...becasue I need 30 cheap flash drives ASAP. I see some on sale, or with rebates, but by and large, flash hasn' gotten dirt chep for retail consumers yet. I had trouble even finding olf 32mb or 64MB leftover drives for less than $10. But if you know where they are, let me know. My students can use as many as I can fine, but since I have to pony up the $$, they need to be as cheap as possible.
It's great, and I appreciate you pointing out the inconistencies. Thanks. But do you really need to attack the guy? Can't we all just get along? Let make Slashdot a happy happy place to grow and learn from oneanother. Can't an American V8 Hummer type get along with a Euro 3cylinder diesel pod-car type?
It's poeple like you spreading the virtues of diesel efficiency that made the oil companies take notice last gas season and raise the price of diesel to keep pace with gas so that all would share the pain. You keep talking like that and who know what all would happen next.
...reason 1: Americans like what everybody else has. We REFUSE to drive anything simple and efficient because it's not a Navigator or a LS460 or a Corvette like that kool rich guy/gal with all the 'biddies' on his/her arm has. If poeple were dancing and singing around and being sexy around a Saturn hybrid, then we would want that too. Instead the marketing poeple drag out children and birds when advertising them. Makes me want one, what about you?
reason 2: America is V8 land. Who the hell wants a 4-cylnder ( or I4, or I-force, or Eco4((or force))? We settle for V6's, but only if we REALLY can't afford a V8. But that 4 -- that's for tree huggers and whipped mama's boys.
reason 3: Anything mildly fuel efficient or innovative in the American auto market seems to look like, well... a spaceship. The Civic, Camry and Lexus hybrids seem to be the first batch of hybrids that don't look like hybrids. If the Prius looked more like a Corolla, I might consider it. But instead it looks like a "future car." I refuse to look like a effeminant pinhead tooling around town in a Jetson's car. This is also a jab at the GM, Ford and Honda forward looking styling they foist on thier innovative products. I'll never buy on, and apparently millions feel the same way -- cause they don't sell.
reason 4: Gas is cheap. If I can still afford to fill my tank, gas is cheap. When I have to decide between eating and filling my tank, then gas is starting to get out of hand. Until then, it's cheaper than a gallon of milk, so that's cheap.
reason 5: There are no controls in my car to keep my from pushing the gas pedal all the way in whenever I want to. It's fun, I reccomend it to everyone. Especially the poeple in the Prius' and Explorers that drive in front of me and keep me from being able to keep my gas pedal pushed all the way in.
reason 6: There's no profit in it right now. Not much of a market despite the fact that it gets lots of airtime. See reason 3.
reason 7: No one knows how to drive right in this country. Average American can drive badly enough to bring a 65+mpg car down to 25 in daily driving I bet.
I could go on, but I think I've earned my Troll rating for the day.
After having my DEC for five months I've figured out a few things: MCE sucks ass, MCE breaks REAL easy: even allowing automatic updates to run is enough to break it, the media guide is the worst I've ever used, and extended warranties rock. I've had to send back my DEC for both software and hardware issues, and I'm going to purchase an extended warranty for as long as I try to keep it. HP is gonna pay out the ass for Microsoft's mistakes.
On a good day it's an excellent device; all the features you would want, a very nice look and feel, and more than enough oomph out of the box to record two signals and play a DVD at the same time. It's just the "not finished-ness" of MCE. NO plans to sample Vista either.
Hp, my machine is broke, I'll be calling when I get an hour or two to go through the song and dance with your tech support again.
I've had five tech positions as a professional. The first position was at a University, paid badly, but left lots of time for goofing off and playing online games. Lots of fun until my supervisor retired and everyone under him got laid off(read fired). Second position was at a hard core consulting company. Great money, great bene's, little supervision, little human interaction. Drove me crazy and I attempted quitting once, succeeded second time. Third position was tech support at a school, and loved the job, hated the work. Paid enough. Current position is back at a small company that primarily does support, and while the money is again great, I hate it.
I've learned my lesson. Money and titles are for poofs. I prefer my sanity and hair. Currently getting MA in Instructional Technoloy, and heading back to the land of milk and honey: education. There will always be schools, noobs and techno-phobes. Plus they generally promote and pay according to credentials as oppossed to personality and expertise (scarey huh). Luckily I have enough of both to do well. YMMV.
...your hiring wizards. They can't put out a fire, they can't cast create water, it's a divine spell. All they can do is burning hands, fireball and the like. You need a proper cleric or paladin to put out fires.
I remember getting comments like "this is Windows 98". That meant I did my job as Desktop Support Specialist just right, no visible differences from OS to OS - same apps, same icons, same settings, just stability and speed baby.
I'm sure I can pull off the same trick with Vista.
Heybiff
P.S. The school I used to work at will surely do exactly as the OP said, and start rolling out Vista on as many of thier 400+ machines as they can as soon as they can. Leadership in the Tech department is very into bells and whistles.
Comfort means comfortable. Go way back to easy to uderstand interfaces, and no-thought gameplay, even add a little "I'm damn good" talk-to-yourself action to let you know you need to start playign it again.
My list:
CivII MPG C&C StartCarft II AoE I Tribes (no numeral needed, that second one blew donkey balls)
I know a lot of you may have included one or two, but not the whole list. These games are timeless, and many -- like Tribes are still running after almost a decade.
-heybiff (now new and improved in un-employed mode)
...you sound just like the poeple who tell blacks and latinos that there is no racism, and they just need a little more motivation; bootstraps and all.
Some times there really are poeple who try and fail. Sometimes there are groups of rich white guys, or maybe rich asian guys who sit around a table and think up ways to stay rich at the expense of a targeted group.
Money and economics sometimes trump social constructs. Someone is working to make sure you WANT/NEED/GET a new car or cell phone, or DVD player every few years. Does the fact that you can't resist make you less than? Does the fact that you can't quite afford it based on your income make you an idiot deserving of a life of servitude? You DO still need a new car to get to your menial jobs don't you?
I think the roots of much of this are in how we prepare our workforce for the workplace. 87% of the highest paid CEO's in US corporations did not attend a public high school. 93% attended an Ivy League or "elite" college or university. Sounds pretty hard to compete with the big boys if you attended the nieghborhood high school and community college.
I know a mechanical engineer who only makes 60K a year, with an average job. I also know a carpenter who claims he will hit 80K before the year is out. Both required lots of time and training or schooling that may be unavaileble to many. I don't blame the poeple at the bottom for making thier way as best they can. especially when there really is a barrier keeping the masses from moving up en-mass. But what do I know, I am in a dead-end job myself.
Why can't some car manufacturer just take a current model, hopefully a decent one, and adapt it to run on electricity. Stuff batteries in every nook and cranny, do whatever it takes. I don't care is it only manages 200Ml.
I do most of my driving in and around my major metroplotian city. If my daily trips exceed 40Mls roundtrip, then someone probabably stole my car, and I drive a lot comparitivly. many of my cowroker and friends only dirve to/from work most days. For them, it's moreon the order of 10Mls r/t. Remember, I live in a large city.
I think carmakers are going for the brass ring. Stop. You haven't even gotten there with gas engined cars; why try it with electrics/ZEV's. Give is incremental advances and many of us who would be early adopter would be just fine. Hell, 200Mls would get me to NYC. That's about as far as I'm likely to go on the humbug anyway.
But, howvever, I'' tell you now. I will NEVER buy anything that looks like a spaceship, or would get me beeat up at the local pub.
I'm an old Drive Image user from back at v3. Back before drive imaging caught on, the only players were Ghost and PQ Drive Image. Drive Image was smaller, DOS, and very scriptable; Ghost had the name recognition and wizards. I stuck with DI up to v2002. It had XP-NTFS support before Ghost did. It have no regrets. Symantec's buy out ruined the line, and they sucked up PQ's knowledge base never to let it see the light of day again. The next imaging suite I'll even try is Acronis. Ghost has grown too big, tries to do too much, and sucks a$$ on top. I'm still getting use out of our inital $400 edu lisence od DI after 5yrs.
After doing disk imaging for 6 yrs, I've begun moving to Unnattend (http://unattended.sourceforge.net/ ), and scripted or prepackaged app installs. Imaging works most times, but the few where it doesn't are a pain, and usually time sensitive.
I will add that there was a utility shipped in DI4 pro called "DeltaNow" that watched app installs and bundled them into an EXE. I still ue it today. I has saved my job many times. The only apps I have not been able to package with it are obviously MS Office ( killed windows install), Photoshop ( blue screen on startup ), and VirusScan ( blue screen ). Now I script those, or use thier own built in installers to install them unattended.
Even using a striped down XP inage, I've been able to bring up a completely usable workstation from blacnk drive in about 25mins using packaged apps. Much faster than the "magnum" DVD-sized image that had EVERY app preinstalled.
This thread is what I keep reading/. for. I really need to hit this thread with Acrobat for safe keeping so I can reference it later.
First, I want to thank you for this back and forth, very valuable. You are reminding me that I need to refine my comments so that I can express my points efficently.
I believe that school boards exist to support school districts; and as such should exercise no influence beyond that. School board should remain largely behind the scenes where the real work gets done. This may seem unrealistic, however in our current state where school board seats are incubators for petty politicians or at best peppered with personal agendas, I expect focus or at least lip service to the task at hand: supporting the efforts of the school district.
I accept that not all municipalities and counties sit their boards the same way. Some are elected, others appointed. Some boards are comprised of educators, parents and community stakeholders, others a motley crew of cut-throats, brigands and know-nothings. Maybe compensated, or maybe not. Regardless the job is the same: support the school district.
Nothing the school board says or does should speak to anything other than supporting the school district. If the trends toward ultra realistic violence in popular media is counter to the efforts of the school district, then I want to hear it from the district officials. If the CEO of my district says violent video game are negatively impacting the education of youth in my district, he is speaking from a position of authority. This opinion matters much more to me than a board who may or may not be capable of interpreting trends and research accurately. That is what educators do, all day every day. Political appointees and boards come and go.
I am willing to offer that my reaction may result from my lack of patience with the manner in which education is administered throughout my country, and the band aid approach to oversight that has resulted. Leadership, vision, and consistency could do wonders for pointing things in the right direction, and at least for the times that I pay attention, school boards don't even come close; and any that do luck into it. This school board's need to make a public resolution appears to me to demonstrate their need to appear to effect things that I feel are beyond their control, thereby gaining the spotlight and all those non-tangibles that brings. Why not concentrate on those things they can control, and work from the other side to quietly combat the problem? Through their policies, appropriations, and appointments have influence upon ALL the youth of the community. Excercise it. I guess that is not quite so newsworthy or action packed.
We use that product at my workplace. All in all it is very extensible, easy to use, and runs without much attention. It does all the good stuff, send emails, allows time-stamped updates and shifting tasks to other staff, all the good stuff. I'd recommend it; especially after using Remedy for a few years in larger shops.
I will offer that the organization should be prepared for it before hand. Introducing a helpdesk system to users who have grown accustomed to calling or dropping by for help is a big deal. When we rolled our "HelpDesk" system out in the Fall, it was shared with the entire organization in meetings and handouts, but most ignored it. Very few adventurous early adopters. Most continued to call or email, even though vm messages referenced the Helpdesk system for those needing quick responses. Even after 6 months, about half of our support requests come via chance encounters in halls, emails, or "drop in visits". Some users even confide "I didn't want to enter it into the 'HelpDesk' system 'cause I didn't want to get you guys into trouble."
The other thing about helpdesk systems, is it can turn a bad department into the 4th level of Hell. Our departmental culture, organization, and communication was marginal before; afterwards it degraded into spirit draining. Productivity was measured by the number of helpdesk tickets -- or "problems" you have completed in a week. All problems not completed had to be updated at least every two days, regardless of it's status. Communication with the users was expected to be carried out through the helpdesk system -- it sends emails don't ya know. Any interpersonal communicating with users was to be recorded in the "problem" ticket. And so on...
Our institution has approx. 450 machines, 150 staff users, and 400 student users. This is spread out in nine buildings over 125 acres. With our staff of six: one administrator, four coordinators, and two techs, the helpdesk system was supposed to revolutionize the way we worked, and such. I'd bet the good money that there will be openings for two techs and a coordinator come summer.
Plan. Backoffice systems are for you and all good. Anything bigger and more public, think it through. Otherwise you risk creating new problems to solve.
...of the charter, I think what you offer is interpreting the charter, whatever it's language may be, to include duties and responsibilities not specifically reserved by the parents/guardians or other local and state agencies are the purview of the school board? That would be covered by "ensuring effective education" for the community of children would it not?
Like I stated already, is there any school board in this country that is effectively meeting all the duties of their charter? Is there so much free time that they have moved on to video games?
Have we finished leaving the child behind already ?
School boards are not charged with ensuring the welfare of community children; they are chartered to ensure effective and equitable education, as well as provide for the efficient administration of the school system by providing oversight and accountability.
I for one don't trust ANY school board with the welfare of children. They have a hard enough time just educating them.
...domains. I would love to use SUS, but my understanding is that we would have to switch to a bona fide 2003 server, running AD. I could be wrong. Please, someone prove me wrong.
Heybiff
We have thought about doing that here, but haven't quite gotten around to it. We still use: Drive Image, VLA XP, Sysprep to get our machine up. PXE seemed like a simpler method.
Heybiff
Slashdot Mirror
...becasue I need 30 cheap flash drives ASAP. I see some on sale, or with rebates, but by and large, flash hasn' gotten dirt chep for retail consumers yet. I had trouble even finding olf 32mb or 64MB leftover drives for less than $10. But if you know where they are, let me know. My students can use as many as I can fine, but since I have to pony up the $$, they need to be as cheap as possible.
heybiff
After reading this I realize that I must be dumb after all. That girl in 5th grade across the table from me was right.
heybiff -- modded Troll for your protection
It's great, and I appreciate you pointing out the inconistencies. Thanks. But do you really need to attack the guy? Can't we all just get along? Let make Slashdot a happy happy place to grow and learn from oneanother. Can't an American V8 Hummer type get along with a Euro 3cylinder diesel pod-car type?
Heybiff -- modded:Troll since '99
It's poeple like you spreading the virtues of diesel efficiency that made the oil companies take notice last gas season and raise the price of diesel to keep pace with gas so that all would share the pain. You keep talking like that and who know what all would happen next.
Heybiff
...reason 1: Americans like what everybody else has. We REFUSE to drive anything simple and efficient because it's not a Navigator or a LS460 or a Corvette like that kool rich guy/gal with all the 'biddies' on his/her arm has. If poeple were dancing and singing around and being sexy around a Saturn hybrid, then we would want that too. Instead the marketing poeple drag out children and birds when advertising them. Makes me want one, what about you?
reason 2: America is V8 land. Who the hell wants a 4-cylnder ( or I4, or I-force, or Eco4((or force))? We settle for V6's, but only if we REALLY can't afford a V8. But that 4 -- that's for tree huggers and whipped mama's boys.
reason 3: Anything mildly fuel efficient or innovative in the American auto market seems to look like, well... a spaceship. The Civic, Camry and Lexus hybrids seem to be the first batch of hybrids that don't look like hybrids. If the Prius looked more like a Corolla, I might consider it. But instead it looks like a "future car." I refuse to look like a effeminant pinhead tooling around town in a Jetson's car. This is also a jab at the GM, Ford and Honda forward looking styling they foist on thier innovative products. I'll never buy on, and apparently millions feel the same way -- cause they don't sell.
reason 4: Gas is cheap. If I can still afford to fill my tank, gas is cheap. When I have to decide between eating and filling my tank, then gas is starting to get out of hand. Until then, it's cheaper than a gallon of milk, so that's cheap.
reason 5: There are no controls in my car to keep my from pushing the gas pedal all the way in whenever I want to. It's fun, I reccomend it to everyone. Especially the poeple in the Prius' and Explorers that drive in front of me and keep me from being able to keep my gas pedal pushed all the way in.
reason 6: There's no profit in it right now. Not much of a market despite the fact that it gets lots of airtime. See reason 3.
reason 7: No one knows how to drive right in this country. Average American can drive badly enough to bring a 65+mpg car down to 25 in daily driving I bet.
I could go on, but I think I've earned my Troll rating for the day.
Heybiff
After having my DEC for five months I've figured out a few things: MCE sucks ass, MCE breaks REAL easy: even allowing automatic updates to run is enough to break it, the media guide is the worst I've ever used, and extended warranties rock. I've had to send back my DEC for both software and hardware issues, and I'm going to purchase an extended warranty for as long as I try to keep it. HP is gonna pay out the ass for Microsoft's mistakes.
On a good day it's an excellent device; all the features you would want, a very nice look and feel, and more than enough oomph out of the box to record two signals and play a DVD at the same time. It's just the "not finished-ness" of MCE. NO plans to sample Vista either.
Hp, my machine is broke, I'll be calling when I get an hour or two to go through the song and dance with your tech support again.
HeyBiff
I've had five tech positions as a professional. The first position was at a University, paid badly, but left lots of time for goofing off and playing online games. Lots of fun until my supervisor retired and everyone under him got laid off(read fired). Second position was at a hard core consulting company. Great money, great bene's, little supervision, little human interaction. Drove me crazy and I attempted quitting once, succeeded second time. Third position was tech support at a school, and loved the job, hated the work. Paid enough. Current position is back at a small company that primarily does support, and while the money is again great, I hate it.
I've learned my lesson. Money and titles are for poofs. I prefer my sanity and hair. Currently getting MA in Instructional Technoloy, and heading back to the land of milk and honey: education. There will always be schools, noobs and techno-phobes. Plus they generally promote and pay according to credentials as oppossed to personality and expertise (scarey huh). Luckily I have enough of both to do well. YMMV.
Heybiff
...your hiring wizards. They can't put out a fire, they can't cast create water, it's a divine spell. All they can do is burning hands, fireball and the like. You need a proper cleric or paladin to put out fires.
heybiff
RPGA since CY252
I remember getting comments like "this is Windows 98". That meant I did my job as Desktop Support Specialist just right, no visible differences from OS to OS - same apps, same icons, same settings, just stability and speed baby.
I'm sure I can pull off the same trick with Vista.
Heybiff
P.S. The school I used to work at will surely do exactly as the OP said, and start rolling out Vista on as many of thier 400+ machines as they can as soon as they can. Leadership in the Tech department is very into bells and whistles.
Comfort means comfortable. Go way back to easy to uderstand interfaces, and no-thought gameplay, even add a little "I'm damn good" talk-to-yourself action to let you know you need to start playign it again.
My list:
CivII MPG
C&C
StartCarft II
AoE I
Tribes (no numeral needed, that second one blew donkey balls)
I know a lot of you may have included one or two, but not the whole list. These games are timeless, and many -- like Tribes are still running after almost a decade.
-heybiff (now new and improved in un-employed mode)
...or more specifically "face maintenance." Woo hoo, AOD120 at work!
Heybiff
I can't wait to see what passage we will have from the Book of Mozilla.
The readings are always so inspiring and applicable to our modern lives.
Heybiff
...you sound just like the poeple who tell blacks and latinos that there is no racism, and they just need a little more motivation; bootstraps and all.
Some times there really are poeple who try and fail. Sometimes there are groups of rich white guys, or maybe rich asian guys who sit around a table and think up ways to stay rich at the expense of a targeted group.
Money and economics sometimes trump social constructs. Someone is working to make sure you WANT/NEED/GET a new car or cell phone, or DVD player every few years. Does the fact that you can't resist make you less than? Does the fact that you can't quite afford it based on your income make you an idiot deserving of a life of servitude? You DO still need a new car to get to your menial jobs don't you?
I think the roots of much of this are in how we prepare our workforce for the workplace. 87% of the highest paid CEO's in US corporations did not attend a public high school. 93% attended an Ivy League or "elite" college or university. Sounds pretty hard to compete with the big boys if you attended the nieghborhood high school and community college.
I know a mechanical engineer who only makes 60K a year, with an average job. I also know a carpenter who claims he will hit 80K before the year is out. Both required lots of time and training or schooling that may be unavaileble to many. I don't blame the poeple at the bottom for making thier way as best they can. especially when there really is a barrier keeping the masses from moving up en-mass. But what do I know, I am in a dead-end job myself.
Heybiff
...vehicles have to look like spaceships?
Why can't some car manufacturer just take a current model, hopefully a decent one, and adapt it to run on electricity. Stuff batteries in every nook and cranny, do whatever it takes. I don't care is it only manages 200Ml.
I do most of my driving in and around my major metroplotian city. If my daily trips exceed 40Mls roundtrip, then someone probabably stole my car, and I drive a lot comparitivly. many of my cowroker and friends only dirve to/from work most days. For them, it's moreon the order of 10Mls r/t. Remember, I live in a large city.
I think carmakers are going for the brass ring. Stop. You haven't even gotten there with gas engined cars; why try it with electrics/ZEV's. Give is incremental advances and many of us who would be early adopter would be just fine. Hell, 200Mls would get me to NYC. That's about as far as I'm likely to go on the humbug anyway.
But, howvever, I'' tell you now. I will NEVER buy anything that looks like a spaceship, or would get me beeat up at the local pub.
Heybiff
I've Googled DeltaNow to see is there are any cached pages with documentation, and no dice. It's as if it never exhisted. Great work Symantec.
I would hit Ebay for DI pro cd's up for sale. It's sure to be on any version before 2003, and after 3.
Heybiff
I'm an old Drive Image user from back at v3. Back before drive imaging caught on, the only players were Ghost and PQ Drive Image. Drive Image was smaller, DOS, and very scriptable; Ghost had the name recognition and wizards. I stuck with DI up to v2002. It had XP-NTFS support before Ghost did. It have no regrets. Symantec's buy out ruined the line, and they sucked up PQ's knowledge base never to let it see the light of day again. The next imaging suite I'll even try is Acronis. Ghost has grown too big, tries to do too much, and sucks a$$ on top. I'm still getting use out of our inital $400 edu lisence od DI after 5yrs.
/. for. I really need to hit this thread with Acrobat for safe keeping so I can reference it later.
After doing disk imaging for 6 yrs, I've begun moving to Unnattend (http://unattended.sourceforge.net/ ), and scripted or prepackaged app installs. Imaging works most times, but the few where it doesn't are a pain, and usually time sensitive.
I will add that there was a utility shipped in DI4 pro called "DeltaNow" that watched app installs and bundled them into an EXE. I still ue it today. I has saved my job many times. The only apps I have not been able to package with it are obviously MS Office ( killed windows install), Photoshop ( blue screen on startup ), and VirusScan ( blue screen ). Now I script those, or use thier own built in installers to install them unattended.
Even using a striped down XP inage, I've been able to bring up a completely usable workstation from blacnk drive in about 25mins using packaged apps. Much faster than the "magnum" DVD-sized image that had EVERY app preinstalled.
This thread is what I keep reading
Heybiff
...but I'm sure it'll come with a Fast(TM).
Heybiff
First, I want to thank you for this back and forth, very valuable. You are reminding me that I need to refine my comments so that I can express my points efficently.
I believe that school boards exist to support school districts; and as such should exercise no influence beyond that. School board should remain largely behind the scenes where the real work gets done. This may seem unrealistic, however in our current state where school board seats are incubators for petty politicians or at best peppered with personal agendas, I expect focus or at least lip service to the task at hand: supporting the efforts of the school district.
I accept that not all municipalities and counties sit their boards the same way. Some are elected, others appointed. Some boards are comprised of educators, parents and community stakeholders, others a motley crew of cut-throats, brigands and know-nothings. Maybe compensated, or maybe not. Regardless the job is the same: support the school district.
Nothing the school board says or does should speak to anything other than supporting the school district. If the trends toward ultra realistic violence in popular media is counter to the efforts of the school district, then I want to hear it from the district officials. If the CEO of my district says violent video game are negatively impacting the education of youth in my district, he is speaking from a position of authority. This opinion matters much more to me than a board who may or may not be capable of interpreting trends and research accurately. That is what educators do, all day every day. Political appointees and boards come and go.
I am willing to offer that my reaction may result from my lack of patience with the manner in which education is administered throughout my country, and the band aid approach to oversight that has resulted. Leadership, vision, and consistency could do wonders for pointing things in the right direction, and at least for the times that I pay attention, school boards don't even come close; and any that do luck into it. This school board's need to make a public resolution appears to me to demonstrate their need to appear to effect things that I feel are beyond their control, thereby gaining the spotlight and all those non-tangibles that brings. Why not concentrate on those things they can control, and work from the other side to quietly combat the problem? Through their policies, appropriations, and appointments have influence upon ALL the youth of the community. Excercise it. I guess that is not quite so newsworthy or action packed.
We use that product at my workplace. All in all it is very extensible, easy to use, and runs without much attention. It does all the good stuff, send emails, allows time-stamped updates and shifting tasks to other staff, all the good stuff. I'd recommend it; especially after using Remedy for a few years in larger shops.
I will offer that the organization should be prepared for it before hand. Introducing a helpdesk system to users who have grown accustomed to calling or dropping by for help is a big deal. When we rolled our "HelpDesk" system out in the Fall, it was shared with the entire organization in meetings and handouts, but most ignored it. Very few adventurous early adopters. Most continued to call or email, even though vm messages referenced the Helpdesk system for those needing quick responses. Even after 6 months, about half of our support requests come via chance encounters in halls, emails, or "drop in visits". Some users even confide "I didn't want to enter it into the 'HelpDesk' system 'cause I didn't want to get you guys into trouble."
The other thing about helpdesk systems, is it can turn a bad department into the 4th level of Hell. Our departmental culture, organization, and communication was marginal before; afterwards it degraded into spirit draining. Productivity was measured by the number of helpdesk tickets -- or "problems" you have completed in a week. All problems not completed had to be updated at least every two days, regardless of it's status. Communication with the users was expected to be carried out through the helpdesk system -- it sends emails don't ya know. Any interpersonal communicating with users was to be recorded in the "problem" ticket. And so on...
Our institution has approx. 450 machines, 150 staff users, and 400 student users. This is spread out in nine buildings over 125 acres. With our staff of six: one administrator, four coordinators, and two techs, the helpdesk system was supposed to revolutionize the way we worked, and such. I'd bet the good money that there will be openings for two techs and a coordinator come summer.
Plan. Backoffice systems are for you and all good. Anything bigger and more public, think it through. Otherwise you risk creating new problems to solve.
Like I stated already, is there any school board in this country that is effectively meeting all the duties of their charter? Is there so much free time that they have moved on to video games? Have we finished leaving the child behind already ?
Just to note something:
School boards are not charged with ensuring the welfare of community children; they are chartered to ensure effective and equitable education, as well as provide for the efficient administration of the school system by providing oversight and accountability.
I for one don't trust ANY school board with the welfare of children. They have a hard enough time just educating them.
Heybiff
...you muct be on crack. You can't stop the MACHINE to do training. No one has time. YOU make it happen. Heybiff
I'd been searching for that document for a LONG time, with little success. This pushes me a little closer. Thanks. Heybiff
...domains. I would love to use SUS, but my understanding is that we would have to switch to a bona fide 2003 server, running AD. I could be wrong. Please, someone prove me wrong. Heybiff
We have thought about doing that here, but haven't quite gotten around to it. We still use: Drive Image, VLA XP, Sysprep to get our machine up. PXE seemed like a simpler method. Heybiff