Frequently Asked Questions

You will treat each seat just like a regular PC and each seat will have its' own 3.5mm (normal) headphone and microphone connection. You don't need to purchase USB headsets. You will see. We are installing this on Tuesday.

Upcoming (July 1st 2011) releases will have support for OpenGL and Direct3D. Our kit comes with the graphic cards that support this. Each graphic card supports 2 heads. Each drive is its' own "virtual" hard drive. For all intents and purposes, each "head" is its' own PC with a seperate IP, MAC, hard drive, operating system per machine. There is only one partition on the drive system. Each head operates out of a .vdi/.vmdk just like in regular virtualization.

Any x86 operating system is compatible. Ubuntu works great!

You can download our warranty info here

Each of the heads acts exactly as a regular PC.  You can do upgrades just like you would on a regular PC.  Fiddlehead units can use the built-in automatic startup, unlock, update, relock, and shutdown function for performing individual Windows SUS updates on each station.   An alternative is to do the Windows update on one of the seats, and then use cloning to update each of the seats.  The size of the update is what you base the method of updates on.   If it is a large update, it is quicker to clone all seats after a single update.  If it is a small update, it is quicker to update all of the seats.

A newly installed Windows station on a Fiddlehead cluster will often display the warning “A duplicate name exists on the network,” even if it’s the only machine on the network at the time.

The reason for this is that Fiddlehead present two virtual network interface cards (NICs) to each station. One NIC is connected directly to your network to provide the station with access to your network resources (and vice-versa). The other NIC is an internal connection between the station and the Linux host operating system. This second connection ensures that things like the virtual CD library, Search to Teach, and the station # in the corner still work if your network goes down.

The problem arises when Windows sees an “echo” of itself on the network. Fortunately, the fix is simple, and you only need to do it on your master image, since the setting will persist when you clone your stations.

Open up the “Network Connections” page of the Control Panel and in the Advanced menu at the top, select Advanced Settings. In the dialog that opens up, select Local Area Connection 2 and move it to the second item in the list using the arrow buttons to the right of list. Then uncheck all the boxes in the lower list for Local Area Connection 2. Hit “Ok” to apply the changes and you’re all set.

Yes.  Each "seat" gets it's own IP and MAC address.  Each seat is just like a regular PC in that (and all other respects).  It can be cloned to and from, PXe booted, etc.

Yes.  W7, WXP, Vista, Linux... Virtually any x86 OS is supported for use on the "seat".  In fact, one seat could have Windows 7 installed and the rest could have Windows XP installed.

Using Fiddlehead is not much different from using a regular PC so training is in most cases eliminated or at least minimized. Contact us via this form or call us at 800-842-2820 to discuss training needs.

CD’s stored in the Virtual CD Library are accessed via the Fiddlehead Software & CD Suite folder (in the All Programs category of the Start Menu by default). By clicking on a CD in the Virtual CD Library, you are “virtually” inserting that CD into the station you are on. From there, Windows will behave as if you had actually inserted the CD. Most CDs have an autorun script that will display a menu to let you start the program. In some cases however, you will need to click on the programs icon to run it.

Lock workstation is a feature you can enable/disable on each workstation from the administration menu. This will restore your image on an individual workstation to its original settings when the VM on that particular station is restarted.  It is not meant to be used as a replacement for anti-virus software.

Yes

• Teacher Control™ replaces the need for SynchronEyes
• Lock Workstation replaces the need for Deep Freeze
• Cloning eliminates the need for Ghost
• Virtual CD™ eliminates the need for IsoBuster
• Search to Teach™ has approx. 60 educational applications available across many subjects

Because of fewer PCs needed we greatly reduce recycling and and energy costs up to 70%. We also reduce infrastructure requirements.

For access to a USB device we supply our Fiddlehead cube which allows any of the users to connect to their individual device. The cube also provides connections for headphones and microphones for the individual users.

We provide access to CDs via Fiddlehead’s virtual CD-ROM library. This eliminates the need to load CDs each time a teacher or student wants to use a specific program in the classroom. Instead, install a whole collection of CDs just one time to create a powerful virtual library available at every workstation.

You can use our online form or call us at 800-842-2820 to discuss various purchase and lease options.

Some of the other technologies require you to install on a server and/or use the "fast user switching" built into Windows which can increase cost or perhaps lead to licensing issues. We on the other hand create four unique virtual machines which are licensed just as if they were separate boxes and thus there are no licensing issues. We also don't use "fast user switching" which can cause performance problems.

Please contact us by calling 800-842-2820 to discuss our various purchasing or leasing options or check out the pricing page.

Requirements for 4 Workstations - F4

• 1 ATX MidTower PC (to use a mini-tower or MicroATX Form Factor PC, ensure that the card slots shown below are available)
• Intel Core 2 Quad Processor or greater
• 4 GB RAM
• LGA 775 Motherboard
• 1 PCIe-x1 slot
• 1 PCIe-x16 slot*
• 1 PCI slot
• 1 SATA DVD player
• 2 Free USB ports
• 4 LCD or CRT Monitors
• 4 USB Keyboards
• 4 USB Mice
• 4 Optional audio headsets, 3mm plug

We currently have a two headed system that allows two people to share a single PC and a four headed system that allows up to four people to share a PC.

Fiddlehead uses the excess processing power of the PC via our special combination of software and hardware to create "virtual machines".

Fiddlehead is a combination of hardware and software that allows up to four people to share the processing power of one computer via extra keyboards, mice and monitors connected to the one PC.

It's really pretty simple. Our product is a multi-headed product which is "green" and someone in marketing came up with the idea of "Fiddlehead" because the fiddlehead fern is multi-headed and is green. Pretty neat huh?

Application licensing on Fiddlehead is exactly the same as if you had multiple PC's.  Although there are rare cases of licensing agreements that would allow you to purchase one license per physical box, most licenses do not allow this.  Therefore, you must physically load and purchase one application license per seat, just like you would on a regular PC.  On a thin client or in server based computing you physically can NOT load applications multiple times, therefore you are almost always out of license scope when using thin clients unless you purchase site licenses, and can modify the client application code to run multiple times on the same PC.  The simple test question to ask yourself, assuming you have a 4 head Fiddlehead solution is, "how would I license this if I had 4 PC's?"

Remapping of the Fiddlehead station is quite simple.

1. Reboot complete cluster making sure all input devices, monitors, and cubes are plugged in properly
2. During boot-up watch for menu that gives two choices: "Normal Boot" and "Fix input devices". You have 5 seconds to use the down arrow on one of the keyboards to choose "Fix input devices"
3. A password is required.
4. After password is entered follow on-screen cues.

You can download another User Manual Here or the Quick Installation Guide here.

That depends on what you mean by old. Some one or two year old computers may indeed work with Fiddlehead but because of the greatly reduced costs on maintaining and upgrading Fiddlehead systems we recommend but new PCs with enough RAM .

Yes... We are so confident in our product that we offer a 30 day trial period to help you determine if Fiddlehead will work for you.

Fiddlehead should run virtually any current software that will run on a stand alone PC except real-time rendering software such as 3D games and CAD software.