Day Ninety Six

The netbooting is ON! We've done over 150 machines so far with the only problems being:

-Quicksilver and MDD G4 towers Kernel Panic when booting from the NetInstall set. I have a hunch this is to do with video drivers as it mentions things about graphics IO kext's.

-The 10.4 Intel image will not boot on GMA graphics machines. We have at least a room of these, so they've had to be upgraded to 10.5 until we can fix the problems with these GMA iMacs.

Tomorrow, we should have nearly 200 machines done and dusted.

Moodle is looking good, and a few other web services have been migrated to this server too. 

A big pile of CRTs were moved out of a music room ready for collection on Monday by the recyclers.

Plasma screen controllers have been wiped and updated with a slim install of Mac OS 10.4 and iLife '08. 2 more to reinstall. Also added audio to one of the screens for an incredible mindblowing multimedia show. Amazing.

Emailed The Big Boss' boss today to sort out plans for our summer upgrade. As expected he has told me to go ahead with it, and that the school IT group does not need to discuss how many users the new system should support. Me - 1, Big Boss - 0.

Day Ninety One

Moodle on Windows is off. It turns out there is a lack of authentication going on, so the web tech has advised we stick with Ubuntu (although I should really write down how to change the auth incase it needs re-binding to our AD server in the summer....). Anyway, he's already tarted it up nicely.

Video on Demand has been moved off the Moodle server on to another server that has 900GB free! Should keep up with demand for some time! Just have to re-author the links on the pages to point to the new video store.

The new music block has been data wired and goes back to the old cabinet, which has been replaced. I've patched in their old machines and left any unused ports disconnected. At some point soon, I expect the installers will put in a patch panel to terminate the new data runs.

Reorganised our stocks of spares in the office. It's now organised, instead of in a big pile. This is good.

Worked with The Other Tech on netinstalling eMacs today. If you up the number of NFS daemon threads it will let you boot more machines at once. We've left 30 going (server is dishing out 24MB per sec, apparently) instead of 8. If this is reliable, tomorrow we're going to try booting 60 odd machines at once, and hope it installs them with Mac OS over Xmas. Worst case scenario is that it fails, leaving all of them unbootable....oops.

Chucked out some redundant hardware today - should be collected at the start of the new year, but we don't have a central location to store it all in, which is a problem.

Oh, and Safari on the latest 10.5 image, which was tried and tested to be working fine, now dies once it's been deployed. I'm sure this happens just to spite us. Anyway, in the room with these offending machines, the printers have been relocated and cabled up.

Oh, and one of our NAS boxes, which had the plug pulled on it rather than being shut down gracefully, is wrecked and will not load it's OS from ROM. It's now just an expensive paperweight.

Day Ninety

Today, the big staff shared space nearly ran out of space. So I put a new SAS drive in and moved everyone's stuff on to it. Took around 90 mins. Also moved the FileMaker databases over and sorted out the FileMaker Service to point to the new location.

Started work on the new Moodle set-up with the ex-tech. It's a PAIN. Moodle is on a server with expensive SAS drives which are only 146GB, and we have 1 spare. So if we make a new infinitely better Moodle without breaking the old one, we only have a single drive to put it on (ie, no RAID). If we want a 300GB drive for future-profing, they are £400 each. The old Moodle is set up in Linux in geek mode and its hard to copy the stuff off to a backup location as it refuses to copy properly. GRR!

We've decided to set up a temp new Moodle on an old Xeon server which has 500GB of SATA RAID. However this was slow when it was last tested out, so if we can't tune the PHP and Apache services, then its going to be crap. The current Moodle server has a fat processor and 4GB RAM, so it's ideal apart from its expensive and relatively small drives, and the fact we don't have enough spare SAS drives to set up a working config with the fail-safe of going back to the old ones!

Acquired some new furniture today to organise the office a bit better.

The new ICT suite is getting blasted with a shiny new 10.5.6 image, so that should be amazing next term.

Day Eighty Five

Today we had a second candidate in for the generic IT Tech position. He didn't seem as keen as the original candidate was about learning more in the post. He also said he "had varying degrees of success" when working on computers in his spare time which didn't sound too good when you're meant to sell yourself at a job interview. Myself and The Other Tech decided to go for the original candidate as he had more informal experience of IT (neither candidate had much), and seemed keener to learn more on the job. The Big Boss seemed to have reservations about this decision - particularly that he would not be reliable as he had to catch the bus to work. I pointed out that The New Guy manages to do this each day. He then went on to say that his employment history was short. I said that this could be down to temping on many fixed term contracts rather than not being able to settle at a job. As the guy was keen and interested I put that possibility aside and went out on a limb to offer him a chance. The next thing he said was that he'd received an email from the agency saying that today's candidate was better, except it didn't say that as you had to read between the lines. I asked for a copy of the message to take in to consideration while mulling over both CVs, but I was never sent it. After lunch, he reluctantly agreed to contact the original candidate to offer the post.

Later that day he caught me on my own and wanted to make certain that we were sure we wanted the original candidate. He said he still had reservations, but didn't know what they were. So I said "you don't like the first candidate, but you can't say why?". In my mind you can't dismiss someone because someone else has a mystery reason they can't put their finger on against employing them. He then started saying, again, how "reading between the lines" the agency we use were "steering" us towards today's candidate. I went through the pros and cons again, then another member of staff came in so The Big Boss left. Seeing as I'd met both candidates and been with them for around an hour each I was very confused how The Big Boss had a different impression of the first candidate from the agency, so, I rang the agency to seek clarification. The agency said that both candidates were suitable, and that the original one was more forthcoming, today's one was more shy to start off with etc.

The Big Boss returned saying he'd received a strange email from the agency stating that they were not promoting one candidate over the other and apologised if it came across that way. I came clean that I had contacted them to see what this "reading between the lines" business was about. The Big Boss did not like this and said that "if you do that your fingers will get bitten off". Finally, after reading a 3rd CV which we dismissed, The Big Boss said that I must not contact the agency and that "I will make life difficult" if I do. He made out that doing such a think means I may not trust him, but I insisted that I only called them to seek clarification as I had not had any of the apprehensions he had, and that he would not explain what the "reading between the lines" comments meant.

Oh well. I bet after all this the guy will have found another job! If not, I think he's due to start Weds / Thursday this week on a 4 week trial.

If someone has a reason not to give someone a shot, then you SAY, not say "I have a reason but I don't know what it is". Ok, if I'm wrong, and this guy is terrible, then you learn by your mistakes. After all, this is my first appointment decision. The guy could be great! We shall see. Secondly, I don't appreciate being told that my fingers will be bitten off, or that I will make life difficult, as these could be construed as bullying. Especially when said without eye contact (he was reading the CV we'd dismissed) in a very bassy tone, when standing up as I was sitting down.

Oh, and Terastation boxes don't support serving files over HTTP. Lacie boxes don't support serving unauthenticated over HTTP......so I think we're looking at a random server machine with big disks and Apache installed. 

Day Seventy Five

I knew I'd find this hard to keep up! A lot has happened since the last blog. Here are the highlights:

1) Had a meeting with contractors, project manager and people from the LEA about the new building. One phase of it is due to be handed over in 8 weeks - with the networking going in within 3 weeks, however it turns out some of it is not up to LEA spec

2) Took LEA people on a tour of the older site to look at where they need to adjust the networking to facilitate the new build

3) Found out that our core switches are going to be upgraded from 7 year old Cisco units to HP PoE gigabit switches. I have to arrange a period of downtime for this upgrade, taking the entire network down. They plan to move us from a ring network to a star at the same point.

4) Had 3 people apply for the ICT Technician job. I was asked by The Big Boss when I could interview the first guy, until I pointed out that he had no IT qualifications, and no mention of even playing computer games in his interest section (duh). The second can only do 3 days a week, but I've met him and he seems a good candidate. The final one lacks academic qualifications, but has the 'hobbies' experience. I'm down to interview them this week, which I will wing as no one has told me how to interview anyone!! I asked for some advice but The Big Boss just said he'd take over - not going to help me learn, so I said I'd do it alone.

5) Started building new Mac install images - 10.4.11 and 10.5.5 on PPC and Intel. Also changing our Applications structure and LocalHomes scripts to make the machines easier to use

6) Spoke to a Mac consultant about the problems in the new IT suite - turns out 10.5.4 had a bug in it's Active Directory stuff, which is why the machines loose their bindings sporadically when in use. This should be solved with my new image.

7) Replaced all the staff room PCs with 2.6GHz Pentium 4s instead of 1.7s

8) Caught up with the backlog of Video on Demand authoring, although I'm still looking for a new server to host the files. If I get Flash Streaming working, we'll use that, if not I'm tempted to put them on a Buffalo TerraStation Pro (2TB storage) and have them served as progressive download.

Need to get on top of software licensing again. An audit is due.

Day Sixty Eight

I sorted the school data backup system today. Everyone's work now backs up to a stack of shiny new 1500GB hard drives at a rate of 1GB per minute, instead of 63MB / min, which is what the crappy old system ran at with its rubbish NAS boxes.

Tried to fathom out a login script with The Other Tech - it refuses to do what we want even though it contains the simplest of commands :(

Chased a few quotes for new ICT hardware (laser printers) and did the usual array of random "can you help me just...." requests.

Finished off a 4th video editing Mac for the second Media room.

Oh and ordered 2 more NEW iMacs for an ICT room. We can get them for £600! BARGAIN

Day Sixty Five

I've been a bit slack and not blogged.

Been working a bit on our kiddy proxy server. It seems to block "useful" things like playing back video off websites. I've tamed it slightly now. Carried on updating Video on Demand pages for loads of departments. Nearly relinked ALL old videos to their Flash versions, with plenty more new ones to go up once that task is done.

Started working on our staff and pupil backup server today. Need to clone the operating system from a hot plug drive to a NHP drive, but it's being a bit of an arse about that.

Met with Senior Management today to talk about designing a database for school improvement plans. Sounds fairly simple to do. The lady is going to get back to me with some rough layout designs.

One thing that made me worry today. We have this rubbish learning platform thing called 'Moodle'. You upload things to it, and follow them, which is better than having a teacher tell you what to do, or using a worksheet. However, some staff aren't putting any content in their courses apart from a Word document, which they get the kids to download, containing the instructions. WHY don't they just put the content of this document straight on to Moodle? That's the WHOLE point of it! More to the point, why isn't The New Guy (the training guy) actually training anyone? It seems all he does is test out a GIS package called GRASS for the Geography department. 

The Other Tech is continually doing crappy helpdesk tasks. I'm surprised he hasn't lost his mind yet.

Still no sign of a 3rd technician......

Starting to have problems with Photoshop Elements in one of the IT rooms. It quits on saving, corrupting the file it's trying to save, meaning kids loose their work. It's affected a couple of a-level students. Maybe the machines are running out of RAM?

One of the IT teachers claimed that the computers in the new ICT room are "taking 50 minutes to load Word". We both think she's having us on slightly. Grr.

Day Sixty Two

This blogging thing is getting a bit tedious now....

Did more work for Media - installing 2 new machines, and unblocking their QuickTime viewing via our Internet filter. Also helped them with video compression settings so a 1 min clip isn't 10000MB.

Moved a lot of obsolete equipment in to storage ready for collection by a recycling firm.

Did a bit of video streaming work, too. Still lots to do, not that it technically streams...Oh and Flash encoding on an Intel Mac versus a G5 Mac is SO much faster!

Day Sixty One

Started the move-over of the second media studies room today. The room's always in use so its 1 old machine out, one new one in when I can get a moment.

Took delivery of some 1.5TB hard drives for the staff and student backup system, and some 19" flat screens.

Helped various departments prepare things for an open evening and for a school inspection tomorrow - wasn't much time for anything else!

The Big Boss was away, so that was a relief to everyone.

Day Sixty

Re-wrote the job advert and specification for the web technician's job today. We're going for just 'technician' now, and I've dropped the education level to A-level with a graduate preferred. See if that works.

Tested out a video over cat5 kit today - works perfectly. Sorted out some orders for some SATA drives, as well as for some extra curricular production work. Also had a look at Livid's Union again as it's been a while since I last used it.

Implemented a new system where any member of IT staff can now reset a user's password. Pretty nifty. Documented it too.

I think the press are coming tomorrow for some reason - have to set up DVD/PowerPoint playing facilities in the main hall at 8am. Blimey.

Day Fifty Nine

Today was a busy day - in the way of lots of interruptions and general randomness. 

Installed some geography software on a computer room today, then found out it was a slightly different version to what was expected, so had to re do it.

What's the deal with "Microsoft Imaging Document" as a graphics format?! What's the point! No bugger can read them - had to convert a load of images for a study skills presentation, while it was taking place.

The New Guy hadn't been told to set up a video recorder and projector for a history teacher's presentation, so had to go sort that out with minutes to spare (the Big Boss didn't pass on the info).

Have to meet with SMT about designing a database (I hate databases) soon, so that might be interesting, or a nightmare.

Met with the Head - the clerical error has been resolved and my pay is now correct as advertised, although this will be interesting when my contract expires...

Photoshopped some photos for the school production - thew want them projected as part of the show.

Picked up a projector and NAS box from the other site, and found a network cabinet which is buzzing away like a swarm of stoned wasps. I think there could be a problem about to happen.

Tired now. Bye!

Day Fifty Eight

Worked on our student proxy today as it was in the wrong network mode. Indeed, it should be, and now is in Bridge mode, rather than Router mode, and is used for "ALL" requests. This has made the media studies department very happy, as access to their blogging site now works.

Worked on the backup system to incorperate the new music department iMacs. Then went and set them up with said iMacs and chucked all their rubbish PCs in a pile.

Set up another G4 tower for basic media work, and a G5 tower (wow, things are on the up).

Oh, and it turns out I evidently have the wrong end of the stick after my meeting with The Big Boss yesterday - The New Guy is not to be used to go in to classrooms and help if the other New Guy is busy or double booked. That must have been a decision made in the last 24 hours. Silly me.

Day Fifty Seven

Just me today.

Second Power Mac for extra media room - check

Meeting with The Big Boss, discuss staffing - check

Sort out recent orders / budget - check

Start organising software in Server Room - check

Block Internet games - check

Tell Big Boss his browser and multimedia software is out of date - check

Work on crappy local account for Art Tech - check

Find out music room networking is fubar - check

Day Fifty Six

First thing this morning, the kiddy file server stopped authenticating against our Active Directory server. This had to be unbound and rebound to the directory, so that was 20 mins of disruption. Then, during that 20 mins, the staff server did a similar thing. Except it was running really really slowly, then locked up whenever you tried to open an app. There were errors in the logs about file tables full. The Other Tech found that this sort of thing is allocated during start up depending on the amount of RAM the server detects, so that, added to the freezing, led us to remove 1GB of RAM which we now thing is faulty. It's FBDIMMs, so we don't have any spare and have had to order some in to replace it. That was about an hour to fix while we waited for the crashing to stop/start and work out what was going on. Fun? No.

Ordered 6TB of storage for our kiddy file backup, and chased an order for two full sets of Nintendo Wii for our sports department (it's educational, apparently).

Worked on the school iPhoto server - seems at least 2 people are using this!

Finally, tried to cobble together a 'high performance' G4 tower to replace an array of crappy eMacs for our media department's second room.

Day Fifty Five

"The others" were back today. There was a brief authentication problem with printing, but The Other Tech sorted it with a restart.

I updated the documentation areas in the staff rooms. Printed out copies of a couple of how-to guides that I'd written over the weekend.

Replaced the G4 in The Big Bosses office with an iMac. The original G4 was never used since it was installed.

Worked on a big problem with Adobe InDesign and network home folders - basically, the two don't work together.

Still not heard back about my pay!

Day Fifty Four

I spent a few hours working on the Web iPhoto system today as well as clearing our the shared drive on the network. 

Might need to change the Media backup system settings. If encryption is enabled, hardware compression is disabled, meaning you can only fit 200Gb on a tape that could hold 400GB.

Priced up more storage for the other backup server - £650 for 6TB! Me and The Other Tech agreed that its going to be quicker backing up to local hard disks than over the network to NAS boxes.

Met up with the ex-Web Guy today and talked about improving our Moodle and display screen systems, which was good. Also thought about setting up a VPN for localised WiFi access for a bunch of Asus eeePCs we have.

Had a go at joining a 10.5 laptop to my Server 2008 test domain. I remember reading that Macs don't like joining a .local domain, which is what I have running, so I'll need to do some work on that before I can safely say 2008+10.5 work well.

Finally, I went up to Languages to install some software on their classroom PCs.

Day Fifty Three

Spoke to some builders today, well, it was the same builders as yesterday. They've extended the Cat5 runs where there used to be a wall that they had to knock through. Went round with my trusty cable tester - found two points that didn't work so I told them to fix it. Which they did.

Worked on the Server 2008 test machine today. I've managed to get an XP laptop joined to my test domain, mounting a home folder, and logging in. Will need to test Macs next.

Carried on with my purge o'trash from the server room. It makes sense to chuck things now rather than wait until we have to move out of that block during refurbishment, having to move it all.

Went through my home folder to consolidate my video editing work to free up space. Got rid of a lot of temp work files from last year's EAL projects.

Set up ChemSketch on our Citrix servers and published the application for network use. Should make the chemistry dept very happy.

The Other Tech worked on the other site today sorting out bits'n'pieces.

Spoke to the Business Manager about the new extension that's nearly finished (!) - asked what is happening about the IT infrastructure in that block. He told me that The Big Boss and the Last Guy were in all the meetings with the architects etc, and that they have decided everything that needs to go in and that it's all under control. This is good, as The Big Boss was saying how I have to meet with the architects and discuss things....I'm slightly confused, but we'll see what happens.

Day Fifty Two

I met with some builders (?) today. They are taking a wall down as part of our expansion project and needed to chop through some Cat5 cable, extend it, and run it through the roof. As Network Manager, I said this was fine.

Finished setting up my iMac. It has 1.2GB free space after moving all my stuff on to it. How rubbish! My old G5 did have 500GB though.

Worked on a new PC for the site officer to replace the 866MHz PC he has.

Started working in the server room, getting rid of redundant trash. Highlights on the purge list were a dual 333MHz Pentium II server on wheels, and retail boxes of iLife '05. We just don't need them!! I've decided to use an old iBook and CD jukebox to catalog all the software in the server room. It will also be a handy inventory station.

Tomorrow I need to do some work on the Citrix servers.

Day Fifty One

Migrating my work to my shiny new iMac did not work, so I wiped it, set it up fresh, and copied my stuff manually. The Other Tech noticed we were short of staff emails accounts, so he cleared a few old ones out, and I checked the staff home server and cleared out 35GB of dead files.

We both went to the other site and removed some redundant PCs from the library, then moved those and a pile of redundant CRT screens in to storage ready for disposal. Moving infinite amounts of retro IT equipment never gets old....

Tried to service 4 old UPSs today. We have two large ones with dead batteries - 1 clicks and one does nothing. Another smaller one which does nothing, and an even smaller one that does nothing. I've decided to bin the 2 small ones - we have a working one in stock which hasn't been used, and I'd rather get the larger units running than spend money on the little ones which aren't too useful.

Set up the art technician's Mac to be network based, rather than portable as the issues associated by syncing weren't outweighed by the negligable performance decrease of working on the network.

Finally, it is a sad day...the Quadra 950 is destined for the skip.

Day Fifty

Fifty days of fun.

• Today I did an upgrade to the school's email system. It worked perfectly! We're now running the latest version of our mail server, and the webmail supports Firefox 3. I'm very pleased.
• I rack mounted Aldi, the backup server in our big 42U rack. I installed network shutdown software on that and Elroy, so when there's a power cut, they'll both shut down properly.
• Deleted all students' ~/Library folders to resolve the issues with 10.5 and network homes.
• Installed a PC for a year assistant lady.
• Made a pile of redundant equipment ready to move to storage.
• Started migrating my docs and apps to my shiny new iMac
• Switched all our kiddy computers to use the internet banning system - The Other Tech is adding all the machines in to the management lists.
• Blocked the BBC iPlayer! Kids will no longer be able to say no to work in favour of last night's EastEnders. That'll teach them.
• Installed a new server version of our Careers software for the careers lady.
• Installed some ChemSketch software in Chemistry.

I'm on fire.

Day Forty Nine

Today I worked a little more on the iPhoto server, then moved it and the new backup server in to the server room. Ran a backup of the iPhoto server too. The Other Tech looked at the staff and student backup, but it's still running and has many hours left. 

Set up our Win 2008 test server on the bench and installed Active Directory services on it. Have yet to connect any clients to it but I will dip in and out in the next couple of weeks to do some preliminary testing. I'll also have another look at Flash streaming on this box.

The class whose /Library folders were deleted had zero problems today. They could all access their Apps! We're going to try and delete everyones Library folders next week. Success.

Got an email from an old teacher today. She was saying her son has finished Uni and is looking for a second job during the day time and was interested in Macs and IT support. Seeing as we have a vacancy, I ran the idea past The Big Boss. He asked me what exactly this person would do. I was somewhat confused as the advertised position had a job spec, and had assumed he would be doing that....so I explained that assumption. The Big Boss then said that the classroom assistant and IT assistant (aka The New Guy) could do menial IT tasks. I was left confused as if this was the case and our current staffing was suitable (which it is not), why did we advertise for a 3rd technician with web skills in the first place? The ball has been left in my court as I would need to see what this guy wanted from the position, but, it seems like The Big Boss is not overly keen to support it....?....

Day Forty Eight

This is rather good. So I set it up today. I cleaned a printer and made a poster, too.

Day Forty Seven

Today, I researched A3 photo printers, as the one in art decided to not print correctly, then jammed and gave error messages on its screen. The Other Tech managed to fix it in 20 seconds after we'd both looked at it confused for ages. It's gone back to the room now, but next time it breaks we're going to send it back and get a different one. 

Set up the UPS on the mini backup server. It threw a fit, restarted, clunked, and corrupted two backup drives. The SATA controller wouldn't recognise them properly, nor would Windows which identified them as 'missing' when they were clearly installed. Had to remove the caddies, and plug them in to my Mac via USB. The Mac saw them and let me reformat them as they were corrupt. UPSs are meant to protect data, not break drives.

Sent an email to all staff today to get back a few machines which need the backup client installing (two of which belong to The Big Boss), and to tell them if they have a laptop which they do not use, give it back to us! Will be interesting to see who checks their laptop to see if we need it back, and who ignores the email. Anyway, those laptops which were on the network were added to a 'proactive' backup script, so they will backup. Did I mention I was the king of all backups?

Started setting up a PC for a teaching assistant lady today. She wants to trade her laptop for a desktop.

Looked out my instructions for the email server upgrade which I'm doing on Monday. If that server decides to spontaneously break during the upgrade, I will have to consider suicide.

Had an 'o4 class which had problems in the new IT suite today. I went through another '04 classes folders and deleted their /Library folder in preparation for their lesson tomorrow. If they have no problems, and the L6th photography classes which I did the same to have had no problems, then I'm pretty sure this is the cause of the weirdness in that room. If tomorrow's class have no problems, then we'll have to delete 1000-ish kids' /Library folders over half term.

I still am not being paid correctly, and I still hate Moodle.

Oh, The Big Boss seems to have invested in one of those digital photo frame gadgets. It's on his meeting desk in his office, showing how ICT is used in real life on a rolling slideshow. I don't know if it's in there for testing, or for trying to 'sell' ICT to other teachers, maybe. Seems a bit strange to me.

I gave a CD-ROM of Chemistry materials to The IT Assistant a couple of days ago. There are 2 CDs inside. One for installation on a PC, and the other for installation on a Virtual Learning Environment - read, Moodle. I asked him to have a look at installing the Moodle version on Moodle and see how far he got. He came to see me today to tell me that the box says "this software will not run on a Mac". I then had to point out if he read a bit further down, it explains that there are two CDs, one for Windows, and one for Moodle, and that as I had said, we want to be looking at the Moodle version. This was an enlightenment to him, but a cause of pain and distress to me.

Day Forty Six

Had a meeting at 10am. I was told all about a Head's ICT meeting with the LEA. The LEA want to implement a central records / email / messaging / eportfolio system by 2010. It doesn't sound particularly feasable with respect to resistance from schools. It wasn't relevant to me but The Big Boss thought I should know anyway.

He then talked about Parent Portal where parents can see all about their kids' behavior / reports / grades online. He mentioned that this isn't going to be hosted by us, nor managed by us, so again another self-admitted irrelevant point.

We then covered what I'd been working on. He'd forgotten the problems we'd had with the backup system, printing and student Internet banning, so I reminded him of that. I was also asked how things were coming along with student remote access - I pointed out that he had told me to bring it up in the larger IT meeting next half term so we can discuss numbers of users on the system. Until then I can't get quotes, so we can't budget, so we can't do anything. I'm not sure what input, if any, the other members of the larger meeting will have on determining the number of users on the system?...

Worked on the backup system - new drives and a SATA RAID controller arrived today.  Also started work on the iPhoto server (1000GB of searchable photo storage!). Having problems searching by 'keyword', but otherwise it looks very promising.

Did some work on a pro-sumer A3 printer. I think it's completely broken, so it will have to go back. 

Still not being paid the correct salary. Oh - I was asked if I thought the job advert for the new technician was wrong and needed amending to attract applicants. I pointed out that no one will work 52 weeks a year, and have specific web skills for £11k. This point was glossed over, so I don't know what we're doing now.

Day Forty Five

I set up my empire of backup servers to backup to tape today. It was very exciting*. Also looked at a web based, free iPhoto server. Looks really good under testing. Have 2x 1TB drives coming tomorrow, so those will go mirrored into a G5 tower, which can serve up the photos, thus clearing space in Public which is almost full!

Built a final PC for science today, and finished off testing Cubase for Music. Also did some web authoring.

*it wasn't really. I was just surprised something worked for once.

Day Forty Four

I am the king of all backups. I worked on 'Budgens' today. Turns out large drives aren't visible through the SATA controller straight off to Windows. You have to assign them to an array first, then Windows can see them. So, Budgens has 3TB of storage for Media Studies and, soon to be set up, Music. Aldi is working perfectly, and should backup tomorrow at 6am to a NAS box. Woop.

The Other Tech checked the staff backup server today and it turns out it choked on it's backup days ago and hung. With all the work to set up the new backup system and Censornet, I didn't notice. Bad. That should be working again now, but I intend to ditch that this year and go with the same sort of system as Aldi.

Worked on a very broken XP install, and looked at Cubase on Mac OS X (for music) - seems to work fine. Busy busy busy.

Day Forty Three

The stupid NAS box is STILL formatting.

Today I worked on the Wiki, updating the documentation for the backup and servers mainly. I also completely reconfigured the hard disks on Supserstore, set up new RAID, reinstalled Server 2003 and called it Budgens (it's like a superstore, only more expensive to shop at, and doesn't hold everything you really want). I'm waiting for 2 more 250GB drives to arrive, then it's going to be two iMacs in media backing up to each of the 4 drives. Bosh.

Reinstalled Censornet today, too. It works. Just have to add all the machines in. For some reason, importin a CSV file of MAC addresses and machines does not work, at all. Changed line endings, changed format of the MAC...won't work! Once this is all done, we can ban kids' Internet access, as well as turn off access for whole rooms. Those pesky kids will be pwned.

The Data Manger guy came in today to ask if was ok for staff to use our Windows Terminal Server through remote access for data entry. I said it should be fine - it's a beefy machine and entry is only though Internet Explorer.

No one rang up with issues in the new IT room.......is it true that deleting ~/Library will fix it?

Day Forty Two

Word.

The backup server (Aldi) finished creating it's RAID mirror over night, so today I installed and began to configure Retrospect. I've just checked now, and the two backups I've scheduled are running! Hurrah! I will set these to copy once a week to a NAS box in a different location for redundancy. There's just one small problem....the server is advertised as having 8 to 12 hard disk slots. This is true. What they don't tell you is that the first 4 are run from an embedded controller, the next 4 are run from an optional PCI-e add on card, which you have to buy for £160! So, looks like I will be shopping again tomorrow. I found this out after downloading the user manual online. Said NAS box is going to take about 6 hours to wipe its RAID array....

The Retrospect client does not work with Debian Linux. We have 3 Debian servers. People on Internet forums have suggested hacking together a working client, but it's rubbish that Dantz don't make one for out of the box installation.

Did a lot of user support today as there was an open evening, so lots of staff were flapping around.

We also have two servers in our server room which I was told, do not work with a KVM switch. It turns out they DO work with a KVM if you plug the keyboard an mouse connectors in to the right sockets! Doh!

A photography class were having those random problems in the new IT room. I got class lists and deleted every student's /Library folder. We'll see if that helps. Any users from post 2005 who do not have them, and get the made fresh seem to work fine. Users from pre 2005, when we first ran Network Homes seem to have issues. It's worth a shot!

Day Forty One

9am today, our main Active Directory server stopped authenticating users properly. We restarted it and all was fine, except, the staff home folder server had then stopped authenticating against the AD server, which we didn't spot until 10 mins later, so we restarted that too and then everything worked. It seems to not be outputting video to the KVM, but it's fine via Remote Desktop. So that was an exciting start to the day.

Re-linked all of the History video on demand today, so they are happy. Had a look at Flash Streaming Server again but it looks like it needs the entire 207 page manual to be read before you can use it :( bad times. This has been put on the back burner because the massive new backup server arrived (pictured). I've left it building a RAID 1 mirror overnight on it's boot drives. Once that's done I'll install Server 2003, Retrospect 6.5, and then we will have 4500GB of central backup space, mirroring weekly to a remote NAS server. I plugged one of the new 750GB drives in to the old backup server but it didn't recognise it, so I am guessing the BIOS or SATA controller needs some sort of firmware update first. This doesn't matter really as I only intend to put 250GB drives in that.

Trained the ASDAN team on how to use a projector and play a DVD today. They were very happy.

Installed the science PCs and TFTs in science. They might be happy, although I expect they will be happier when the machines have some actual science software installed on them. Once my self-purchased RAMBUS RIMMS arrive they can have another couple of PCs, too.

Day Forty

Today I managed to find a very outdated config.dat for Retrospect on the backup server. I ran it up, and it was all on about copying data from servers to god knows where, so I shut that down. Oh well, the new hardware should come this week then we can have a new spanky server.

Ran out of RAM for the machines which were were donated, so I hopped on eBay to get some more. It's silly RAMBUS RIMM modules, which cost a fortune new, so I got some used and will claim the petty cash back.

Started installing TFT screens in one of the science labs. Will give them new PCs on Wednesday when the room's free.

Spoke to Sage again to finally sort the problem with spool files and the lack of disk space. Turns out the last guy set the SQL database to backup to a new file every day, which filled the drive. The Sage Man sorted this out, ditched the ancient backups and this means finance are happy.

Found a job advert at another school who want a basic IT tech to look after helpdesk and Win XP who will pay £15-£16k. I passed the advert on to The Big Boss as he thinks we can get a basic IT tech, competent with web design for £11,907. I think not!

Finally, I dragged us kicking and screaming into the modern day by starting to test Flash Media Streaming Server on Windows Server 2008. It's on a 3GHz Pentium 4 test machine with 1GB RAM, and it feels SLOW. The new Explorer interface is very Mac OS - it gives you a home folder containing Documents, Pictures, Movies and Music folders....I wonder how they came up with that?

Day Thirty Nine

First thing this morning I ordered 4.5TB of backup storage server. Storage is so cheap these days. This new server will be named Aldi (spend a little, backup a lot). Will need to plan the new backup schedule before this comes.

Went to the new IT room to sort out it's networking. I'm sure that there's some sort of network bottleneck on one of the switches in that area, so I replaced it with a semi-decent HP switch. Will see how that goes. The Other Tech and I experimented with Local Homes today in that room, so if the switch doesn't solve the problems, we'll move over to LH.

Built another PC for Science and worked on some user accounts. Also visited a class to get some first hand experience of the issues in the new IT room. Random doesn't quite cover it!

Day Thirty Eight

And for the hat trick, today the backup server broke! It stopped backing up to LTO2 tape, so I restarted it. After restart, Retrospect corrupted it's config file meaning it lost all scripts, backup set info and schedule info. So as of 1pm today, no servers are being backed up. User data is fine as that's on another server.

Left work early to come home and research backup options. I'm opting for new server hardware with 5TB of storage which is more than enough. Backup daily to that, take weekly snapshots to a LaCie NAS box, then backup to LTO2 tape for off site archives. Cheap too at £2200. Also looked in to Internet backup, but thats £2500 for only 1TB. The 5TB solution will centralise the storage of backups too, instead of spreading them round a load of Buffalo NAS boxes.

So lets recap:

1) The print server breaks Friday due to a corruption when the other tech installed a driver. Fixed that Saturday.

2) Censornet, for banning kids' Internet access, refused to let any students access the web, then said it couldn't connect to it's internal database on restart. That will not be fixed until 1/2 term.

3) Superstore, for server backup, stopped backing up to tape, then trashed it's config file on restart. Apparently according to Dantz/EMC, this isn't uncommon. To be fixed ASAP, if not, sooner.

To think, 12 hours ago I was updating the firmware on some dataloggers blissfully unaware what was to go wrong next...

Day Thirty Seven

Today was kicked off with a meeting. The Big Boss says:

1. Make a website login for The New Guy
2. Investigate stopping simultaneous logins, which we couldn't do last year, so there's not much milage in working on it now, especially as our servers are being upgraded this school year.
3. Don't worry about new projects, as we're running a stable system....even though our servers are being upgraded this school year.
4. Add a link to the website for Gifted and Talented students

Apparently this will see me through the next two weeks until the next meeting.

Made a start on building new PCs for science, installed a new PC in reception, and a new colour laser printer in reprographics. Then worked on a semi-broken mobile account for the art technician who's iPhoto has gone wrong, with its 25000 photos.

Day Thirty Six

Road trip!!1!

Went to the University today to pick up some of their offcast computers which they are replacing. It's pretty rubbish stuff like 2.5GHz Pentium 4 computers and 18" flat screens (!)

Finished off building a G4 for a mini IT room, and a new PC for the receptionist as hers is a bit mental.

Had to copy some video files to the media studies suite ready for tomorrow, and try and fix some issues with a mobile account in the art department.

There was lots of little things to sort out today, so most of the day was taken up with that.

Problems with Sage are ongoing. Turns out SQL server is backing up to the same drive that the spooler is writing to....which is full. The woman off of Sage is going to connect in to our network on Friday to have a butchers.

Day Thirty Five

Today, the server running out kiddy Internet banning system (Censornet) broke for no reason, trashing its database. I had to switch all the kiddy computers from going through that, to our cacheing server. How entirely rubbish. One day soon it will get rebuilt. But really - two servers breaking on two consecutive days? Who needs that?!

Staff remote access was also down over today and Sunday, but that's not our problem. Hurrah. Contacted LEA support to get that one fixed.

Took an eMac from the other site today as it kept freezing. Opened it up to see it was suffering from bulging capacitor syndrome. Swapped out it's logic board with what turned out to be a second, dead logic board, so, put the whole Mac and two boards in the bin. Rubbish.

My array of iLamps is looking nice in the library though.

Oh, we also had a random new guy start today. He's on a two week trial....thing is, we've never had anyone on a trial before...I wonder what that means?

Made some more notes on student remote access, but that's all hinging on a meeting with some bosses.

Updated lots and lots of Remote Desktop clients, as well as updating some Firefox action.

Day 34.5

Went to work today to fix the broken printing server. It took 4 hours! Managed to restore the configurations and stuff from backups, although Windows decided not to restore any print drivers which were not "digitally certified for Server 2003" or some such bollocks. So we have to add those manually. There are about 7 printers not left on the system but we'll fix those Monday (the other 100 are fine!).

While stuff was restoring and whatever, we installed a new gigabit switch in the server rack and removed a lot of temporary cabling from last year. So a lot of stuff is now on gigabit networking, including the Moodle server. Pulled out a second redundant switch too, from the days of Acorns - 4 ports are trunked (can't get hold of the configuration software to un trunk them) and another port is marked as dead, so we're binning it to save confusion.

Bosh.

Day Thirty Four

• Today iMade some iMacs.
  
• Today another iMac blew its fuse, then wouldn't PAT test correctly, so I failed it.
  
• Some kids had some problems, but I think most of them were being stupid.
  
• The main print server broke, and wouldn't repair, so I'm in tomorrow fixing it (grr)
  
• I spoke to some guy at another school about kiddy remote access.
  
• I arranged a donation of some 2GHz PCs from a local University. 
  
• I was also asked "how are you coping?" by some teacher. Coping? After 7 years of working there, training the last guy, setting up half the systems, do they REALLY think I'm a n00b that has no idea?

Great.

Day Thirty Three

The woman off the library on the other site rang up to complain her computers didn't work. They are old Windows 2000 terminals. I checked them today and they worked fine, but I said we'd banish them to hell, so they are going to be removed and replaced with iMac G4 machines. I put two of them in today - a couple of kids came over and were really excited and asked if they were new. I said no they weren't - well, they are of 2002 vintage, but the kids thought they were brand new.

Nearly fixed the very broken XP machine from the other day. Its actually useable now. Kept an eye on some classes to check that everything worked as normal, checked over the backup (it worked).

Went over to the other site to set up a couple of projectors, laptops and mics for an open evening, and that's Thursday done.

Oh, also wrote to the head of Drama to say we need a Drama Technician. She said my email was amazing and that she wanted to forward it on to the Head. Check me out. I'd love someone to work with on plays who wasn't 1) not arsed, 2) not 11.