synaesthesia

True - you can't stop them setting up such a group, it won't be punishable by any means if it happens. As for expectations - double edged sword, because you'd feel rather left out if you were the only one in your dept that didn't. (I sympathise with this - I only joined one of our groups last week after installing WA for the very first time!)

I don't think this has been tested legally yet, but I believe this comes down to "not actively encouraging it's use" as part of mitigation and could/should be in social media policies for staff as such. You can't provide what you can't access.

Is ESS really a plausible major supplier now though? Literally ranked down there with the "this product is only used in Dubai, India and a school in the Outer Hebrides" MIS.

I think one of the only things that would make legal and common sense would be if there were active legal proceedings against either party, ironically Some might argue if the point of the tender was to move away from them as the incumbent provider, you'd have to include them - that might not be the case for most SIMS users because it's easy to quantify that product offers clearly less than just about anything else out there including doing it manually or scanning OCR marksheets to an Excel document.

My experience has been quite decent since we had ours fitted in October. Had a few reasons to contact and responses have always been timely. Cloud filter also in use as a hybrid for around 120 chromebooks with no issue. I've experienced the poorer side of their support a couple of years ago but it has certainly improved.

True - we've just completed ours, it was a 3 horse race between Arbor, Bromcom and one other firmly in the "other" box, and it certainly wasn't SIMS. I wouldn't have been disappointed with either of the two big names based on capability. BC's PR does leave a sour taste in the mouth, but it's little different to the aftertaste when buying from Amazon or watching another amazing SpaceX launch. You know the end result is going to be decent in spite of the utter arsery that goes on behind the scenes.

On the bright side, prizes like jetskis and motorboats won't be so out of place now - most people will get a chance to use them each year with the flooding we get!

Ah but how do you know - the agreement is confidential. Maybe, ironically, Lift agreed to pay Bromcom the referral fees from Arbor

I've found an image of Bromcom's legal and PR team's with the instrument they using for the hole they keep digging...

Most of the ones we get including the aforementioned safeguarding site, the front page is fine but there's logins and pages beyond which is where HTTPS naturally kicks in (or tries to, of course!)

I say no out of principal and ask them to contact the site they're having trouble with. Otherwise precedents get set and you're doing it for every tom dick and harry We have one site I have been shouting at for months about the same - to make it worse, its Northants Safeguarding Board...

Sounds reasonably in-line with what I'd expect. It sounds very much like pushing CC4 into the cloud, but also integrating a Ruler/Locker type system for systems integrations, all made far easier as it's saas. Whether it's going to be worth whatever they'll be charging for it, on an assumption it won't be any less than what CC4 costs, will be a larger ask. It might appear to suit smaller sites managed by MSPs rather well, but what MSP's are ever likely to actually use it?

A policy/guideline written by a committee of salespeople, and a "tired of trying to explain this sh**" network design engineer

Usually DNS when VPNs are concerned; may be worth trying to force the DNS address as the VPN gateway depending on the solution you're using. As a stopgap, you can test this by setting a batch file or something to map the drive via IP rather than hostname.

Also worth noting that in the grand scheme of things, extra cable costs comparatively nothing. So if you plan for a cat6a drop per classroom, make it 2. (plus another pair for your AP). 4 per standard classroom, gives you margin for error, addition/changes, troubleshooting in case of rodent or builder caused damages etc.

Yes, did a large infant school a few years ago - 12 classrooms, complete rewire, fiber to one outreach cabinet, new PoE switching throughout (FS.com), new server cab and the latest at the time UniFi WiFi. All in was around 30k - cabling was done by a proper company and wasn't far off the 20k mark (can't remember which way) and the switching & wifi for the rest.

I haven't used safetynet since the early days, so can't comment on that, however it's *vital* that IT are involved at some level, unless your safeguarding team are fully up to date with current lingo, able to figure out false positives and context etc, which the majority of non technical people won't be able to. And it isn't just ability, it's because you often have other tools to judge that context; whether it's experience or things like Impero, Senso, Netsupport etc. We have both Smoothwall and Smoothwall Monitor in place due to a limited safeguarding team - Monitor is human-manned so context is dealt with and IT don't need to be involved. Anything picked up by Smoothwall rather than Monitor comes through IT so we can judge that context first.

You're not wrong - it just needs handling in a manner more appropriate than this. Currently it feels like Donald Trump - how long before any facts get thrown out of the window and start relying on playground insults. Putting down the other side(s) rather than shouting about your own is poor form.

At this point it's going to take Ryan Reynolds level of marketing prowess to do something positive!

This and exactly this. The product might be decent, but Bromcom's PR is more political and bitchy than anything we've seen in the educational sector for years. Should be concentrating on advertising the product, what it can do, what the company will do, how they'll support schools and their patrons. Leave the political side to the articles - those interested will have seen them and don't need signposting like a child trying to get another child into trouble.

We get this quite often - usually sorts itself out after a few minutes or after a reboot. Wouldn't mind knowing if there's something causing it, haven't reached out to support to ask yet

Oooooh Convoy - that's something I don't remember and need to watch again? Is that where Rubber Ducky came from?

Man, I'm not much into Country but sure as hell appreciated him in the Blade films

Unfortunately that's a pretty idealistic view - even some of the "paperless" schools give in at some point. And even with best intentions, it can be an idea to at least have it as a possibility. Mobility print here, it's a few clicks to set up and indeed just means it shows up as a printer on the device and charges to the logged in user, nice and easy when combined with your google login (which I recall is just a matter of adding papercut as a provider in Workspace admin)

I'm going to have to agree with Fazza - if you're struggling to get rid of IT/AV related equipment, you need a better class of recycling company. Yes it reads like an advert but have always had a positive experience with Enviro. Obviously things outside IT they will rightly grumble about but anyone refusing to take IEC cables, network cables are just poor. I asked specifically about old CAT5 cabling a while ago and they said it's fine, as long as it isn't CCA then they're happy because the copper is easy to strip. And otherwise they work on a win some, lose some; if they find a toaster in the midst of 30 desktop PCs, 20 LCDs and a few kilos of copper cabling, it's not going to cause them any pain.