Day Thirty One

Today, I accomplished the mean feat of getting remote access in to our network for the Sage people. The woman off of Sage called up, I talked her through what she needed to do, and she got on our system!

After lunch, a guy in a suit turned up and was being shown round by The New Guy (why? he doesn't know where anything is....). He came in to our office and introduced us and said "this is where the magic happens...". The guy in the suit said "Hi, I'm hopefully the new IT support guy". I looked at The Other Tech, he looked at me. We said "oh, erm, right". Anyway, after half hour of thinking he was the new IT support guy, it turns out he'd come for the classroom assistant position. It's quite confusing at our place - The New Guy was interviewed to be a classroom assistant, then once we worked out he didn't want to be a teacher, he was given a 'general' assistant post.....and now it has been suggested that we might like to have him as the 3rd technician, although I'm not sure he's right for it. Poor guy has no idea if he's coming or going!

Had to download some label templates for the lady in reception as she had lost hers, but that made a nice break from trying to fix a broken XP install via the Recovery Console.

Went over to the other site to fix that small IT suite. 11/12 of the machines in there work, with one last Mac freezing. The people that use the room are very happy - at least now they can print.

Finally, a guy from Apple came in to discuss some hands on training for kids. Should be good if the school back the opportunity!

Day Thirty

Today the other tech was off sick, so it was just me. It was a weird day, nothing really happened. In fact the most eventful thing was the fact I found out the powers that be are paying me the wrong salary for my position! So I talked to 5 different people to try and sort it out. It probably works out that I get an extra £27 per week for this new job, I think....which is very very wrong.

Had another convo with the people at the LEA about kiddy remote access. It should all be fine - we need some servers with Windows 2008, then install Citrix on top, then tell them and they press a big red button and it will all be available to kids. Amazing. That's the plan anyway. There's some issues in a small ICT suite on the other site, so I will go fix those tomorrow. I have more vodding to do, too.

The Big Boss told me today that he had lots of problems doing student teacher training in the new IT room. I think he'd forgotten that you get lots of problems if you use the same username for everyone in there, so I sent him a reminder email. So there's really NO problem in the room at all. User error.

Day Twenty Seven

I spoke to actual people today on the telephone. Plans for Remote Access for students are under way. We have to get Windows Server 2003 or 2008 to support Active Directory Forest Trusts. Our server people have suggested Server 2008. How much of our system we upgrade depends on what exact use The Big Boss wants the kids to have of the system at home. I was due to meet with him at 9am, but he said he was busy covering some IT lessons, even though there were cover teachers in those lessons. We deferred meeting until 3pm, but at 3 he asked if what I wanted to talk about was important, and then said it could wait until next week when I'm back off holiday. Obviously he has far more important things to worry about. He is very busy.

Went on a road trip to a college to pick up some iMacs.

Found out one of our small IT rooms was in a complete mess technically  - machines didn't have the right IP addresses, or the right names, or appear to be in the right room. Sorted all of it out but it took 2 or 3 hours to sort out. There is still 1 machine out of 2 that wont get MCX settings, but it lets the teacher log in, so that can wait until next week.

Oh well, I'm off for the next two days, so I'll see you on day 30.

Day Twenty Six

Benny broke today for no apparent reason. So we turned it off and on again, and it worked. The student resources drive was also full, so I used my judgement and moved some files which are never used, off. The Big Boss always says that all the resources are frequently used, so I may have to move them back one day.

A member of staff came in and spoke to me about the fact a lot of staff still have no idea how to work a projector or a Mac. I explained that we have not got a dedicated trainer, but she should ask the new guy any questions as he has been put in place to assist with ICT across the curriculum. I sent an email to The Big Boss saying that we really need to make informal, adhoc training more accessible. He stated that this was in hand and that he is talking to management about group staff training sessions, and how after school training has financial implications etc. I then restated that I was meaning simple basic training during school time, 1 to 1. I think this fell on deaf ears.

Started to roll out 10.5.5 to see if this fixes any issues in the new ICT suite.  Been running it on 5 machines today to see if it caused any problems, which it didn't, so it will go out across the room over the next week.

Both backup servers seem to be behaving badly. One can't access the storage drive it is looking for because it's catalog file is trashed, so I've set up a new backup set to try and overcome that. The other one doesn't ask for new tapes when it's scheduled to backup to tape, so I've started recycling old tapes, which should be fine. When it works, it works. When it doesn't, its random.

I have a meeting tomorrow morning with The Big Boss about what, I do not know, but we shall see.

Day Twenty Five

I spoke to the boss of the LEA's IT support today, which was a bit posh. He apologised for the slackness of his minions as a request I'd put in 3 weeks ago hadn't been dealt with. Today, it was dealt with, finally.

A big finance company needs to fix a problem with some accounting software we have in our finance department. They insist they have to remotely access our computers, which is a mission as everything at work is more locked down than at MI5. After calling them, and LEA IT support (again) I had a brain wave and have put in a request so that the accounts people can access this computer. I hope it works.

Set up a laptop for the dept head of 6th form today, reinstalled 2 Macs and took them back to their room, made some accounts (!) and email accounts and even got a VCR to work!!

On Friday, I needed to get something working on Moodle but did not have the time to sit and research how to make it work as it was some sort of content pack that you're supposed to 'upload' and it just works. As the whole idea of Moodle is that 'you' can set it all up, I emailed The Big Boss with the steps the new guy would need to take to have a go at getting it working - ie, delegating, as he doesn't have much to do still. Break time comes and the new guy sits beside me asking me if I knew anything about this content pack! Turns out The Big Boss had just given it to him, not said it was from me, nor passing on my instructions, and just left him to 'have a play' with it!  More wasted time as he didn't know what he was supposed to do with it. Great. I think he's still looking at how to get it to work with Moodle.

Oh and it turns out you might not be able to upload resources to Moodle from home either. I hate Moodle.

Day Twenty Four

This morning, it all went wrong. Something on our Active Directory and/or home folder server broke. People could log in, but then had no work, or couldn't log in. We turned it all off, and back on again, and it worked. Hurrah.

HOWEVER. In the 20 minutes that there were issues, fixing of said issues and a test that the fixing worked, there were 4000 messages on the answer phone mostly from women, saying "I can't log in" or "I don't have Word on my desktop" and it was more or less said in a rude "you've ruined my life" tone of voice, also, as if we wouldn't have noticed because we're too busy not doing anything. If the answer phone kicks in it means we're busy, so if it kicks in when something has gone wrong, there's a 99.9% chance we're fixing it. Shockeroony.

Walked past some 6th formers who said "oh I had a free as the computers didn't work last lesson" followed by another one saying "the computers here NEVER work". How rude! I think she was referring to not being able to log on while The Big Boss was creating his huge database of fun usernames.

More random problems are happening in the new IT room. Kids click the save icon in Word, and it says it can't. If you do Save As, and save that way, it works. Considered making the machines 10.4 to see if that helps, but the iMacs are too new for 10.4 and crash out when they try to start on it.

There was lots of other random faffing today as you'd expect. Our office cooler/fridge thing came today, so we can keep BEER, I mean, milk in the office without it turning in to cheese.

The resources lady had some issues printing. It took a while to resolve as she didn't know what program she was using to print the images she wanted.

Tidied up our Citrix server deleting the old user profiles and uninstalling Photoshop Elements 2 (retro).

The new IT Assistant guy was learning Flash today as he didn't have any support to do.

Still no takers for the Technician job. Although The Big Boss says he has secured funding for an ICT Classroom Assistant. Something must have changed since last month as we weren't going to have one. They did say that the IT Assistant guy was very busy, so this new position will be a great benefit to the department. Although, with saving about £28,000 by not having yet replaced the 3 staff who left last year, maybe thats where the funding has come from.

I also found out that The Big Boss was explaining to someone from Senior Management that the reason kids can't log in from home at the moment is because setting it up is a big job and that I haven't familiarised myself with the systems yet. Maybe he has forgotten that I've worked there since 2001....and set up said systems? Who knows.

NEWS FLASH - 10.5.5 came out. Maybe that will fix the weirdness!!!11!!one!1

Day Twenty Two & Twenty Three

I missed last night's blog action due to going out on the lash. However, I still won't have a word said against my professionalism.

Yesterday, I started to delegate some simple tasks to the new IT Assistant guy via The Big Boss. Unfortunately, these tasks have been attempted, unsuccessfully completed, and returned to me. This is rubbish. Also when it's really simple stuff, you kinda think twice before asking for similar help again. It really is just easier to do it yourself.

I contacted the main LEA helpdesk about the requirements the school need in place to allow students to access their work from home. I expect many many days will pass before someone rings me back to say "yes, we have a ticket from you regarding logging on", then I will have to explain that's not what I asked, and then explain it all again from scratch before I get passed on to another, wrong, department! (Actually, I've just checked the staff remote access system, and the LEA still have not implemented the changed I asked for 2 weeks ago. They are shocking).

Wednesday was also the first time the "yes" game was played.

Today, I realised that most of the older videos on the Video on Demand pages did not appear correctly - this was a summer job that got overshadowed by me becoming the Lord of IT, so I finished fixing that today. There are still lots more older videos to convert from QuickTime to Flash format, then to make streamable if the server software ever turns up (along with that foot spa I have to run it on, apparently).

Some random assistant lady's laptop went wrong today, so I have to replace that. She can choose between her broken laptop, another 6 year old laptop, or a 5 and a hal

f year old laptop. It's all a bit ridiculous - we're meant to be fantastic at IT, but issued 95% of staff with laptops from 2002 which are so slow, have about 256MB RAM and completely flat batteries. Great.

Oh, and two computers which were loaned to The Big Boss a couple of days ago to show (the worlds most poorly made) PowerPoint presentation have come back, but now refuse to let any one log in. 

I moodled today too. It was crap. There's a thing called a SCORM format course, which doesn't upload properly, well, at all. Which means the Media dept will be annoyed soon as they want to use it. I think Moodle is rubbish. Fact.

And as you'd expect. No one has applied for the IT Technician job

Day Twenty One

Today was spent uploading 28 videos to our Video on Demand thingy. There's loads more to do.

Someone came in asking about downloading pictures to the computers. They said they had used the Macs but thought they should use the Dells. I pointed out that the "Dells" were actually G4 Mac towers with Dell monitors on them. They shrugged and looked surprised.

Found a source for replacement projector remotes who do them 60% less than the original suppliers. This is good. Did some paperwork to sign off some invoices...not that I'm allowed to authorise the payment(!) I just have to say that it turned up.

I also put my degree to good use setting up a projector and laptop for a talk this evening.

This blog is getting a bit cynical!

Day Twenty

Another day came, another day went. There are FAR too many days left.

I'm starting to see why the last guy perhaps wasn't the greatest network manager.....

There is no focus, or push or direction. There is no structured approach to the vision of IT provision at the school. There's no "right, over the next 6 months, we have to achieve x y or z". It's really depressing! To quote a previous short term Web Content Author "it's not the job I thought it was". I should provide some degree of push, as a manager, but when I don't have a clue what the school is heading towards, its difficult to be an authority on it. And, after a month in, shouldn't I have a job description by now?

The Big Boss came in today. He was worrying that the head teacher had asked him to help her set up a Keynote presentation at an external event tomorrow - we was protesting that he was involved at all. Anyway, he said he needed two Macs to show the presentation off to make it look swish as this is what the head wanted. I suggested a couple of iMacs. He wasn't sure what they looked like, so I explained they would be the same as the ones he'd just spent £23,000 on in the new ICT suite. He was happy with that. There's a full class in the room they came from tomorrow, so a few kids are going to have to work in a separate room as there won't be enough machines....while we take two to show a PowerPoint....sorry, Keynote!

The Video on Demand production line is still going. It will be nice when Flash Streaming Server arrives so I can move all the VoD on to that (the files are on the Moodle server at the moment) and move the last QuickTime files off Cheesegrater to retire that G4 server. The other tech is working through the helpdesk list of tickets.

We disabled all restrictions on what Apps kids can run as we *think* this was causing the 'no entry' issues in the new ICT room. We'll have to keep an eye on it.

OH! And there was a kid with a hillarious name who wants to be known by a nickname to reduce teasing. His surname has to be pronounced differently too, a bit like Hyacinth Bucket off of Keeping Up Appearances -->

No sign of any applicants for the 3rd technician post.

Dat Nineteen

OK, so this is a delayed post but it's about Friday. I don't work at the weekends (infact, I'd rather not work in the week either, but thats a different story...).

The Video on Demand production line is back up and running as I was feeling in a nice mood to the English dept. I will do them some video poems for next week.

What else....oh yeah, spied on a class and found out there are more people who have access denied to their Applications folder for no apparent reason.

That's about it really! A day full of little job not worth writing about!

BYE!

Day Eighteen

Ok, so maybe it's not that bad. At least not today.

Today involved upgrading some software on our Citrix servers. It's  not available on all clients yet, but it will be soon. It's been set to run 'seamlessly' so kids get a Windows app on their Mac desktop as if by magic (a la Parallels).

Found out that MCX nested groups do NOT work on 10.4, from Apple's documentation. This means the stuff the other guy set up was wrong. It works now - stuff shuts down at around 3.20, people get logged out after 30 minutes idle (ticking all those data protection boxes!). 

Turned Password Policy Enforcer back on this afternoon. It hasn't given any errors (yet), and seems to not effect students this time. The staff should be warned they need to change their password soon - then next week I make it mandatory. Mwah ha the power.

Oh, our kiddy registration server broke, so I turned it off and on again. It worked.

The two backup servers seem to be going weird - one wanted a new tape, which I suppose isn't that weird....and the other one has lost its catalogue file (the thing that tells it what's on each backup tape), so it's building a new one...still...after six hours.

A random teacher asked about removing an old computer from her room but we're not sure if she means the old PC or the ancient Acorn.

Wrote an order for Flash Streaming Server today - Big Boss asked what it was for. I also said that if it works there will be an order for hardware - ie, a server to run it. He said "hardware? Oh a foot spa?". I said "yes, we're going to run the software on a foot spa" and walked off. Foot spa? That's a bit 80s isn't it?

Job advert went out on the website for a 3rd technician. Not sure what sort of person we'll get for £11,907. It seems a bit cheap.

The site office came and screwed our name plates to the door today.

Day Seventeen

I don't like it.

Work is so busy, everyone expects help instantly and there's only two of us trying to work, on top of helping everyone. Another thing that's annoying me is the Big Boss has zero sense of urgency about getting a third person employed, and keeps asking if we're too busy?! This shows that they have no idea what we do, what we're working on, or our workload. Another thing is that I keep being told "it will settle down" as if I have never ever worked there before and am not used to it! This is my 8th september there!

I can do the job, but it's annoying that there seems to be a lack of support and direction from above. Although, I should have known better as this has been the case for a number of years.

In other news, I Moodled again.

Day Sixteen

I'm grumpy.

Ok, this account business is becoming a JOKE.

My plan -

• make accounts before September (happened)
  
• give account details out to kids to allow them to use computers ASAP
• make accounts for newcomers as and when

...this will get MOST of the kids up and running quickly. However, the Big Boss has decided to - 

• hold on to the account list for a week
• make a new list including old, new, past, current students, and those with different names and colour code it in red, yellow, light and dark orange
• give it back to me
• don't give out any accounts to anyone, apart from those who "need" them (which is everyone)
• keep asking if I'm busy or not

This means kids are STILL waiting for accounts, some are asking for passwords and I have to look up if they are on the system or to be made, staff log students on as themselves which causes issues in the new ICT room as well as letting them access staff only areas, and makes us look RUBBISH.

I've spent all day sorting this mess out, and have nearly finished, but after this experience it is NOT the way to go about it next year. Yes, I'm ranting.

The other IT tech took the morning off to wait for a delivery. This wasn't a problem until he didn't show up in the afternoon either. Not happy. Big Boss didn't notice he wasn't around all day.

I did a load of other stuff as I was the only person in but I can't be arsed to write about it, well I can a bit....I worked on the website.

Day Fifteen

Hello stalkers of the internet superhighway.

Today was spent copying work to firewire hard disk to clean up the kiddy servers, and copying open mailboxes to hard disk to make searching actually happen. I tried running a search on live mailboxes but after 3 days of it running, Windows ran out of RAM and the search crashed, so I figured copying the files out so they aren't being read or written to might be useful. It takes LONG time.

Sorted out a load of year 12 students who had no internet access.

Found out that updating an iMac to 10.4.11 re-enables the iSight camera (this was after a teacher came in complaining his kids spent a lesson taking pictures of themselves!). This has now been re-disabled!

Also got handed a very colourful spreadsheet of 6th form users by the Big Boss, as they said my version wasn't up to date enough. I now have to go through that, creating new logon/printing/email accounts and disabling old ones and moving work, which will take a LONG tome.

Tomorrow - have to update some website action, and fix an Interactive Whiteboard. Oh, and I'm the only person in during the morning so I get 500 computers, 1600 users, 20 servers and all associated faults to myself.

Day Fourteen

I'm blogging at work to be more time efficient...

Today was less full-on. Which was good! Was also a bit more mundane. I made more new accounts, reset even more passwords, copied more user work back into accounts, made 2 Macs, sorted printing PINs that were incorrect, carried on searching for eMails....it's still going. Tested 10.5 on ancient hardware - it works! Moodled and re linked some CPD resources. Proof-read the Big Boss's email to all staff about Moodle and made it easier for novices to understand.

Been asked if I want to have a go with a toy helicopter today too, by Big Boss. It's like he forgets we're all adults in our mid-20s. Weird.

Set up a mic and speaker on the other site for some tests next week in a big hall. Also got asked about when authoring Video on Demand will be happening again - not for a while as we need that other technician to be employed!

Will be nice to get stuck in to some big projects again in the next few weeks!

Pub soon! Woop. Oh, and our door signs were ordered today. Haha! Also found a rock in a CD drive. It doesn't work anymore.

Day Thirteen

It's all actually fine....

Spent today sorting passwords and shifting old work back on to the system for those kids who are repeating years. Set up that gigabit switch for the servers, sorted a couple of laptops, signed off some invoices, had a meeting.

Job advert I wrote, with job spec is being sent out to an agency today/tomorrow so we should get a new basic tech. Welcome guide has gone out.

There has been an Information Access Request, too, so I spent much of the day tracking down all emails regarding a person, ever. It's all a bit official.

Newbie's role has been clarified (finally), so we now know he isn't a proper technician, so he gets zero password access.

Need to update the mail server software (it might break).

Day Twelve

Today was another 'manic' day. I know it should get easier after the start of term dies down, but it's definitely feeling like a testing time! There are some things to do that require concentration, but 130 staff keep popping in at the same time to ask for help, as well as several kids each lesson who have forgotten their password(s) over the summer holiday that need them changing. This, added to the fact we're still short of staff means constant interruptions and a mild sense of panic.

Anyway, enough drama. Today I collated all the user account information for log ins and student email. It turns out that whoever ordered our external email service for the kids, only ordered 1400 mailboxes. We have over 1400 students on roll, so, we DON'T HAVE ENOUGH. This was annoying.

Also found out that the IT 'Welcome' booklet I'd prepared for the training day had not been handed out to new staff yet. I did find it weird that new staff were coming in asking questions covered in the booklet, but for whatever reason, the Big Boss still had my pile of 50 booklets on his desk. This was annoying.

Moved all the kids in to the correct year groups on our filtering system, making sure the new external year 12 were added.

Found out that our email system for staff does not send messages if you use Firefox 3, it just sits there. This is annoying. I've got in touch with Kerio to see if there is a resolution for this issue. We're also due an upgrade to their software to 6.5.2 from 6.4.2. Hopefully doing this upgrade will not hose the system. That would be annoying. Also, after 1 hour of use, a kid has snapped a key off a new Apple keyboard. This was annoying.

Upgraded some careers software today to this year's edition, took delivery of a million toners, and a new managed switch for the server rack which I'll set up tomorrow.

Had to do some Media Blogging admin with a new teacher, but, we had to muddle through as neither of us knew where we were looking for the options we wanted. This was a tad annoying, but its fine now.

Still don't know the exact role of the new guy, but I have a meeting tomorrow over coffee to discuss it all.

Oh yeah, a cleaner emptied our bins yesterday but they never came back with them. Found them in another office today. You'd think she'd realise that the office the size of a small lift would not need FOUR bins, and in fact, some of them belonged somewhere else.

Day Eleven

Today's been a bit of a blur, here are the highlights:

Newbie started today. Not sure of the position he applied for and still waiting to be told. Showed him round a Mac, the Helpdesk and took him on a tour of the school. Big Boss then took over and trained him on how to use MiniDisc players.

Various members of staff had small problems which were sorted out quickly.

Needed to move recently departed staff and kids to a large enough volume to store their data. Tried a Lacie drive, but it started smoking a lot (you can nearly say it caught fire), so I threw it away and ordered a new 1TB one. Tape is good, but if you have people who may want access to their work quickly (like when students return, or that old member of staff needs their files), hard disk is better, so I'm going with that. Maybe archive them to tape after 6 months. Oh, I also found a network version of the Lacie disks, but when you plug it in it makes a weird noise. Maybe that's broken too...

Data Manager is having issues with his Entourage email client. It's one of those "random" unexplained problems that makes no sense. He's the ONLY Entourage user on site, so our knowledge base of support on this is lacking.

Still trying to track down decent pricing on Flash Streaming Server.

The new ICT Suite WORKED. Monitored the whole lesson. Some programs were slow to open, but I expect this is due to it being the first time they have run on a 100% network account. Hopefully things should be faster in the future.

Still no word on a new Technician and/or Web Author.

Day Ten

Wow. Today was full on.

There's a bit of a dubious aroma in the office lately. No one is sure what it is. The Big Boss came in and was quite sure it was a dead mouse, so that's something to look in to.

Cleared out 130GB of space on the Kiddy server by moving the old year groups off it. Only half way though so far. Did a write up of what to do when a new kid, or teacher joins so that they get a full set of account info.

Uploaded 50 or so year 12 kids to our external email system. Was a bit of a faff but it's done now. Also want to remove the departed year 11 kids' home folders....somewhere....one day.

Sorted out 4 laptops with various issues - 2 had no Internet, one needed 10.5 setting up for our network, the other just needed looking at as there was nothing wrong with it.

Started looking at XP Service Pack 3 deployment, as well as trying to track down a 10.4 universal install DVD from a reseller.

Started researching Flash Media Streaming Server 3, as that would run our Video on Demand service better than progressive download.

I also used Moodle for the first time! Had to upload some development downloads for it for staff.

Add to this copying a load of CDs, sorting out people who had forgotten their passwords, checking training was going OK and other lots of little annoyances and you can see it was a busy day!