -never- get a sales rep ask me if they can help. Bear in mind that I am only 21, I look young and they probably think I am a student who has no real money. It usually takes me around 20-30 minutes to find a sales rep who isn't already busy. I only ever need them to find out the cost of items as well, which makes it even more annoying that it is so hard to get the attention of one of them. I see them asking other people (i.e. older people) if they need help though. However, I was in for a surprise when I visited the store during work hours in a shirt and tie. I didn't even want to speak to a sales rep, however I was asked at least three times if I needed any help by the staff. Do you think there is something going on here?

These are my two primary school sites with Joomla... http://www.theovalprimary.co.uk http://www.ridpoolprimary.co.uk (still under construction)

http://www.openclipart.org ? The last time I used them, you could download the lot in a zip file, which was about 200mb in size.

It will 'teach' them to use RAID on a server that was designed to be a server (even possibly two servers) and they will 'learn' never to make the mistake again . Hehe j/k.

This type of advertising is not allowed on this forum... your post will probably be edited to tell you this, but you need to contact the forum admins on how to advertise.

So like, what happens if you do several jobs at the same time? I.e. The majority of my average day goes something like: - Arrive at work - Start work on website - Get a call from reception to look at printer - Arrive back at office after 15 mins and restart work on website - 5 mins later, get a knock on the door to ask for support in ICT suite - As I'm fixing PC in ICT Suite, get another teacher come to me and ask for help in her classroom with her laptop, which I attend to after finishing in ICT Suite - Arrive back at my office and spent 10 mins on website before having to make and receive a couple phone calls about a completely unrelated matter - Again continue work on website for a few minutes before being call out for something else ... and thats pretty much how it goes all day. How do you record something like that? It's easy enough to record all the odd jobs, but what about the website work in-between? How do you record the times it was done in?

I have been recommended to do this before, simply for the latter reason you gave. I don't really do it, but I should, in case someone ever wants to see it. Like you, I work pretty much alone and therefore have no evidence of exactly how much work I am doing in the time I am given. I know some people say there isn't a lot of work to do in primary schools... how wrong they are (as soon as the staff realise there is IT support available to them for half a week each week anyway). I still have quite a backlog of jobs i'm "getting around" to and working overtime is often necessary (I always forget to put my hours in though )

Haha, am I the only one who looks at the date these things were posted originally? For some reason a lot of threads have been dug up from the past recently, including this one. Russ WAS talking about bett 2007 at the time was thread was started . @callumtuckey - To save people confusion, it's best not to bring threads like this up from the past (unless it seems sensible to do so, which, seeing as BETT 2007 is now dead and buried, it wasn't). You could always start a new thread if necessary .

I'd be interested in this as well .

What does it do if the internet is down then? Just doesn't work? I don't trust the BGfL net connection

I guess the point of this poll is to decide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow

Or the old favourite: typing the address into the Google search box, and then clicking the link! Andy Just looked at my schools website statistics for the last five days... at the top of the search engine referral section with 20 visits, the "keyword" was listed as the address of the school website. The name of the school only got five visits, the name of the school spelt incorrectly got 4 visits and then a series of other variations below that.

They don't have a picture of the internet. Most people have absolutely no clue how it works. Most people do not realise that websites are hosted on a server somewhere in the world. It just "works"... the internet is just one of these things that "happens". When I was about the age of 12, I had long begun to question how webpages got to my computer, so I did a google search and found a lot of useful information on the internet. I found it complicated at the time, but I was fascinated and kept going back to research more. Oh and I'd never dream of trying to explain how DNS works to a non technical person. Webservers, yes, but not DNS.

An SMTP error pops up each time the forum tries to e-mail someone (like in this thread). It's been like it for as long as I can remember. Any ideas?

Bill Gates... duh. Haha. I thought everyone knew that

I don't know... looking at some of the threads in this section of the forum and in the FFS section, I'd say an awful lot of people use that tone when posting about subjects like this. I've seen much worse and much more dangerous for the person who posted it as well. I'll admit though, it's all too easy for everyone to forget that the rants on here are public and caution needs to be taken before posting any comments on anything like this.

I signed up to fix computers for a charity for free

What did they do to it?

Okay so following on from a thread on here about server rooms and air conditioning (or lack thereof), I just questioned my line manager again about getting an aircon unit for this server room. As I mentioned in one of the threads, there are four servers, between two and four workstations on at any time and four switches in this broom cupboard sized server room (also my base). The heat in here is unbearable at times, so I was asked to look at potential ain conditioning units. Does anyone have any recommendations as to exactly what I need? I think management are looking along the lines of a portable aircon unit, but I'm not sure that is really suitable. I'm not buying it just to stop me melting, after reading some of the threads on here, I have become genuinely worried about the servers.

I do as well. Four servers, four reasonably large switches and between two and four workstations on at any time. This is all in a cupboard with no aircon. We're hoping to get aircon in soon because this heat is only going to get worse over the next couple of months...

I -think- I can speak for 95% of primary schools when I say we will not be getting vista for quite a time yet. I work for two primary schools. One of my schools has only just (in the last few weeks) upgraded from windows 2000 to XP, so an upgrade to vista in the forseeable future is extremely unlikely. My other school has only within the last year and a half upgraded to XP so again, with a primary schools budget, it will be very unlikely we'll be migrating to vista any time soon. From how I understand it, a lot of other primary schools are in a similar situation. Plus vista is too dodgy even for home use at the moment, let alone on a network.

I also agree with comments here. I personally have only once or twice had to deal with kids accessing stuff on the web they shouldn't. Web filtering is generally an -extremely- small part of the job. I never check logs on the fly (even though web access is logged) because there is simply is no need. From what I've seen in other primary schools I've visited, the lack of a base will be an issue in most simply because there isn't enough room to give you one (which is perfectly understandable). This usually means your stock of components and PCs ends up in the ICT Suite somewhere or hidden by the servers (bear in mind that in a primary school, your stock isn't that large anyway because equipment is only ordered if it is needed right then... this is because of the obviously smaller budget then secondary schools and they want to make sure nothing can possibly go to waste). The servers generally are either hidden in a room which is far too small for you to have as an office or in a store room (or something similar) which you cannot have as an office either. I'm lucky in my case because I actually have a base in one of my schools. But from what I can see, that is extremely rare. HTH

I agree. The windows XP one is just a flipping nightmare at times (if I ever have to contact MS again, I may just scream), yet I tend to believe it failed to have much effect piracy.

Nothing free in my area I don't think . I'm at the school now sorting out a load of broken junk but have no idea whatsoever with what to do with it. The school most likely will need a lot of encouragement to pay for its removal, so I need to try and find something for free .