pcstru

When it doesn't do what I want it to - last time round must have been 3/4 years back, although I did splurge on triple screens 12 months later. I've got no particular motivation to upgrade the PC at the moment but I am getting an itchy wallet looking at some wheel/pedal/gear stick combo's. but. I. must. resist.

That is a very neat approach to fully enumaerate a state system into a list of unique integers (although it should be pointed out that 1 is not prime but 2 is), but it seems unnecessary when concatenating the columns will give a full state system which could then be used in an IF/Case.

Now you say it, I think some of our users may be on this 'witless' network.

Without a better statement of the problem, there is no solution. Each choice has its pros and cons. If you think about what you want to be doing in 5 years, 10 years, 25 years - that should help you focus in on what you then need to do to achieve that or, if you really can't either think what those goals might be or you can't stand to be so constrained and want flexibility, that itself might suggest one approach would be better.

I was amazed to get a 419 type spam-scam, with about the same literary quality as yours, sent to me by snail mail to the school. Not sure I can see that exactly taking off for them. Meanwhile, our enquiries address has been used as the from address in some spammers campaign and we now have 200,000 bounces and rising cluttering up the mail box.

I'm torn between a dryer (something I said I would never buy) and trying to get a better solution on the house environment either using a small positive pressure unit in the loft or fitting a heat recovery unit - probably in the kitchen or bathroom. Either one would run most if not all of the time, would be much cheaper to run than a tumble dryer and should benefit the whole house.

Either your reply to the text you quote makes no sense or perhaps you are in the wrong thread?

It's a good point on electric costs. I figure 1 Watt 24/7 is a nice round ~£1 a year, so if you have a server drawing 120W - that is £120 a year. On the other hand, a Raspberry Pi running 24/7 will cost you under a couple of quid a year and a nice little Atom based server should be around £30. I even switch hi-fi amps and my Sub off now - which is a pain but it's just silly spending money to keep stuff warmed up.

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That seems rather bizarre advice in the circumstances. You do realise that this subject has arisen because a European court judgement has ruled that following government 'advice' offers inadequate protection for data subjects? Your rationale was that you can do nothing about it : "If any government agency wants our data they will get it and there is absolutely nothing you'll be able to do about it. That is why I don't worry." The fact is you can minimise the opportunities, the "attack surface". You cannot make it impossible, but you can act to make it equally difficult for all who would process data relating to your data subjects unlawfully. You can certainly avoid using companies that you know are unable to protect personal data processed by your organisation and as far as the law goes, you would seem obliged to do that. The ICO might issue advice (some of which is poor), they do not write or re-write the law.

So if you can't stop someone from getting your data, you should not 'worry' about your responsibilities to data subjects? I think that is actually a pretty common attitude - bizzare and wrong IMO, but common. Talk Talk might just argue that zero day exploits mean that anyone who really wants access to their customers data will get it, so why should they worry?

I really struggle to follow this. If you do not trust a partner then why, when such trust is implicit in fair processing, are you using them as a 3rd party data processor? The risk might come from the data subject making a claim in a case where they are damaged by foreign agencies getting hold of data. Our responsibility is first and foremost to the data subject under the law, rather than to (just) protecting the reputation of the organisation.

What I care about is that we, as a data controller, comply with the law of the land to the best of our ability. In terms of access to data by UK agencies; they can come to us directly and compel us to divulge data under UK law. So if GCHQ get hold of personal data relating to our staff or customers, we are complying with the law of the land. If US agencies get hold of it, we are not. I think there is an easy test of this : simply substitute North Korea for USA and see if everyone is still happy.

Interesting. It seems to me the advice is very poor - about on a level with "don't worry, it's too complicated even for us so we aren't going to come after you". And then we have : "There's no new and immediate threat to individuals' personal data that's suddenly arisen that we need to act quickly to prevent," the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) told the BBC. Err ... . It is not new but I don't see how it is not immediate (US agencies can compel companies based in the USA to disclose data they might hold (hold on behalf of your organisation) on individuals) and unless the ICO has abandoned the principles of the DPA, then that situation is simply not compatible with those principles. Still, it is about what we have come to expect from the ICO. Utterly useless.

Not sure I get it. For me, Arduino is an easy and above all cheap way to put together geeky projects which interface with the real world. The entry for an ATmega328P-PU is about £1.20, an Arduino UNO clone can be had for £5 or Pro Mini for a bit less in bulk, sure once I add bluetooth, gyro's etc then the cost increases but modules can be had quite cheaply (a few quid) and you only put them in when you actually need them. The 101 will cost around the same as a Pi - $30, so probably £30! I just can't understand who will buy them and why?

Set up server. Plug it in. Profit! Seriously though, other than the server and web services, you should just need some kind of DNS, so packets can find the back of your router on what is probably a leased dynamic IP (changeable). Most people tend to use a Dynamic DNS service which are supported by their router.

Well ... . We did use Word and Excel for report writing quite a few years back! We would generate word documents from the MIS, users would find them in shared areas with folder structures reflecting the Year/Tutor Groups. Completed documents were quality checked by HOF's or Deputies and when the approved, the documents were processed to extract the teacher generated content into CSV files we could upload into the MIS. This was actually much more useable than the MIS software's facilities for data entry and we could build in quality checking into the process - which had been a huge problem (and sadly wasn't entirely solved by the process). I think there was leadership in our MIS project in the project governance and the overall framework. It wasn't a case of saying "you should choose this" but rather a case of "this is a good method for making a choice" or "this is a good method to assure the smooth implementation". Project management was then about keeping the method on track without worrying about the actual outcome. Actually, senior management were nervous and conservative and put a lot of store by "nearly everyone else is using X", it was a bit of a worry to me that they would overrule the users.

I'd say make sure users lead the discussion - or at least make them feel they have. We went live with our new MIS in September. Our project to that point ran over two and a half years - the first year of which was just assessing our requirements and then how the suppliers stacked up against those. Amazingly one supplier just didn't turn up to their demo, while another withdrew from the market mere days before they were due to present. Following the appointment of the supplier, we spent a year looking at data transfer and our own business processes, aiming to make a like for like transition (no re-engineering business processes) and delivering training to various support departments and hundreds of teachers. Our go live in September was pretty smooth and now, with the system having had half a term of bedding in we will now start to look at re-engineering actual business processes to take advantage of new functionality in the software and where beneficial consolidate functions into a single system. I'd say the most important thing in the process was engaging users and allowing them to develop and operate with a sense of ownership. This wasn't something being imposed on them from a great height by distant management, this was their own choices with ample opportunities to have their say and drive the process forward within their business area. Now, there is no moaning, griping or frustrated tears - just teams of people who know they are where they are through their own choices and who, as a result, are motivated to solve any issues themselves. Generally users are very positive about the new software which in a school of 2000 students and hundreds of users of the MIS, is perhaps the most important thing of all.

It should (I think) be possible as long as you map into unique containers in the google side, if you don't then it will suspend and delete users from the other AD when it doesn't find them.

I wouldn't rely on that! Also bear in mind that there are generally other scripting languages available on a PC - Javascript will generally be accessible to anyone as might be VBA, so if you have holes that can be exploited by Python, they are probably exploitable by a number of other means.

I automated the creation of groups from MIS data (Tutor, Teaching, Department, Year etc). The code is fairly generic, so it would be possible to drive this from AD and switch the group creation to drive GAM rather than AD.

Thanks for all your contributions here and all the very best to you in your new role.

Unless you specifically want to write your own, you could look at HAP which does what you want and more.

You don't like the competition?

Which linux distribution are you running? What software are you trying to install and where?