AngryTechnician

I'd recommend having a look at Access-It. Yes, their website is a Flash-based monstrosity, and like most LMS systems these days the product itself runs on Java, but it causes me very little trouble and I've had two successive librarians who are happy with it.

It's "guidance" in the same way that many of the rules in the Highway Code are "guidance". It's a guide for "how not to do something that would probably be deemed illegal" and also "how we determine if a c***-up is your fault". There's no specific law saying that personal data on USB keys must be encrypted, because that's not the way the UK legal system works; in most cases, the law is never so prescriptive. Laws are passed, and guidance is issued to establish how courts would interpret the law in specific cases. The Data Protection Act (1998) makes it a legal requirement to use "appropriate technical and organisational measures" to protect personal data. Encryption is widely accepted as one of the most appropriate technical measures. The authority that issues the most authoritative guidance on the DPA is the Information Commisioner's Office, and they have a nice page about encryption here: ICO - Our approach to encryption If that isn't enough to convince your Head that his suggested policy will not be looked upon fondly, here's a selection of articles about how the ICO has also been regularly fining businesses, local authorities, and NHS trusts for the loss of encrypted laptops and USB sticks for years now: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ico+encryption+fine

Can you still set up detection alerts (e.g. by email) without SCCM?

Use of Google Apps is compliant with FERPA. Google say so in several places on their own site, and it's backed up elsewhere. Search online for "Google Apps FERPA" and you'll find a lot of ammo to shoot this concern down. There were some lawsuits pending over this, which is probably what got your super hot under the collar in the first place, but Google headed those off just last week by committing to not scanning any data in Google Apps for Edu for use in datamining, and ads in Gmail are being permanently disabled for all Google Apps Edu users. Retention can be handled in one of two ways: if you simply want to set a maximum retention period (i.e. no email can be stored more than x days), that's easy to do with the standard Google Apps product. What I suspect your super is after is defining set retention periods so that all email is stored for a fixed period. For that, you need to buy in to Google Apps Vault, which is an add-on service. It's $5/user/month. Office 365 is in a similar situation. I agree the concerns are being overblown. Looking at it from a common sense view: a lot of US colleges use Google Apps and/or Office 365. They are subject to the same rules your super is concerned with. They have much, much bigger legal teams than your district, and they seem OK with it. If your district's attorney thinks he knows better than the legal team at Harvard, then he should go apply for a job there.

This has come up before. My solution is to set a Deny ACL for Pupils on the DLL file which provides the Playback Devices UI. The volume control can still be used as normal. Full details here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/95284-disable-device-name-changes.html#post887794

Nice to know HMRC are doing such a stand-up job.

COMMENCE BACKPEDALING! Windows 8.1 Update: WSUS Availability, Extended Deployment Timing Consumers still have to install by next month: the interim updates will not be available on regular Windows Update (which means less testing and more bugs, inevitably).

That sounds about right. In which case, find a reseller that has a decent ordering system.

One very good reason not to upgrade would be if you use OneDrive (the consumer version, not Pro). Ever since KB2923768, OneDrive does not work with roaming profiles. Update 1 has this patch included.

Pretty sure you use the same support route as for the rest of Office 365 - have you raised a service request in the Office 365 admin center?

Anybody old enough to remember handheld scanners that you had to move over the document will run a mile from these.

My first recommendation when clients aren't working right with WSUS is to check the C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log file on the offending machines. That should have considerably more detail about what's going on.

CLIPZILLA!

I'd love to know what makes people think the servers will break just by being off for two weeks. All the articles I've seen on this sort of thing recommend against frequent shutdowns and power-ups, but a one-time off for two weeks and then back on? I cannot see how that is going to cause any more hardware problems that a 2 minute on-off, and Windows is not so fragile that it couldn't cope with the time off, even with AD. I'd still be looking for a way to keep running, but to be honest it's more likely you'll get complaints about unavailability than you will technical issues. Even if you think the site isn't going to be used, sods law is that someone will want something. Also if your email is on-site, that will of course cause problems with everyone trying to email you...

Two of my friends failed their tests for pretty much the same thing, both to avoid hitting moronic cyclists who had pulled out in front of them without looking. Asking around my sixth form we discovered it was a common occurrence in the town where I grew up. Those of us who hadn't taken our test yet swore a pact that if it happened to us we'd just run the b******s over seeing as we were going to fail anyway. Apparently the cyclists must have heard as the rest of us avoided any two-wheeled calamities.