localzuk

Server updated to 1.6.14 Note - you may see an FML incompatible error on the Multiplayer server selection screen. This seems to be inaccurate and clicking through to the server works fine.

Free licenses mean you're more likely sharing the frequency with those near you. Here, we found we were sharing the frequencies with at least 2 local businesses. Moving to licensed radios allowed us to move away from that. A license isn't expensive anyway, once you get past the paperwork.

WPF was just a new UI system tbh. Nothing overly ambitious. The key is .Net underneath it all. With their work on .Net Core over the last few years. They've now fully replaced .Net Framework with .Net Core as of version 5. It is cross platform and cross architecture. You can easily build software that will work on Windows, Mac, Linux, on top of X86, x64 and ARM.

One thing to remember - the amount of money schools get varies wildly by area. Some areas get upwards of £8000 a year per child. Others, get the minimum, around £4000. That makes an enormous difference.

You quite clearly don't. Schools don't spend tens of thousands on kit and then happily throw it away after a few years. It just doesn't happen. It can't happen. We don't have the funding for it. Especially after a decade of budget freezes and cuts. Put it this way. The average IT spend in 2018/19 was £59 per pupil. For a small primary school like a few of ours? That'd be £8k a year - and that would include internet connectivity, licensing etc... Impossible to do what you suggest. I get a budget roughly double that amount per pupil, and I still couldn't handle it. I'd have to double my budget again to be able to do it. Never going to happen unless the UK government suddenly decides to give schools a huge increase in funding. In schools? Its fairly self evident that it is the norm not to replace kit after 3 years. I've worked in 10 schools now, and have worked closely with another 4, and none of them replace kit after 3 years. Some of them aim to replace at 5 years though. I know of loads that are still running 8 year old or older kit. Remember, Microsoft had said that Windows 10 was the final version to ever be released, and Windows 10 operates on these devices just fine. So, it is not outlandish to do this. Remember also, MANY schools buy refurbished devices (not something we do here) as well.

There is no such thing in education. Money doesn't magically appear to fill the hole these new devices made in budgets, therefore these new devices have to survive until the budget hole is filled. Do not take your one business as being the norm. It isn't. If all businesses are going to only buy devices that are brand new, current generation CPUs, where exactly is the money for these old devices going to come from? There wouldn't be a market for them... One of the biggest markets for refurbished machines right now? Education... Again, schools bought 7th gen CPU devices last year. Which means in 2025 they will be just hitting 5 years old. Not 9.

Not at all true. Last year, there was a world pandemic where devices had to be bought on short notice. ANY laptops for sale were bought by many schools. A 3 year old processor 100% would not be removed from service in any real organisation. The accounting firm (a large national firm) that does our audit? They've sent their staff in with 5 year old laptops before here... Many organisations follow a 5 year cycle. Not to mention, if you have organisations that don't have IT expertise of their own, so they rely on the expertise of external organisations - in some cases the very companies selling the kit. It is entirely unreasonable to think a 3 year old processor should be disposed of. It isn't a good use of taxpayers money to say the least.

Remember, resellers were selling 7th gen devices last year still...

I really can make that judgment, having worked directly for schools for 15 years now. You lack direct experience of working in a school day to day. That affects your decision making processes and means you don't know an awful lot of what we as direct employees have to deal with. Consultants do not see the full picture - it is impossible for them to do so. If you have not experienced a member of school leadership making a snap decision and expecting it to be in place same or next day, counter to considerations of security etc..., then you are not experienced enough in education to make rather flippant remarks regarding things being a "small price to pay"... Your comments are valid from a purely technical point of view, but also need to be taken into context of the very real world we experience each day, taking into account immediate costs, ongoing costs, staff time and experience and expertise to deal with these sorts of changes. I'd hazard that the majority of primary schools would not have the funding, expertise or time to make many of these changes. Trusts and larger schools, sure, but even then it would still be a question of viability. Put it this way - average IT spend in the UK in 18/19 was £59 per pupil. There's loads of 130ish pupil schools out there... Not a lot you can do with less than £8k a year in your budget for IT.

It would take a lot of work to change the systems - eg. Change VLAN, install relevant software, do training, remove software, change VLAN. That's quite a lot of work all in all. It also ignores the wider staff use of pupil machines. I have a question for you - have you ever worked directly in a school at all? From your posts, you seem to lack any direct knowledge of how schools operate. You say making these changes would be a small price to pay? Except for many they wouldn't. Lots of schools still have a single server running everything. So, your idea would require a significant investment in new kit and time to set it up, plus then staffing to manage it all. TCO for IT would increase quite steeply.

This is only really any use if you have a hard and fast divide between what counts as "pupil" or not. To do this could potentially require a rethink of server setups (eg. do you use the same Windows shared storage for pupil drives as you do for staff?), it could also be impossible in some areas due to devices being used by both staff and pupils (this is the case across many schools these days as they don't have the funds to provide enough devices for all staff, so some staff will log in on pupil machines - especially the case when training is done with groups and the IT suites get used by staff).

EDIT: Realised it was political... I suppose it depends on the specifics of the law. It'd have to be taken on a case by case basis with each email. Were there breaches of data protection rules, or breaches of disclosure rules etc... However, consequences do also matter in the context. In our roles, our policies are there to protect our organisations and the children we look after. We don't have the capacity to allow flexibility with it. But in government? What would the consequences be from not following the guidelines? If there are no real consequences then the guidelines are like many a policy - useless in the real world.

Server updated to 1.6.12 Note - the client complains about soggyguns being unable to run. The client still connects and runs fine.

So, all machines will need TPM (1.2 or above it seems?). Secure Boot is necessary. 4GB RAM minimum and 64GB storage space - which based on my own experience means we need 240GB+, as 64GB is barely big enough for Windows 10 with anything installed and more than 1 user logging in. 128GB just delays the time needed to clear stuff out a bit as well. I've been finding 8GB of RAM is starting to be not quite enough for some of our heavier users as well for Windows 10 + Excel + Sims .Net + SMART Notebook, and have had to upgrade to 16GB. So if Windows 11 needs 4GB by itself now, it may be that our minimum spec ends up being 16GB going forward. All in all, its going to be a busy 4 years getting everything up to spec to be able to make the switch.

Looks like I'll be deploying uBlock Origin then!

So, there appears to have been a marked increase in advertising on Youtube recently, and there's also been an increase in somewhat inappropriate adverts as well. Sophos XG doesn't seem to be able to block them. What do you all do to block them? Apparently Adblock Plus can block them, so I could force install that in Chrome and Edge?

I'm fairly sure you can only edit the subject line, and not the body with Google's compliance stuff (well, you can edit email headers as well).

Server address: mc.edugeek.net:25566 As someone has requested it, this is a Minecraft 1.17 release server. This server is running in tandem to the ATM 6 modded server There are no mods, but there are a few data-packs. As always, to be whitelisted on the server, please visit your Profile on the site and add you Minecraft username to the field there. The server updates the whitelist every 3 hours from 00:00 BST. It can also be updated manually if you PM me and I'm around to do it. Up to date information is always available via the Discord channel. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/gaming/186223-edugeek-discord-live-chat-server.html Announcing the next EduGeek Minecraft server - Vanilla 1.17 Caves & Cliffs release

ACLs are NOT a good security mechanism for inter-vlan security. There is voluminous information out there saying why VLANs should not be used for security purposes. Spoofing VLAN tags is super simple. Switches are not firewalls, and VLANs are for traffic management, not security. Your comment about keeping staff and pupil devices apart also ignores the reality of how things work in many schools. Here? We use our IT suites to train staff as well as teach lessons. We've had 30 people being trained on SIMS in an IT Suite. Teachers use classroom control tools to view pupil machines. Staff use any PC available to access their email and files, should they not be one of the staff issued with a laptop.

If you are using Veeam, note that you need an enterprise level license (not standard edition) to use the tape for backup jobs.

Yeah, this is normal for CSP licensing (as that's how they process the licenses). Not normal for OVS-ES or EES.

I've given up on this now. I've spent 3 days on something that only has a dozen different settings. I'll look at it again during summer. Or move us over to AoVPN instead.

Microsoft explicitly say you cannot do the "connect to desktop" via the Azure App proxy route, only published apps/desktops. From here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/app-proxy/application-proxy-integrate-with-remote-desktop-services

I'm amazed at how much win32 stuff there still is tbh, even in Windows 10. Its been years since Windows 7, and they're still relying on win32 windows in a touchscreen era.

Isn't the business case the same as always - support for the old one will come to an end, and we all need to run supported (read "gets security updates") software to comply with our legal obligations?