dhicks

You can have Windows auto-login to a local or domain account with a simple registry setting: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1486646/how-to-set-windows-10-autologin The same mechanism works for Windows 7, 10, and 11. If you're having your display screen turn off at night and turn back on in the morning, I'm not sure how well Windows handles power-offs from the mains these days. You might want to have a schedualed task do a Windows shutdown before you have a timer switch cut the mains power.

Ah - just realised for some reason I'd thought SchoolPost was £1,000-ish a year, but I can't actually find any pricing for it. It sounds like a sensible approach, a "file store" per user (parent) that they can access, probably via login-code-sent-via-email (with them, you'd hope, at least providing a report of any invalid emails / bounces / etc), but not sure what sort of price they're charging. The other place to check might be the Wonde marketplace, there's apps listed in there that handle this kind of thing with the data synced to Wonde from your MIS.

In theory, it sounds like you need a relatively simple script that steps through each pupil in your database by pupil ID number, gets their parent(s) email address(es), matches them up with a report PDF, then sends an email with that PDF attached. You could use your standard email service (maybe GMail / Office 365?) for sending, or an email delivery service like Mailchimp or SendGrid (deliverability is likely to be better for bulk emails). Assuming you either have some sort of API access to your MIS or you can produce a report listing pupil ID and parent contact emails that should pretty much be a Python script with a couple of for-each loops. However, you would then be left dealing with un-received emails / lost emails / etc yourself, at which point £1,000 or so per year sounds quite reasonable for a system to deal with that for you.

Hmm - I reckon about £5,000 to build a stand-alone web application to implement the above (basically, a wizard-style upload page where a MIS administrator could upload a PDF document generated from SIMS for parsing, then making that data available from some kind of API endpoint for integration with Bromcom, secured via Google / Microsoft logins), along with monthly hosting / usage fees. A PDF document is pretty much an image anyway - you don't get whole text strings in a PDF document, you get individual characters and their size / placement on the page. You wind up having to do OCR to extract data anyway, and there's libraries / services that will help sort that these days.

So a school needs to go to SIMS, hit "print" and generate a PDF in a particular section to export some data, then upload that PDF document to some interface that you provide for parsing? If your system encounters a behaviour code that is unrecognised from that list it needs to direct the user to go and re-do the print-export-upload process. Should, hopefully, only need updating occasionaly, and in the context of someone switching between systems it should, hopefully, only be a temporary thing?

How old are the Macbooks? We're replacing our current late-2015 model iMacs, which are due to run out of MacOS updates this year. We're moving ours on (available, if you're interested - around £150 each, we'd probably take £2,000 for the lot), but they do make very nice ChromeOS devices when reformatted with ChromeOS Flex - I'm using one now, and have been since the start of the year. We even tested the snazzy new web-based version of Photoshop on it, which seemed to work nicely as well.

The 2 VHF mics that came with the older Busker PA unit have started getting some interference, we now have a pair of Behringer 2.4Ghz wireless mics. They've not had a a great deal of use so far, we've only had them a few weeks, but they do seem to be better quality / more reliable so far. I'd like to get a couple of speakers above head height. Our main hall used to be the Danish embassy's reception room and is covered in listed panelling, we can't screw anything to the walls, hence the free-standing scaffold framework we have the curtains and speakers attached to.

Thankyou for the comprehensive reply. That does all sound reasonable enough - it sounds like we need to make sure our installer / reseller sorts out changing default passwords/PINS, and we might need to add a backup client, but all sensible enough. From the comments on this and a couple of other threads it sounds like maybe older versions of your hardware are maybe a bit under-resourced, but the new version sounds okay. I'll try and aim to reply back to this thread when we get the system installed and let people know how we get on.

Ah - we've just signed up for an InVentry system, to be installed over the summer. I'm guessing we'll be receiving one of those CC600 units. Does it come with Windows Firewall enabled, or do we need to enable it and add the exception for port 4816 ourselves? We'll probably be installing our management client (Action1) and endpoint/antivirus protection (WithSecure) clients on the device, has anyone had any issues with those that you know of? Does the device come with well-known default passwords/PINs set? Are they simple enough to change? Does the device take care of backing up to an off-site facility, or should we install our own backup client (Veeam) on the device? What version of LTSC IoT Enterprise Win 10 does the InVentry device use? I understand some previous versions were using the 2015 version, which will be out of update support next year, I'd guess newer hardware might be using something newer?

For our Promethean touch screens with embedded OPS PCs (which are available, if you want some more), we've tended to have to put USB extension cables just long enough to dangle down at the bottom of the screen to pick up wireless signals for both network WiFi and wireless keyboard / mouse, having the USB receiver hidden behind the actual screen tends to get poor signal.

Currently, just playing audio from the PC-and-projector setup. People keep using small, portable speakers in the hall and wondering why the sound quality isn't so good, they could do with an easier-to-use setup. Sorry, what is a BT speaker? The partition wall isn't there yet, all this kit might get shuffled around again if we do get it built. I was thinking of a couple of Behringer B208Ds: https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=0313-ACF I should be able to take an audio signal from the main Behringer B112W to the first B208D, then daisy-chain to the second. That's very useful to know, thankyou. We have a set of cheap-but-okay 4 Chord mics that have lasted very well. The plan is to use the two Behringer mics for daily use, saving our set-of-4 and set-of-8 mics for bigger events. The Behringer mics are cheap enough that if/when a child breaks/looses/eats one we can replace them. My plan is to put the Behringer B112W on its own floor-standing pole stand next to the current scaffold framework, giving it a nice solid base to stand on.

It (and the rest of the 19" rackmount equipment stacked on top of it) is too large. We are planning, at some point, to put a partition wall in accross the back of the hall, loosing the area behind the stage.

Yes: the bit I'm trying to figure out is which (nice, small) amp? The plan is to use a Behringer B112W as the "mixer" - it has a couple of XLR / jack inputs, it acts as a bluetooth receiver, we can plug a couple of wireless mics into it as well. If we have a bigger production on we can add a temporary mixer as needed, or maybe add (as you suggest) a small 8-channel or similar, also strapped to the same scaffold pole (we're very short on space). The thing I need to figure out first is what amp I need to drive the two 200W / 8 Ohm speakers. They have Speakon connectors, if that's any help. I guess I'm looking for something with a single XLR input and two Speakon outputs?

Hello All, In our main hall, we currently have an audio setup that includes two LD Systems Stinger 8 G2 speakers, rated at 200W RMS / 8 Ohms each, about 10 years old. We currently have those driven by a 19" rack-mountable amplifier sat in a box behind our stage, along with other 19" kit (mixer, DI box, etc). We're thinking to reduce the amount of kit in our sound system - none of the staff have used any of the mixer / DI box parts in years, it's all redundant equipment. I'm thinking we could replace the amplifier with a smaller one, ideally a size that we could mount on a scaffold pole out of the way. We would then use an all-in-one speaker / Bluetooth / mic receiver unit (probably a Behringer B112W with wireless mic add-on) for staff to connect devices to and lead the output of that into the amplifier. Can anyone suggest an appropriate bit of kit? I guess I'm looking for something that can take a single XLR input and drive two 200W speakers. A search on Amazon gives results ranging from around £20 up to £2,000.

Sorry, I don't know the details of your layout, so I don't know if you'd be able to access the outside of the building(s) and run a cable to put an access point on the outside of either (or both) of the main building and the remote building. For our couple of point-to-point connections here we were able to simply mount devices on the outside of window ledges, running to PoE-capable switches on each side, but you might have a more fiddly / difficult to access setup.

Hello All, We currently have 5 x Promethean APT2 screens that we'll be replacing in a couple of weeks, one 65" and four 55". They all come with a (VeryPC) embedded OPS PC. The screens and embedded PCs are around 8 years old, all in working condition as far as I know - currently in daily classroom use, so we'd be told if there were any issues. The screens are 1080p, touch facility works okay, sound works okay, the PCs have (I think) 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSDs. We would prefer that these devices go somewhere they will be re-used rather than us having to dispose of them as elecronic waste. These are, obviously, second-hand (and, bearing in mind Year 1, probably assorted other body parts) devices - they all work okay as far as I know, but they have been in Reception / Year 1 classroom use for the last 8 years. If you want them you'll need to arrange collection / transport - we're in central London, just round the corner from Harrods. If I'm sure you'll be able to pick them up I can stash them in an empty classroom until the end of August if needed, but we do need them out of the way for the start of term in September. I'm advertising these in a couple of other locations, so do please get back to me soon if you want them.

Actually, just thinking, with modern access points capable of auto-meshing (Ubiquiti's do, I'm pretty sure other makes do something similar), you might not even need a specialised point-to-point device, just a mini switch in the remote building with a standard WiFi access point where it can pick up a resonable signal from the main building. You'd then also get a wireless signal in the area between the two buildings, which might be a handy added bonus. We're only using specialised point-to-point hardware because nothing else seemed to be able to get a reliable signal through the leaded windows of the church next door. Edit: rough pricing (because that's what you're actually asking about): £170 * 2 for two outdoor-rated WiFi access points (although cheaper options are probably okay), £30 for a mini PoE switch, call it around £400.

For a similar setup (two buildings next to each other, although running a cable either underground or overground wasn't an option for us) we use a Ubiquti point-to-point wireless connection, which has worked well - I don't think we've had any issues for the last couple of years. It does need to be securley attached at each end (we initially used their window-sucker attachement, which tended to fall off in high winds), and of course you'll then need at least a small PoE switch at the other end to power the receiver and any access points / phones you want.

Ah ha - just how much of a beast is it? We're considering a 110" Viewsonic board for our hall - around £10,000. Was the 98" okay to get installed, and how much power does it take?

If all your TV-watching functionality is going to be from apps / set-top boxes anyway, then maybe get a monitor? We have an AOC 42" monitor, with a KVM switch to switch between HDMI / USB inputs.

Ah, neat. Do they include as Google Workspace management license with them, or do you have to get that separatly? I've used a couple of our standard Education licenses for our kiosk ChromeOS devices, but seemingly there is a kiosk-specific license available, I'm not sure if there's any practical / price difference. Does that handle content refreshes the same day? We have our ChromeOS kiosk devices simply loading up a basic web page that embeds the image / video content we want to show. The script that generates that page gives a new name to the content each time it runs, but the ChromeOS devices seem to keep the old, cached version, even after a reboot.

We also use an on-site Synnology appliance, in our case for backing up Google Workspace (which we then also mirror to cloud backup). Simple to set up, seems to just sit and work. I haven't tried it backing up Windows servers, but am impressed with its performance / ease of use on Google Workspace. Maybe more of a one-time capital investement, which might/might not be easier to convince people about, depending on how you tend to be funded.

Might be worth testing - a couple of thousand records shouldn't be a huge number for a decent modern text string matching algorythm to handle. The tricky / fiddly / time-consuming part is most likely to be when they add new content and that list of URLs is out-of-date - do they send you updates on a regular basis, is there a sensible way to automate that list going in to your web filter?

We buy outright, with the expectation we'll get 7 or 8 years out of a desktop or laptop, maybe 10, but all depending on usage and so on. That probably does mean more time spent on management / care of devices. All our portable pupil / staff devices are full-flip, stylus-enabled Chromebooks, which have been nice and easy to manage.

I don't remember seeing them looking at Ubiquiti's site a few months ago, I'm guessing they're quite new. I was just thinking we might give them a go, but then I realised the three display screens we have have no wired network connection points nearby, so I think we'll stick with our wireless-capable ChromeOS devices for now.