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So, long story short, we've been using a hosted MIS solution. We got an email today telling us that they're discontinuing the service after this academic year. Now we're left with 4 months to find a new one, install it and train everybody to use it before the end of the new school year. So we're now in the market for a new MIS and fast! I've some experience myself with various different systems and have one in mind but want to spend at least *some* time exploring alternatives with the limited time I have available! So if anybody has any recommendations for an MIS which is a mature product, has good support, a track record and is unlikely to disappear after a year or two - please can you share your experiences? Thanks!

We have recently been granted £7000 to replace our 5 switches and I would like to ask for some recommendations on HP switches. We currently have a mixture of HP 2610-24 and 48 port 10/100MB non PoE switches and would like to replace them with the HP 2530-48G and wondering if they would be a good fit or if to go with some other HP switches. We currently have 250 users on our current network using desktops, laptops, macs, iPads, CCTV and smartphones. Any recommendations would be welcome. Thanks

Morning All, We're in the process of re-assessing our photocopier company and wondered if there were any recommendations of a good, reliable supplier? We've got several MFDs that do stapling/booklet/etc., quite a few slightly smaller devices designed for A4 printing, and then some direct-print devices in specific offices. The larger devices use PaperCut. I have looked through previous threads, but just wondered if I could get a feel for more current opinions on where people have had particularly good experiences over a long period of time. So, any recommendations for a company that can lease us that sort of equipment, and also has good service? Thanks

It's that time again. Our Virgin Connection is up for renewal, and despite the fact it's only been down twice in three years, and never for more than a couple of hours, financial pressures are causing us to look elsewhere for better value. As part of our staff development our NM has asked me to have a look around for some alternatives, but I'm not sure what's around at the moment. We've got gigabit up and down, 14 external IPs and do all firewall filtering on our own smoothwall. A simple bare connection is all we really need, but we've taken over a couple of primary schools this year, so if we could do something fancy with them (they're currently on standard BT business fibre, which is pretty terrible) that'd be nice, as our current VPN setup works, but feels a bit fragile. Has anyone got any suggestions of other companies we can look at please? Thanks in advance...

Hello. I have a bit of an issue that needs pinpointing and I want to know if there is any free software that lets me monitor traffic of individual machines on our network? Thanks in advance.

Hi all We have currently got Visipoint's sign in system (https://www.visipoint.net/) for the school but I would like to know about some alternatives. I have used Inventry at another school and it seemed ok, but I havent had too much experience with any other systems We would like for it to do staff and student sign in and also have visitor access for the school

I thought we should start some recommendation threads, as hardware is always going EOL and we need to know what will survive pupils/teachers for the cheapest amount possible. And places to get them that might discount for bulk purchases. If you've bought something that's working great, start a thread! So, can you recommend me the cheapest 3x zoom, sd card camera that won't break easily or eat batteries? Micro usb connection preferred.

Hi everyone, I have been asked to look into a server for our ICT Suite. We would need something capable of handling 20 XP Pro workstations to start with, but needs room for expansion should we choose to relocate and run more workstations from it. It would be running as a domain controller/active directory & File sharing (100 users with about 5GB per user) server. I was thinking something like the HP ML310 or ML350. Does anyone have any recommendations? Bearing in mind we are on a tight budget and a tower would be preferred. Many thanks in advance, James.

Hi Just wondering on what laptops people can recommend for a classroom environment and which is to be connected to the school network domain server for user account access etc? Its main use will be basic operations of a classroom teacher such as browsing the web, powerpoint presentations, word processing, connecting to whiteboard etc, but will also, as suggested above, have the ability to connect to and utilise all networking functionality. Any suggestions/recommendations which fit the bill appreciated. Andy P.S windows only :-)

Hi All, Currently planning the new virtualised server structure and intend to implement WDS to image and manage the desktop estate. Quickly realised storage for this and things like backups of software are going to push the limits of our SAN rather too soon, so wondered if anyone had any experience or knowledge of good NAS solutions? Ideally looking for rackmount, about 4Tb to start with, and needs to play nice with AD (Vanilla W2k8) and needs good transfer speeds. Look forward to your thoughts

Hi All, I'm looking for recommendations for pairs of active stereo speakers. Some features which are essentials are: Wall mountable Auto off/on feature (Powers off when no audio signal received, on when audio received) RCA input Ideally something in the £100-£300 range. These are to be used with Sharp Interactive Whiteboards. Thanks!

Hi there, In recent months we've been getting more and more dissatisfied with our local county provided Internet service and we've decided to go it alone. We're going around the houses getting quotes from all over the place and I just wondered if anyone had any advice on who to go with in terms of web filtering. I really like the look of Smoothwall for firewall/filtering but there are other companies out there such as Watchguard that seem to be quite a lot cheaper, but the lower price worries me that there may be something I'm missing and to be honest we've had enough of unreliable and need something solid from day one that can provide us with easy to use web filtering that doesn't rely on me sitting there all day adding websites to a black list (which is effectively our current system). So anyone's experiences positive or negative with Web filtering would be appreciated. It's for a mid-large Secondary School.

Hi Everyone, I have been using EduGeek for a few months now since I first started working as a IT technician in a high school and was wondering if you could help me. We currently have two windows servers 2008 which store staff and students network drives and for a few years other technician have been able to keep the storage under control but it is getting to a point were it is no longer a viable option and are looking to upgrade some of the hard drives in the servers. We currently have SAS drives in a RAID 5 configuration but the servers do support SATA. I have looked at Enterprise SATA and SAS drives and see that SAS drives are more expensive for not a lot of capacity where I can get a 2TB Enterprise SATA drive for just over £100. Do you guys from experience have any recommendations on hard drives for windows servers? Anymore information you need please ask. Thanks.

Since I'm in the market for a new switch, one of mine having suddenly died, I'm wondering what people recommend. The late switch was a 3Com 48 port managed, sorry can't remember the model. What are the advantages/disadvantages of managed switches? I haven't used the management console much as I don't know a lot about it or what can be done with it. Do switches need to be matched? The others on my network are 24 port unmanaged also 3Com. Is there a "switch life" as in the length of time they carry on working? Just mulling over the options and would appreciate some opinions please?