_Bat_

Haha, you mean there is a world outside of computers? I'm a little bit of a fitness fanatic actually if that counts. I'm addicted to exercise and due to taking swiming lessons for several years as a child, I'd say I'm a fairly talented swimmer. I just wish I'd never given lessons up. I also have a built in pool in my back garden so I keep up standards up . Other then that, I'm pretty good at a number of things, such as photography, but fall short of saying that I have a talent in them. I'm just boring...

JUst an update for those who don't know (I'm sure you already do by now though) there was an issue with the update and it still hasn't been resolved. BGfL are in talks with netmedia trying to get them to issue a fix, but no luck so far. Apparently it's not just Birmingham... people who use netmedia all over the world are suffering. So thats why so extremely dodgy e-mail service since the holidays.

I'm not stressed about it, just annoyed. I think I sound more stressed then I really am in a lot of my posts, haha, i've realised that now. They are usually just rants though. I have to rant here though cos quite frankly everyone else just switches off when I mention the word "computer" . I am determined though that the school or anyone else isn't going to get into trouble because of stupid mistakes like this, which is why I'm now auditing all the laptops. No-one else is going to check, so I'll do it.

Haha, this thread made me laugh initially now it's getting even worse! I heard a discussion about it on the radio and the DJ was like 'but... what happens if you have "gastric issues?"' . I think some celebs just say it for the attention.

I agree with Geoff. I haven't worn a tie in a while now. Plus it takes less time in the morning if I don't have to put one of those on, haha.

Haha, that is exactly what she said to me when I told her she couldn't do it. She corrected herself afterwards though saying "okay, well it's the schools really but I still use it". I have the offending laptop in my office now. I have audited it and found the download of office 2007 in the recycle bin. It doesn't appear to have ever been installed (it would overwrite the current install of office 2003 wouldn't it?). A bittorrent client was installed though as well as traces of bearshare. There was also about 50 downloaded MP3s and quite a number of downloaded TV episodes and movies via both bittorrent and bearshare. Office 2007 was the only trace of any software being downloaded and/or installed that shouldn't be there. All downloaded copyrighted material has been removed and replaced with a readme file stating why it has been deleted and the potential consequences. I'm hoping the son will read it as it is obviously him that is downloading all this.

I'm concerned about it because I'm not aware of any written or signed AUP in this school, which is something I'm going to work on now. Thanks for the links. However, regardless of how annoyed I sounded in my first post and regardless of what the teacher believes, I'm doing this to protect her as much as I am the school and myself. So I'd only involve people outside the school officially as a last resort. Any software I find tomorrow that shouldn't be there will be removed and reported to my ICT coordinator (who was present when the above conversation took place and was the one to suggest I audited the laptop). Hopefully my ICT coordinator will be able to warn the teacher in question off from doing it again and I'll limit the account used on the laptop to prevent installation of software (just in case - you can never trust teenage children!). I'm also very tempted to do a full software audit of staff laptops in both my schools now. I certainly had no idea what was going on in this case until she actually told me herself. It makes me wonder how many other staff are doing similar things.

How many of you have caught teachers doing this? What do you normally do when you find software without licenses that a teacher has installed knowing that it is illegal? I was talking to a teacher today and she asked me if she could install office 2007 on her laptop. I immediately put my policeman hat on and asked her where the software came from. Her reply was "umm... somewhere". So, assuming that the software has been given to her by a friend, I politely informed her that installing any pieces of software with only one license on more then one computer is illegal. "Oh, it would only be installed on one computer" she said. *Sigh*. Okay, interrogation time. "Where did the software really come from?" I ask. "My son downloaded it". *Double Sigh*. "Nope, sorry, that is -illegal- and not only would the school be fined, but so would the person who installed it". Then she proceeded to debate with me about how anyone would ever find out the software was on there and who actually installed it. In the middle of this debate, she jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. She said "well my son often installs software for me that is very useful and office 2007 is much better then office 2003". 8O I want to know how old this son is so I know whether he is worthy of the guillotine (I'm guessing as he knows how to rip off office 2007, he is old enough to know better). First thing tomorrow, I'm going to ask for her laptop for audit. Unless she "forgets" it, or has her son remove everything tonight, I'm not looking forward to what I'll find. I don't know how to make her believe how serious it actually is in a school environment, she is obviously under the impression that she'll never be caught and if she was, it'd be a slap on the hand. Also... could I get in trouble for this? If software is installed without my knowledge, how does this affect me?

@russ... have you ever had a problem with the "send to editor" feature before? I'm trying to upload images as I would expect a teacher to and the images I upload are not being sent to the editor. I've tried in IE7 and firefox now, without any luck. According to google research, other people have had this problem but i can't find a solution that will work. Are you aware of this issue at all? Thanks James

Are you just using 1.5 for testing? It's not recommended for anything but this yet is it?

I just don't understand this particular bridge then. I haven't installed wordpress at all, I simply installed the bridge from the link localzuk provided. It works fine already, it appears I don't have to install wordpress manually... I have a fully functional blog already. I have been told that I need seven separate blogs, one for each year group in the school. This isn't a problem because I can have each year group in a category and then make links to each category. I'm liking wordpress already . Thanks for the help

I assumed a bridge meant you had to install wordpress manually on your site and then use the "bridge" software to merge wordpress with joomla. Obviously I am mistaken though, lol.

Okay I had a go at installing this, this morning and I'm confused. I thought it was a bridge, yet it appears to work on its own? Am I correct in saying this, or haven't I played about with it enough yet?

In regards to BGfL e-mail being down, it has been down most of this week. Does anyone know if e-mails will still have been received? Is it just that we cannot log in or are the mail servers down completely? There is certain e-mails I should have received by now that I really need to read when it comes back up again.

Okay, thats what I thought. I suspect I'd prefer a bridge because I quite like the idea of central control over the entire site in the joomla frontend/backend, which wouldn't be the case with a wrapper. I assume a bridge allows this to happen?

So what really is the difference between the wrapper and bridge? @russ Are there any other bugs you are aware of? The username won't be a problem as there is only going to be one user i.e. the school so it doesn't really need to state who it is.

Another one for you Joomla experts. I have been asked to set up a system on one of my websites where the school can keep a weekly diary of what they have been up to. This sounds suspiciously like a blog to me, so I had a look at the joomla blog extensions are was disappointed to find only one that was any good at all (mamblog) and that just looks rubbish (there is no way to get it to display the full blog, it just displays the first few words and wants the user to click to read the full thing. This is not what I'm after). Has anyone set up a blog or diary type system on Joomla before? How did they do it and / or what did they use? I could just do the entire thing manually, but I suspect that'll just take a lot longer in the long run.

Don't forget the coffee drinking and web browsing all day (as someone said in a previous post somewhere) (well, I don't drink coffee, but I'm sure some people believe I do... as for the web browsing all day, I suspect I post in here too often while I should be working. On the other hand, I wouldn't be able to get through my average working day without my daily dose of edugeek ).

At a guess, I'd say that they won't believe you. Whats that saying... "you don't know what you've got until it is gone". I mean of course, designing a website to that standard is just like using a word processor and requires very little skill. Also, helping run a network with both windows and linux based servers is a piece of cake... any idiot who can use a computer can work out how to set up a network. I mean, average people set up networks at home all the time, so whats so difficult at school? [/sarcasm]

Seriously, Craig, do they not realise how flipping difficult it would be to replace you with someone with your expertise on your wage? Why do you put up with it? Someone only needs to take a look at your school website to know what kind of money you should REALLY be on. I'm being deadly serious... I'm on more money then you are, with both less experience and knowledge.

I have just come back from a friends house where I was fixing their PC. One of their problems was their virgin media/blueyonder e-mail account. They kept receiving an e-mail saying their account space has been filled and their must delete some e-mails otherwise no new e-mails will get through. According to their e-mail, their account size is 3mb 8O. Shocked at the small size, I phone up their customer support on behalf of my friend. I waited 10 mins to get through only to be told I'd phoned the wrong number and they'd put me through to tech support. 20 mins later I got through to a freakin Indian call center (surprise surprise). This is how the convo went: Me: Hi my name is James and I am calling on behalf of ****** who has an account number of ******. Tech support: Okay, what is the problem? Me: I am phoning in regards to their e-mail account, which appears to only be 3mb in size. They keep receiving e-mails telling them their account has been shut due to reaching the account limit. I am phoning because I believe 3mb to be an incredibly small size for an e-mail account and it is no wonder they keep receiving these e-mails. Tech support: Are there a lot of e-mails in their account? Me: No, only five or six Tech support: You need to delete some e-mails Me: The point is, we shouldn't have to. The size limit is 3mb, this is too small Tech support: You should have 30mb Me: We only have 3mb Tech support: Okay, can you log out of your e-mail account and back in again and tell me if that solves the problem? Me: I don't understand. How can I tell just by logging in and out if the problem is solved? I'd need someone to e-mail the account to test it. Tech support: Please can I talk to the owner of the account? Me: I need to know if you can increase the size limit? Tech support: You need to log out and in Me: Yes and I need to know how that is going to solve the problem? What is the purpose of me doing this? Tech support: Please can I talk to the owner of the account? Me: Okay *passes the phone to my friend* My friend: Hello? Hello? Okay, they have hung up... Idiots!!!! How the heck was logging out and in going to solve this? The account doesn't list how large it is aside from the e-mails you get to tell you that you have exceeded your file space. If I could bear the waiting time again, I'd have phoned up and complained, but I didn't have the time. I just set them up a hotmail account. I'm about to e-mail them and complain now though. I'd better get an apology or all hell is going to break loose. I've not had a good day and that was the last straw.

I can understand the point of removing the passwords, but personally I am not sure if it is worth it. I imagined myself in a position of a malicious student trying to hack into my school network and my immediate reaction was to to do a google search using terms related to the above discussion. Guess what? The very first result gave away all . If I can do that within 10 seconds, I'm sure other people can as well .

I remember someone posting a site that does screenshots, but that wasn't good enough. Ther are other things I need to test. As for the BGfL e-mail... the teachers hate it. The deputy head is phoning up link2ict to complain. For starters, there doesn't appear to be any group options for sending e-mail (group teaching etc.) There also doesn't appear to be any way to select all of your e-mail, you have to select each one manually.

Meh. I had access to the admin account when I was at school. And my friend did. We didn't have an ICT Technician at the time, the network was run by the ICT Teacher/Head of ICT and he never found out that we knew the password. It was an RM network and the admin account had some cool controls such as remote control of other networked PCs which we used reguarly to scare people (we used to randomly eject their CD drives and laugh in the corner as they became highly confused). We never attempted to damage the network in any way though. I wasn't -that- immature. The only reason we knew the password was because on the RM network they had installed, there was two admin accounts (administrator and admin2). The head of ICT used the administrator account with his own password, but even though he knew about the admin2 account, he never changed it from its default password, which, ironically was "removed". My friend and I of course found out about it and we had full admin rights for over two years. The head of ICT obviously believed in security though obscurity. [ password removed - just in case, plus used in a few things - tarquel ]

@Ben We have received a lot of visitors from the BGfL site today and I was absolutely shocked at the amount of people who still use 800X600 resolution on windows 98. I don't even have a windows 98 computer to test my website out on... I just hope it renders okay. I know it doesn't work brilliantly in 800X600, but it is still useable (just has a few pixels worth of horizontal scrolling which is annoying). Does anyone have a win98 pc to test it for me? http://www.theovalprimary.co.uk