Blue_Cookeh

We got some netbooks from Very PC (they're rebadged Intel classmates). Ugly, but they're semi rugged and we haven't had any break in the past couple of years we've had them. We went with 128GB SSDs and 4GB RAM which seems to do the job. They run Windows 10 and kids can be logged in and ready to go in about 2 minutes. We went for those since at the time we had a load of Windows apps they used, but I'll be looking into Chromebooks in a couple of years when they're due for replacement.

BitLocker all the things! We use MDOP MBAM with GPOs to manage it and do key escrow This works really well for external media too.

Are you using certificates? Maybe your test machine hasn't requested one from your certificate authority yet? Or maybe you push out the 802.1x settings via GPO and it hasn't applied it?

Nope. You need the OneDrive client, or to upgrade to 2013 or newer.

Love them. I was going to suggest you looked at the higher end models like the AC HD in a larger environment like that but it looks like you already have that down For a site like that I'd really recommend using something like Ekahau to do a proper site survey before you install, and carefully manage placement where you think you'll have large numbers of devices in small areas. Multiple APs on very low power will outperform one on higher power in places like classrooms with carts of laptops, but that goes for any wireless vendor. We're seeing very good performance on AP AC Lites with carts of around 30 netbooks on one access point. The newer and more high end APs Ubiquiti do also have dedicated radios for spectrum analysis etc. I had quotes for Meraki, Cisco and Ruckus, none of them could touch the price to performance we got with Ubiquiti.

Similar to us - if the technology is there our teachers give it a real go. Perhaps something to do with most of our teachers being younger? I don't know.

Both SMART and CleverTouch have OPS slots. You could simply unplug the ethernet cable to the board and plug it into the OPS PC, which runs an OS of your choosing. This is a very similar problem to smart TVs at home nowadays too, they're worse for updates than phones :/

I just got a Lenovo X270 to replace my 2012 MacBook Pro retina. Absolutely love this little beast of a machine! Also Lenovos are built like tanks and their warranty is awesome.

You could do some clever trickery to do so. You could probably do it slightly easier with Windows, but I like the idea of having a Linux server running samba, joined to the domain. You could then share out the web root and assign each folder the relevant user's permissions. You could then have a shortcut to this in each user's home directory.

I fully expected this when our school bought into them. We keep our's on a dedicated VLAN with firewalls between our networks. Non issue really.

You also have problems surrounding visibility of projectors in light classrooms, ongoing maintenance etc. We've been very happy with our Clevertouch screens. We've just got some SMART screens with Kapp modules installed in our new building over the summer and these are even better. Wouldn't dream of touching a projector nowadays. Once you factor in projector, life span, bulbs (LEDs now I guess, so slightly cheaper), interactive screens then the price is vastly more than these new screens. We liked them so much we got them on motorised stands for our hall/communal areas too. Also the TVs/screens now are far more feature rich than projectors. Staff can choose to use the built in apps or their laptops, they have multiple inputs, PIP, and both CleverTouch and SMART have built in screen sharing, so no need for AppleTVs or anything anymore.

Tbf we always get brand new Dell servers with 5 year nbd ProSupport, which they've always stuck to. You *do* have to go through the rigmarole over the phone before they'll dispatch a tech, but they did stick to nbd on the two occasions we've had to use them in the last 10 years.

I had a lovely problem where a policy was forcing a passcode change... but our policies disallowed passcode changes. Queue a loop where one cancelled the other and I couldn't update the policy remotely! That was a fun day removing and re-enrolling a cart of iPads into Meraki

That looks like you've blacklisted the Weather app somewhere? iPads don't have a weather app, iPhones do, which might explain the error. You need to go through your 'Science' settings profile and remove the weather app from your blacklist.

I've just written off getting any of our older devices into DEP, I'm hoping they'll just slowly go away over the next few years :/ I suspect the iOS11 limitation is due to some OS-level dependencies. iOS11 devices can be removed from DEP by the user in settings for the first 30 days of enrolment (it shows a message on the lock screen until the 30 days pass).

No issue here. Have upgraded an iPad from iOS 10 to 11 that was already on Meraki, and enrolled a batch of new ones onto Meraki that I pushed to iOS 11 through Apple Configurator (and the new DEP system, yessss!)

Are you doing SSL man in the middle with Lightsquid? You'll need to since most search engines run over SSL now. I don't believe there are any packages to do this natively, but you can *very* easily pull such queries out of the logs of whatever filter you're using, since they usually get passed in the URL anyway. You could write a simple Python script to do that.

We were buying 1080p 30fps cameras (with acceptable IR for night) for £90 a pop... a box of 300ft Cat6 cable is what, £40? You likely already have PoE switches for your WAPs. Obviously I don't know your environment, but it's not completely unrealistic.

Stick to IP, do it yourself. We like Ubiquiti

I also requested it a couple of months back, also said it could take up to two years. Our still shows as: Exchange - Europe SharePoint - United Kingdom Skype for Business - United Kingdom

What do you use for filtering? Coming from huge private (and now public) sector companies, it seems to be a risk most people are willing to take. The idea is that security takes a layered approach. You force Windows Firewall to treat all networks as Public apart from your own, and make antivirus updates available to your machines both on and off the network. Don't allow admin rights unless absolutely necessary. That would cover most bases in terms of security, but you might also look at things like Microsoft EMET if you're that worried. We also put other guards in place, you can set up alerting of suspicious activity on your fileshares etc, and have appropriate firewall rules in place across your network. Remember DirectAccess devices aren't directly connected to your network, your DA server brokers the connection.

I actually can't believe I missed that... damn. Thank you!

Cheers guys, got a trial of Foldr sent to us this morning so that's a new toy to play with

This seems a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me. We're using an Avaya IP Office system and it's fantastic. Easily one of the easiest phone systems I've ever managed (including Asterisk etc). You should look into managing it yourself or getting a competent company before throwing it all away.

Hey all, I'm after an app that will allow teachers to copy files between the iPad and our shared drives on our Windows network. At the moment we've been using FileExplorer, which works fantastically but can't find a way to push settings out to it. Has anyone got any ideas for File Share apps that will take a configuration payload from MDM? I want to add our public drive to all our iPads, and maybe add each staff member's home drive. Cheers