synaesthesia

Well, this is Pearson - everything they say should be taken with a pinch of salt, which you must assume is actually pepper

All being overthought surely - none of that is required. https://support.pearson.com/uk/s/article/Pearson-Onscreen-Platform-POP-Delivery-methods

Going very off topic but if you're buying a car with a wet belt, you're part of the problem

christ, what? Out of interest, why? It was bad form in Windows 7, mostly decided it shouldn't be a thing any more in Windows 10 and absolutely shouldn't be done in this day and age - hence interested in what a reason might be to do it?

Sore subject. We were cleared for CtC originally (based on poor current provision as well as low OFSTED rating) then rejected right at the last minute, not long after the final round of visits & quotes from project leads & suppliers to do it all based on a technicality - we'd just been taken over by an MAT and as a different school, the OFSTED rating was null and void. (But it still mattered for everything else, absolute bloody liberties!)

OSTicket. Fairly basic and you have to look after it yourself but open source and generally Just Works. Did have a brief look at Every and I stamped my feet at the idea of no email polling. Sorry, staff aren't going to be faffing with any ropey websites alongside everything else they have to do. It's hard enough to get them to email instead of gossiping about how rubbish everything is to everyone they see in the corridor (apart from IT).

Good point well made Although with my mind in it's current state, anything that happens to those schools is fully their fault if they can't hire or use a decent MSP. Actions & consequences, and everyone else will be pointing fingers when they get ransomwared.

So, "Vtech/Tomy My First Intune". Not at all surprising. Market though? MSPs would/should use more powerful tools and no school in this country should be in the position where the IT person is the same person paying people's wages, wiping bottoms in nursery and scraping gum off the underside of the desks (which is pretty much where CC3 & 4 were aimed) Not in 2025. So what's the market for this?

Would love to see it action. However, you'd pretty much be forced to install new cabling & new switching to get it past most business continuity cases, not something I'd want to see on the same physical infrastructure as everything else. Or am I being old fashioned? I assume you can still use the legacy Net2 app and aren't being forced into the new subscription base with paxton?

Used both, MyConcern was worse, reliability wise. Better usability IMHO, but they made some howlers. Imagine trying to make people jump through MFA hoops before even being able to just log a concern for example

Worth checking if the ACU is battery backed up - if it isn't, get it done, it's a cheap upgrade. If it is, power cycle it being sure to remove the battery when you do

If it isn't, they won't be getting our renewal this year for sure.

Almost a straight no, even with a USB straight into mains, if something goes wrong it can't come back to us. However it depends - if it's a student with a medical monitoring device piggybacking to their phone, absolutely.

Kids want to be treated like adults, but their parents very often behave like kids too. So if the parents behave like kids, their kids who want to be like what they perceive as an adult, end up behaving like kids pretending to be adults. And then you've the whole chain of consequence and discipline, and 2 sets of kids adamant that the younger kid shouldn't be responsible for nuking the science lab, destroying the chromebook, ripping the cistern off the wall or urinating into the hand dryer. You start trying to make the kids face up to those consequences, the older kids (aka "parent") kicks off a stink then wants to "home educate" their child whilst denouncing the education system as the part that is failing.

Not sure accounts come into it! We have 2 box shifters we use for odds and ends depending on best price and both do Hik kit, although neither are CCTV specialist. That may be the reason for not having issues, so as long as you're happy to iron out any issues yourself then it shouldn't be a problem!

You shouldn't be worrying as much about the device specs as you are the wifi capabilities of the school. The chromebooks themselves will generally be OK regardless of the spec unless you're spending under 200 a unit. Storage, don't worry about it unless there's any large 3rd party android apps you're installing because you should be *entirely* in the cloud. Is your internet up to it?

Christ. Maybe time to make EWP available as a webapp

How much is Trelson roughly? I have a deep dislike for anyone that hides behind a "CALL FOR PRICING!" thing!

Don't apologise, not a problem As you say it's quite nuanced and I don't fully understand the setup; in an actual emergency there should be no or very limited movement between evacuation points, and one or more of those points might not even be available. I wonder if therefore it doesn't need to be a technological thing? For example, there isn't wifi in the areas but SIA will provide an evacation list & report for printing immediately upon pressing the evacuate button, could this then be printed and handed out? Or keeping it tech related, you don't actually need wifi access I believe - so could you have let's say 3 ipads for this purpose, all kept charged and running with the sign in app installed. They don't need connectivity to run or sign people in or out, they will re-sync when a connection happens again. Might be worth testing. (I'm following this closely as we've a far simplier setup with one single evac point, and we've just fitted external wifi for this very purpose).

That's getting very specific and certainly going to be "strange" according to an off the shelf product. It's worth getting in touch with their support as they're receptive to making changes or helping out with things like this, but staff evacuation points should only ever differ with their current location and not down to their job title surely?

Interesting - I think they "worked" with the notable and important exception of the trackpad. I might have another play, the BIOS had about as much option as a vegan butcher shop!

Now this is news! None of this marvel stuff! Bring on the tracks!

Libre should be absolutely fine, that's something I'll be using here for publisher files too (just personally though for ID badge printing, saves using the diabolical software that most printers use for it! )

This is why modern IT is sh....ockingly bad. (see my recent blog post!). Long gone are the days of "Ah yes, I can use this bit of software I've tucked away since 1988 that Just Ruddy Works" - it has to be updateable, compliant with silly laws and part of a system designed purely to keep a load of overpaid consultants in well pressed trousers and posh coffee.

If they don't consent, they shouldn't be on your school site (premises), period.