adhutton

Thank you both for your advice. It's the updating of the client PCs bit that I want to automate, if possible. We need the Teacher PCs to be 'Ready-to-Go' on the first Monday back after Easter, so your suggestion of a script for logging on and launching SIMS (which I would do during Easter hols.) would be ideal. Do you have one going spare by any chance please? Don't really want to re-invent the wheel if I can help it.... Cheers - Andrew

Before I start, please forgive my ignorance on this one. I am quite new to SIMS. A question - how do you guys actually roll-out the SIMS upgrades across your network? For the last upgrade our Network Manager installed the update on the server (Win Server 2003 R2) then I went round all of the Teacher/Office PCs and logged-in, ran SIMS to allow it to update then re-started the PC. It took me ages as we have 400 PCs on our network with quite a high proportion of Teacher machines which needed upgrading. I need a quicker an easier way of doing it. Any ideas? I am going to apply the March update during the Easter holidays. Your help greatly appreciated. Andrew

Any names/web addresses of companies you have used or had quotes from please? Andrew

I wouldn't normally use compressed air on a switched-on projector as they do get rather hot, but I was obviously having a bad day! The flame was because the propellant which pushes out the air is highly flammable and it does actually tell you that on the can....Doh! I was in the Science dept. when it happened and the teachers were well impressed! They asked if I could do it again.......!! Andrew

Remember to tell them to turn off the power on anything they squirt with the can of air! I forgot recently when cleaning an overhead projector and got a rather large ball of flame as a result...silly me! Andrew

Does anyone out there have an ongoing maintenance contract with a service agent/supplier to maintain their overhead projectors? We do all of the 'normal' maintenance on ours (clean filters, lenses, blow dust out etc...), but quite a few are starting to get the 'burn-in' pink edges around the screen and need to be professionally maintained or repaired. They are mostly out of warranty. Nearly all of our projectors are the orange or silver Sanyo type. Any details or suggestions welcomed. Thanks - Andrew

They need converting because the docs are lots of 'Pen Pal' replies from French kids. Each one is a reply to a single student at our school. To allow them all to read the replies we would have to istall the Sun converter on multiple student PCS. Not really viable at this moment in time. It is quicker for me (and possibly their teacher in the longer term) to convert say 30 or 40 at a time into MS Word docs and distribute them back to the kids. Probably not the very best solution , but the route of least bother at the moment. Thanks for your thoughts.

Thanks for your advice on this one. I installed the Sun ODF plugin and it works a treat. Not quite a batch tool, but it can be opened and then multiple documents quickly (manually) opened and converted. Nice one. Cheers.

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find exactly the answer I was looking for. Does anyone know how to batch convert Open Office (.odt) documents to MS Word (.docx) documents? We have a stack of replies from French students which are all Open Office and they need converting to MS Office so our students can read them. Any quick and dirty ways you know of would be greatly appreciated:D Thanks - Andrew

We have used this before - it works really well, but will require a reboot as far as I know - don't think it works from within Windows: A@PC: Windows Password Recovery Software. Reset Administrator Password. XP VISTA 2008 2003 2000 NT. Andrew

I need it to be 'hands-free' on a twice-weekly basis. Can a distribution group be set up to do the task automatically? Andrew

Does anyone have any idea how I might set up a regular, automated email to a group of receipients? The email will have an attachment. We use Exchange 2003 with Outlook Web Access for all users. Thanks Andrew

In our school we use: Dasher Duck Game Hot Potatoes Pivot Game Maker Scratch Wink All can be Googled for download links and information. As far as I know, all of these are freeware (for educational use) and are used to teach basic animation, game making etc.. If you need to know more details I will ask our head of ICT and he can maybe make a more specific recommendation for Y7. Andrew

Has to be Perl, every time:D

Sounds like it may also be a power supply (PSU) problem. The PSU may appear to be working ok, but if not putting out the correct voltages or fluctuating that may be your answer. I have seen the kind of behaviour you describe on a couple of machines before. We swapped out the PSU and hey presto problem gone! If you have a spare, try running with an alternate PSU. Andrew

I've used one called 'Thumbnailer' (surprisingly) for years. It is really good and does most of the things you will ever need for thumbnail creation including image galleries, batch operation, linked HTML pages etc... I don't think it is free, but fairly cheap the last time I looked. Web site: Smaller Animals ThumbNailer Andrew

If you can run CGI (Perl) or PHP scripts then there are loads of free Formmail scripts (or similar) here: The CGI Resource Index or The PHP Resource Index Andrew

Working at Woodham CTC, Newton Aycliffe.