colly72

Yes it does. We are currently looking at something like Wonde mylogin (https://mylogin.com/) which allows for login via magic badge for the younger students.

We use Azure AD SSO with our student 1:1 Chromebooks. Works flawlessly and allows us to leverage our Azure Conditional Access MFA for students when at home.

Support for 2012 R2 ends on 10th October - you don't want to be running an unpatched Server after this date. Another reason to get off 2012 R2 ASAP.

Hi all, Does anyone have an AI policy, or a policy on the use of AI apps such as ChatGPT, Google Bard etc? The ethics and morality around student use is one thing but I also have major concerns about staff use and data security, GDPR etc. My own school are keen to use the technology but seem oblivious to the risks. If anyone is developing an AI strategy, it would be great to hear what progress has been made. TIA

A long shot but does anyone have any end-of-life Smart Board M680 series controller/pen trays going spare? We have one in a classroom that has a damaged controller port and pen tray ribbon and I'm looking to try and replace. TIA

Year 7 upwards here too. We use conditional access to prevent MFA when in school - effectively the IP address becomes the 2nd factor. Very little pushback or problems with the students understanding how it works.

I'm holding off until it becomes more widely adopted and synced across multiple OS: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/05/passwordless-google-accounts-are-here-you-can-now-switch-to-passkey-only/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter https://passkeys.dev/device-support/

This can be an issue but if you're looking for a proper branded, consistent and centrally managed solution, it's the best way to go.

We use CodeTwo (https://www.codetwo.com/email-signatures/). Easy to design, responsive for desktop and mobile and all works really well for our needs. Takes dynamic info from AD.

Thanks so much.

Thank you. Any chance we could have the Al Kingsley slides that were part of his webinar?

Looks like Veeam 12 is due for release mid February: https://go.veeam.com/v12

Is replication between your DCs working OK? Have you migrated from FRS to DFSR?

You could make the group policy changes indicated in the link to see if it resolves it without installing any patch. Change it back again if you get any issues.... I wouldn't migrate/upgrade any DC's while they are any errors in DCDIAG personally, i've had too many scary moments with this sort of thing!

Could be to do with incompatible Cipher Suites - does this help? https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/iis-support-blog/schannel-error-state-960-tls-fatal-error-code-20/ba-p/722663

We use Wasabi Hot Cloud Object Storage. The new version 12 of Veeam, due imminently will allow for direct Object storage backup, which will mean that Veeam can be used to backup directly to object storage, instead of offloading from the performance tier to the capacity tier,

The Updraft article is just one example. Many similar articles available. You have kind of contradicted yourself too. Not had any problems, except for the sites where I've had problems. If you're happy though, crack on.......

https://updraftplus.com/the-risks-and-pitfalls-of-wordpress-auto-updates/

Depends on your level of expertise. I'd never self-host a school website these days, it's not worth the hassle given the relatively cheap hosting plans available with someone like Krystal. Wordpress is a great option if you're comfortable in that environment, you can get great results using themes like Themeco (mentioned in the comments above) or by using a good Theme Builder such as Oxygen (https://oxygenbuilder.com/), or the relatively newly released Breakdance (https://breakdance.com/). All depends on how comfortable you are with the system, developing a theme, managing and maintaining etc but if you know what you're doing there's an opportunity to save a serious amount of cash.

I can't give you a definitive list of what specific plugin update, or Wordpress version has broken the many sites that I have managed or developed over the 15 or so years I've actively used Wordpress but they have been numerous and varied, free and commercial plugins and/or themes. I prefer the control of backups, testing and manual updates over the auto-update process.

I've had many a site break with plugin updates, PHP updates and sometimes Wordpress core itsself. It's not necessarily bad coding, it's the nature of updates.

I'd caution against auto-updates for Wordpress/plugins personally. I've seen too many updates break sites. if you're going to do it, be sure that you have a robust backup routine in place. Fully agree that updates should be applied ASAP but for me this should be a manual and ongoing process. Employ MFA for backend/admin login, complex password enforcement, disable/rename out of the box admin account, use a decent security plugin such as Wordfence etc and enable recommended options.

That's my view too. That's why we've enabled MFA internally for staff.

Have you looked here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-practices/how-to-set-up-a-multifunction-device-or-application-to-send-email-using-microsoft-365-or-office-365

This was a bug at MS end. All sorted today.....