Blog Entries for tcallway

Interview with Gary Clawson, CEO of the North West Learning Grid

tcallway — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and your role at the North West Learning Grid?

I’m Chief Executive of the North West Learning Grid , previously I worked for 8 years with Knowsley Local Authority. Knowsley is widely recognized as having a very progressive ICT strategy and is one of the first Authorities to implement a Building Schools for the Future Program.

How d [...]

Interview with Bernard Golden

tcallway — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Bernard Golden is a renowned expert on open source software and author of the excellent "Open Source in the Enterprise" recently published by O'Reilly. We caught up with him at the HP Finanical Services industry Open Source Advisory Council to ask him how Open Source is changing the way Enterprises use software.

Q1: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you wrote the rep [...]

Has Becta presided over the collapse of the UK PC industry?

tcallway — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Last summer the list of ‘thriving’ UK PC manufacturers contained a very familiar list of players. These were RM plc, Akhter plc, Evesham Computers Ltd and Viglen Ltd.

The industry collectively had concentrated on the public sector market, especially the education sector, since it was becoming clear that retail selling in an ultra cut-throat market was untenable.

The dangers of retail se [...]

Interview: Steve McIntyre, Debian Project Lead

tcallway — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Steve McIntyre is a software engineer and a long-time Debian developer. His best known contributions have been in the field of creating Debian CD/DVD images; he is the debian-cd team leader and is responsible for generating the official images. McIntyre ran for the post of Debian Project Leader in 2006 but was defeated by Anthony Towns by only six effective votes. In 2 [...]

Interview: Aaron Seigo, KDE Project Lead

tcallway — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Aaron Seigo joined the KDE project in 2000 and is sponsored by Trolltech. Based in Calgary, Canada Aaron spends his time thinking about KDE project and its client-side software. Here he describes how porting KDE4 to Windows and MacOS will enable Kontact, the Open Source groupware application, to challenge the dominance of Microsoft Outlook in the enterprise.

How long have you been w [...]

Interview with OpenLDAP's Howard Chu

tcallway — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Who is Howard Chu?

Howard Chu is the Chief Architect of the OpenLDAP project and its main corporate sponsor Symas Corporation. OpenLDAP is a free, open source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) which provides an enterprise with shared address books, single sign-on functionality, automount of home directories and file sharing for Linux, Unix, Mac and Windows clients.

Q: Can [...]

Howto: 100% Search engine friendly URLs in Joomla!

tcallway — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Implementing 100% SEF URLs in Joomla! can be a little tricky so we've written a step-by-step guide that includes how to correctly configure your LAMP server.

There are some differences in implementing SEF URLs in Joomla! 1.0.* and 1.5, principally the requirement for third-party plugins.

We'll deal with the generic LAMP server configuration issues first and then deal with the [...]

Vista - does its future really matter?

tcallway — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Application Development Trends, 18/02/2008:

Roughly half (53 percent) of respondents said that they "have no plans to deploy Vista at this time." Other plans for Vista included installing it for testing (18 percent), new machines only (14 percent) and other uses (two percent). Just 13 percent said they planned to be fully deployed on Vista.

Glyn Moody's "Open..." Blog, 18/02/2008:

In the face of this evid [...]

SCO: it's not about winning but continuing the FUD

tcallway — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0100

ITPro 15/02/2008:

Merely weeks after warning its shareholders that it's Unix litigation against Novell and other vendors may leave them with nothing, SCO late yesterday revealed it had received a potential $100-million (£50.8-million), private equity bailout offer..[from Stephen Norris & Company Capital - SNCP]

Groklaw 15/02/2008:

It's a takeover, whereby they give SCO $5 million, a [...]

School's ICT energy consumption - Room 25

tcallway — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Room 25, where I sit now, is one of my school's computer rooms and has been since 1976; we go back a long way. Once it was a geography classroom and once I was a young teacher and once we hadn't thought about global warming. The story starts not so long ago, but before Windowstm before HIV-AIDS before RM, before mobile phones.... For those you who just want me to get to the point read the paragraph far belo [...]

Whitepaper: Groupware

tcallway — Sat, 13 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The Problem

Sirius Corporation has recently successfully implemented a completely Open Source network infrastructure for a 120 person company with several regional offices in the UK and in the Middle East.

Our client wanted an Open Source groupware solution that, in addition to standard IMAP and SMTP e-mail services, would allow them to do group calendaring with Microsoft Outlook 2003 as the client.

Selection Criteria

It was important that whatever solution w [...]

Viruses

tcallway — Sun, 12 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

OPEN For Business! is all about how you can replace proprietary technologies with superior Open Source alternatives, slashing your costs, vastly improving speed and reliability and, perhaps even more important, allowing you to wrest back control of your IT infrastructure from the proprietary IT suppliers.

Let's make this month's OPEN For Business really topical after all, they're in the news yet again, in the papers, on the TV.

Yep, we're talking about VIRUSES. And I'm going [...]

Routing

tcallway — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Reality check

If you're connecting a couple of networks together, or connecting a network to the Internet, most people would instantly reach for a Cisco router (or, if you were really radical, maybe go for something from Juniper Networks). It's what you do, right?

Wrong!

Have you ever taken a router apart? I know I have. If you were expecting to see real cutting edge hardware for your money in that nice black plastic box you've yet to find it right? Hmmm, wonder what all my m [...]

Directory Services: Part 2

tcallway — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

This month's OPEN For Business! is the second in our LDAP mini-series. The series is about using directory services to make the administration of your network easier, and potentially, how to replace every bit of proprietary software you may have in the network with better Open Source software, plus how to tie it all together. Last month we covered what a directory is, and hinted at what you could do with it. This month we will look at the creation of a single user account base and single sign [...]

Directory Services: Part 1

tcallway — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

This month's OPEN For Business! is the first in a mini-series. The series is about how to use Directory Services to make the administration of your network simpler and easier. We'll look at how to replace every bit of proprietary software you may have in that network with what we all know is a far faster, far more reliable solution, Open Source software. Then finally, and most importantly, I'll show you how to tie it all together into a network that really delivers, and that really provides, [...]

Samba

tcallway — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Providing printing for a network is quite different to providing it for a single machine. On a single machine you simply attach a printer to the 'USB port' or 'parallel port'. However, for a network you have a dedicated machine (called a 'print server') that collects print jobs from any machine on the network, holds that job until a specified printer is ready (known as 'spooling'), and then feeds it to that printer. A good print server may also do a number of other useful things - like keepin [...]

Replacing ISA

tcallway — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

How we can help you Consulting: we specialise in deploying Open Source alternatives to ISA. Deployment Training: we can train your staff to it themselves. Training Support: we're happy to offer support and advice for businesses keen to replace ISA themselves. SupportThe Sirius Way - 8 Steps for Success Ensure the deployment strategy matches business strategy.
- Never deploy technology for technology's sake. Get the [...]

LDAP Authentication

tcallway — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Introduction
What is LDAP?
Why use LDAP?
Credits Setting Up An OpenLDAP Server
Install Master Server
Secure Master Server with SSL/TLS
Populate Master Server
Summary of User Object Classes and Attributes Table
Install Slave Servers Configure UNIX Hosts for LDAP Logins
LDAP enable Samba PDC For NT Workstation Logins
Configure NT Workstations for LDAP Logins LDAP enable Samba PDC for NT Workstation Logins Configure NT Workstations for [...]

ICT Procurement

tcallway — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

£200m unaccountable in school's ICT procurement

Becta cannot account for over £200m of taxpayer's money spent on software for schools according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The scheme known as e-Learning Credits (eLCs) was set up to make funds available to schools to buy software from an approved list of titles and suppliers.

By April 2006 schools had received £300 million pounds of funds to buy 'educational software' intended to enhance the curri [...]

ICT in Schools

tcallway — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Executive Summary

The UK is spending over half a billion pounds on ICT in schools. The DfES figures indicate that £500 million year is being spent directly1 and our figures show £100 million is spent indirectly on electricity2. In addition, projected figures based on government targets for computer and interactive white-board provision will see these figures more then double in the next few years.

Our report was prompted when BECTA (the DfES's ICT quango) made the very serious stat [...]