New Filter (June 2010)

[soveryapt]

The Lancashire CLEO Network is like Flash Forward at the moment, predicting the next blackout isn't possible .. although given there are a number of autistic children in my school, I might give them the information and see if they can predict when the next outage will be .. lol ..

 

On a serious note, let's hope that whatever went wrong is sorted now and that whatever new things they've put in place work better than what there was before.

[Ric_]

I've emailed Westfield to ask if they are going to let us know what happened. An outage of that length is pretty bad given the reliance upon online services such as VLEs.

[soveryapt]

I've emailed Westfield to ask if they are going to let us know what happened. An outage of that length is pretty bad given the reliance upon online services such as VLEs.

 

Indeed .. the only bonus to it being out so long is that is was someone else's fault, so when the staff came with their pitchforks and torches, I gave them the Westfield Centre's address .. lol ..

[ChrisH]

They generally use the words firewall/dns/proxy/filter interchangably as just replacement word for "big problem somewhere"

 

Bit like myself when talking to headteachers actually

 

Simon

 

You forgot content management switch

[AWicher]

They generally use the words firewall/dns/proxy/filter interchangably as just replacement word for "big problem somewhere"

 

Bit like myself when talking to headteachers actually

 

Simon

 

Nice to see that they have responded and added https to the 'Site Review Request page'

 

But as paying customers, do we not deserve some sort of official response, or are they worried that

they might not be able to bull there way out of it.

 

yeee, elephant ran into server room again!! sorry!

[soveryapt]

yeee, elephant ran into server room again!! sorry!

 

You mean a croc didn't chew through the cables last time and I've been had?!

[SimpleSi]

I've emailed Westfield to ask if they are going to let us know what happened.

 

mm - maybe time to get some friendly headteachers onboard the email request for information route

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

PS Have you seen the Summer ICT Glossy mag - severe fonty size problems on the Netsweeper page

[Ric_]

I did get a response from Westfield this morning regarding the outage. An official response will be posted on the Westfield site and on here once all the relevant people have agreed on it.

[SimpleSi]

One of my schools reported problems to me at 3:30 and I went along.

 

Basically couldn't get on primaryresources.co.uk.

 

Westfield said they knew about problems with accessing the site (filter doesn't like number of adverts on the site) but thought they'd been dealt with.

 

It does make you think - are Lancs the first LEA to use Netsweeper in this country?

 

regards

 

Simon

[soveryapt]

It does make you think - are Lancs the first LEA to use Netsweeper in this country?

 

regards

 

Simon

 

It would appear that LGFL use it ...

[SimpleSi]

 

A group of headteachers want their own website for sharing documents/info and to get away from Lancs hosting I was looking at the CSNewsMedia website and clicked on Contact us - 1 min later - Netsweeper has blocked it as web chat

[SimpleSi]

Also, rumour via Westfield helpdesk is that we are not getting local control of filtering on 1st July - quelle surprise!

 

Simon

[AWicher]

I assume every one got the email with the LGfL Service Outage - Update.pdf

 

But if not find it attached!

 

Interesting reading

LGfL Service Outage - Update.pdf

[SimpleSi]

I assume every one got the email

 

Why would you assume that

 

Some of us are mushrooms remember

Simon

[SimpleSi]

And now - the worst has happened - they've Red Listed Logmein

[AWicher]

And now - the worst has happened - they've Red Listed Logmein

 

WTF are you doing to me, lol.

Logmein is a life line for me! How els am i sup to work at weekends

 

I have had my school 10.120.x.x address added to a "Semi-unfiltered" so seems to be working still for me. (in this new westfield working sorta way!)

[SimpleSi]

I have had my school 10.120.x.x address added to a "Semi-unfiltered"

How/what/where/who??????

[SimpleSi]

Re outage

So, I interpret that Friday's collapse was due to Firewall server problems and nothing to do with the new filter servers - is that what others think they've said?

 

Simon

[AWicher]

How/what/where/who??????

 

I should have been more specific. The 10.120.x.x range is the old office address that is now just for the IT network office, so only we can access youtube, facebook... in case we need to deal with a facebook bulling issues...

 

If i remember right email [email protected] and tell them the IP address you want adding and few days later bingo. But i dont know if you need to be on a different network or what, so would call them (westfield) 1st.

[AWicher]

Re outage

So, I interpret that Friday's collapse was due to Firewall server problems and nothing to do with the new filter servers - is that what others think they've said?

 

Simon

 

They are trying hard to not use Netsweeper and Problems together.

Was talking to ****** (NO NAMES) monday and they hinted that there was a filter problem on the monday then wednesday they had a memory leak with a firewall...

built up to a big problem friday.

 

So could sound like it started off a filter problem that over load the firewall, but that's speculation.

[soveryapt]

They seem to be redlisting a number of sites, the WordPress Resources site being one - just done the new school site on WordPress, and when I need to update elements I currently need to do it from home, AND MANUALLY .. The reason I chose wordpress was the lovely auto update features it has, but sadly as the whole of WordPress is blocked due to it being "Journals and Blogs" I'm scuppered ..

 

MEH .. I can understand blocking wordpress.com .. the actual blogging area, but Wordpress.org is the resource and downloads section of the site. GAH! /rant (for now)

[soveryapt]

And now - the worst has happened - they've Red Listed Logmein

 

Message them .. I had an issue with a site that had a HTTPS (think I mentioned it earlier in this thread) that they actually link to from the LancsNGFL Homepage, and they said it was an issue as it had https. They might be able to unblock it.

[soveryapt]

DriverPacks is blocked as being WebChat! GAH .. trying to sort an image .. another thing to do from home me thinks ..

[SimpleSi]

I as explained on the phone to Westfield Centre today, the end service we are currently receiving is very poor.

 

Obvious primary resource sites are being very slow to load or not loading at all.

 

At this point in time, Im thinking that one of the practical problems is that the Westifield centre don't seem to have a test setup of a simple server, a client desktop machine and a NED box so that when I ring up and say x isn't working (or is slow) they are unable to do simple replicated tests.

 

And it seems that no-one is prepared to roll-back to the previous system (or just switch the filtering off or put it in some sort of dumb mode )

 

But maybe they are doing all of the above but just aren't telling us.

 

I was trying to demonstrate a website to a group of headteachers today - needless to say - I couldn't even load my own Lancsngfl websites half-way through a 30 min presentation.

 

And I can't be bothered to report that sort of thing anymore as I believe that no-one actually cares or can do anything real to help

 

What a complete CF

 

Simon