StuartC

linux live disc and testdisk. Or hiren boot disk with disk commander. But I've only used that kind of stuff for failed disks, not reformatted disks. edit: try this guide http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/

I completely agree, I've heard of some funny stories of things coming from China wrong (not Promethean, before I get shot) because something wasn't specified on the drawing. They do things precisely as they are drawn. So if anything from China is rubbish then it's probably because someone in Blackburn used the wrong line thickness

Erm, it sounds like a configuration problem on the computer. Are you using the same pc? What do RM say? Is the computer seeing the board, or is it as you say that the pen just isn't working on the board?

and as we all know, british built cars were the best in history Seriously though, our China plant is already making everything for use outside of Europe, and a fair bit inside Europe too. We've not had big problems I'm aware of with anything made by China.

Thanks Otter. Yes all production is moving to China this year. Our guys over there have been making about 3 quarters of our stuff over the last 2 years, primarily for countries outside of the EU. We currently have a support center there for Asia/Pacific regions, we also have a call center in Atlanta for the Americas. The team we have offering support from Blackburn to Europe, Middle East and Africa will be staying put, and will actually be expanded. So no worries on that front.

For slowdown caused by AV software I say that if you add the files: 2057AS3PE.a3l Profilepath.ini Settings.ini in folder c:\documents and settings\%username%\my documents\Activstudio 3\ to an exclude then it should help. Obviously they are slightly different names and in a different folder for AS2 but you'll see them if you take a look.

yup, but the multiplayer servers seemed to be offline last night. I like how on the xbox at least if you take someone out and they have a webcam it takes a snapshot of them at that moment and shows it on your screen. I've seen some classic pics, including 1 dodgy one of a lad on his bed in his pants, nearly made me crash as I tried to gouge my eyes out.

Finally got it set up. I now have OSX Leopard, Ubuntu 7.10 and Windows XP on my Macbook Pro. Full decent triple boot, with all devices working in all OS using refit as the boot manager. It's pretty sweet and worth the hard work and tears.

Ok, the facts. 1. Promethean have supplied 3 kinds of Activpen for use with Promethean boards. The Activpen 1 2 and 3. 2. The slim black pens you're referring to are the Activpen 1 (I have about 10 knocking around in my desk, but I do tend to inherit faulty ones). 3. Activpen 1 and 2 had generally the same failure rates. These can easily be identified by either being really slim or both types have nibs (you can pull them out) that are about 6.5cm long. Activpen 1s were not used very often (IWBs weren't very common back then) so might have lasted longer because of that. 4. The failures were mostly caused by cracks around the middle or the nib switch failing. In Activpen 3 the inner gubbins (technical term ) have been rotated to reduce the chance of cracking. The nib switch has also been replaced with a resistive contact. Kind of like the pad contact thing you've seen on calculator buttons after you've pulled one apart (don't tell me you've never done it). My advice is to try a few of the Activpen 3 pens if you believe you are having problems. All pens are covered by a 1 year warranty but we haven't sold any Activpen 1 or 2s for well over a year so there are none under warranty. Smart pens don't get damaged because they are technically dumb pens, you could use a stick or a rock and it wouldn't make much difference. It's a bit of a trade I think. Would you rather a rock solid pen with a board that could break that costs you £xxx to replace or would you want a rock solid board with a pen that could break that costs you £xx to replace. I agree though. In my opinion everyone should use a slimmer pen with the Activboard. I find it easier. The argument is that the chunkier pens make it easier for children to use. My 2 arguments against this would be, children don't use the Activboard 90% of the time, and children should get used to using normal sized pens. I'll bring this up next time I see product management, cheers for the input guys.

Yeah, I was looking into that splash screen too. It's an odd thing for a driver to do and if it's necessary then I can't think of too many quiet ways to do it. I'll speak to the driver guy (well, on monday now) and see if I can get him to write a version that does this quietly for you to test. I'd ask you to give the new Activdriver 4.1.13 a go for dropping Activboards, we really went to town on it for reliability on it's connection because a few very large sites in the USA went out of action because of the same thing. Not nearly as many people in the UK were affected, but all seems to be good at the moment. Webman, I think the engineer situation will improve soon. A lot more guys will be on the case so travel won't be so bad. Just feel sorry for Zerohour, he's up in Aberdeen if memory serves me right and our engineer travelled from London (!!!!) to see him. That jittering behaviour could be anything, would be tempted to get someone out to look at it. If I would put money on a cause (given the little information I have) I would put it down to PSU, Power Supply, Activpen, Activboard in that order. Try it without the projector mains connected, I've seen a difference between the ground on 2 mains loops cause this problem before. Have a good weekend all.

How good is this game? I'm loving it, got the demo on my xb360 and play it every evening. Even thought it's a demo it's so much fun. Anyone know how much better it looks on the ps3? Anyone else playing this online, maybe I can add you and kick your ass?

Big lesson learned by me this week. Linux hates ATI nuff said

Thanks for the comments guys, the latest batch are more "constructive" which isn't always a bad thing. Zerohour, I'm very aware of what happened with your systems, especially the msi problems. I know we've sent guys to look at specific hardware problems and I know that my colleague and I have been working hard to get our msi writers to change their ways. We've sent over links to everything you've said on here, logs of problems reported, we've even sent that great guide to get an msi that works on your systems. All we've been told is something along the lines of "it's an msi, it should work on systems that correctly support msi's". I honestly don't agree which is why I bring it up constantly with our product management, but I fear my comments are falling on deaf ears. Who is your account manager, I'd like a word with them about it. Logonui, I think most problems are gone now, but depends on how long ago you went the way of smart. The biggest improvement was probably the signing of the driver in v4, and the fixing of v4s bugs in 4.1.13. We still have some issues with the msi (see above) but on the whole it's fine. Our escalated cases seem to be at an all time low. Well they will be when 3.6 comes out for the mac later this month. bossman, interesting case there. If it's something that just happens to that user then you're going along the right path of trying a different workstation, isolating if it's the user or computer. Tech support is great, a game of isolating faults.

aha (and I only noticed this myself a few weeks back) but the driver is already on windows update. That's a good idea about the newsletter. And if I'm responsible it would just be facts and no marketing(bs). I'll get that done.

ok, I'll try and tackle these: I have it installed on a workstation next to me, I've also had an email sent to me asking what resources our support teams will need to support it. I hate saying 'soon' but as you can see, I really think it's soon. We're pushing a bit more in Spain/Germany and there are an awful lot of Linux based systems there. In what way? We have the update button on the software dashboard. I'd like to see something similar for drivers (and dare I say it, firmware). I've heard that we are going to publish a schedule for releases, and those releases will be at larger intervals. There is the downside to that which is it might take longer to fix little things. I'll arrange how we are going to distribute hotfixes. I think it's normal that power supplies take a bit of a battering in systems, I've had some experience of that myself at home. We're fixing a lot of USB issues, the latest driver behaves a lot nicer with hubs for example, and I know there is work underway to change the power situation.

First a thanks for all the good comments, I won't say I was shocked but I did expect to take a little bit of a battering. Anyway what's everyones thoughts on firmware availability? It does help sometimes, and is available from support, but if it is used wrongly then it can knacker a system. The problem is responsibility when something goes wrong. We've worked hard over the last 3-4 years to make firmware updates easier. Also I'm very happy with the latest Activdriver 4.1.13, I've personally put a lot of effort in the developement of the driver since v4 and it should now handle a lot of bad USB cabling situations.

if you want to try linux then my vote has to go to http://www.linuxmint.com/ It's a customised version of Ubuntu (a lot of distros are these days), the current version is based on the latest Ubuntu 7.10. But it's just nicer, better gui, media codecs built in, and looks a little more "windowy" so easier for beginners. However as a geek I find it's good to know a lot of commands for the terminal, but I've had a lot of experience managing web servers so I already had that.

Hi guys, I just wanted to test the waters and ask how you're generally feeling about Promethean and it's support. I know this might seem like shouting in a crowd of sleeping lions but I am genuinely interested. It seems as if most problems have been fixed lately and I wondered how everyone is doing. Are there any things you would like to see improving or are there any extra services you believe Promethean should provide to help you? I manage the Knowledgebase for Promethean and help with escalated cases so if there is anything you want Promethean to do differently I may be able to make that happen. [note: I can't directly resolve specific cases in this thread, they should always go through our support teams, this is more a brainstorm thread to find out how everything is] /me holds breath and braces for impact [edit: 100th post FTW!!!]

Yeah, sorry, couldn't attend this year

I have GOS 2 installed on the workstation next to me here. It's ok but not very flexible at all. I love the integration of web apps but you can just use web favourites. It's ubuntu without Gnome.

If i'm talking for personal use then the eee pc looks like more fun, purely for the gimmick of solid state and the customisations that can be done. I'd also use it as a cheap web browser/word processor on the go so linux is fine and the eee is cheaper. I just want a slightly larger screen.

Lol, I couldn't go and have been waiting for someone to say what we were giving away. I had no idea, but these look quite funky. Has anyone got a spare one or am I going to have to raid our marketing department on Monday?

The serial cable is just for power and doesn't need to be connected to the machine, just leave it unplugged (unless you have no USB cable, then obviously have this connected). If you have a USB cable just use that. Do you have any problems when you only have USB connected. PM me the name of the company that installed it, be it Promethean or anyone else. I don't want to get into a slanging match about installs, it might get me spanked.

I have to ask the obvious question, why did you have USB and serial connected at the same time?

hmm, that should be the users documents folder: c:\documents and settings\%username%\my documents\ How is that set up on these machines, it appears to be unable to read the path. How does the path appear under usershellfolders in the registry?