CHiLL

Office 365 would probably be better, but the licensing for it has been an absolute PITA. It seems this is now the correct way to license and deploy Office 365 (as of 01/12/2019) https://contosoedu.com/deploying-office-365-proplus-device-based-subscription-for-edu/. The desktop apps are covered with the Office 365 ProPlus license, whereas the rest of Office 365, such as Outlook, OneDrive, etc are covered by the Office 365 A1 license. There are various ways to obtain the licensing, but we have ours included in our EES/OVS agreement (or whatever it's called now). It used to be calculated by your FQTs (Fully Qualified Teachers, so you didn't include support staff for example), but I believe it's now FQEs (Fully Qualified Educators, which is their way of saying anyone who works in the school).

Just so you know, I've just gone to get the latest version and it seems the certificate on your website expired yesterday.

Queen & Slim - 5/10 I saw this as part of Cineworld's Secret Screening last week and was disapointed. It's really a modern day telling of Bonny & Clyde, where it follows a young African-American couple who go on the run after killing a police officer in self defense when a traffic stop goes wrong. It leans heavily on police brutality and racism tropes, which is completely understandable with how the world is at the moment. However for me, it appeared to be glorifying the death of the police officer, which just didn't really sit well with me. Knives Out - 7/10 Saw this on Friday and was quite entertained by it. It's a murder mystery where a world famous author is found dead under suspicious circumtances and his family are prime suspects, each appearing to have their own motive. A private detective has been annonymously hired to look into the death to aid the police officers. It took me a good while to get over Daniel Craig's deep south American accent, but I still enjoyed the film. It was funny in places and it twisted and turned as the investiagtion went on.

I've been asked to push out the desktop application of PiXLApps, last minute as usual. The genius developers of this educational app have made the original "Apps" as web apps in Flash, which have been around for a few year now. With the death of Flash in recent times, they've created a single MSI installer that contains the apps (which appears to be a flash player and assets bundled into an MSI/executable). The kicker is that the default installation folder for this MSI is "C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Programs\PiXLApps". Not really ideal for mass deployment (which is entirely the point of an MSI), especially given that we use DefProf2 to remove profiles regularly. I've tried to use the following MSI switches to no avail: INSTALLDIR="%programfiles(x86)%\PiXL\PiXLApps" TARGETDIR="%programfiles(x86)%\PiXL\PiXLApps" INSTALLFOLDER="%programfiles(x86)%\PiXL\PiXLApps" Has anyone deployed this MSI to somewhere that won't get nuked by wiping profiles and that multiple users can access? Update: When deployed via SCCM and "Install as system", SCCM reports that it is installed...however it doesn't appear in the installed apps list in Windows and the executable/launcher is not on the system when I searched the drive for it. I've emailed PiXL to see what they say.

We have a QNAP TVS-1271U-RP, which is a 12-bay rack-mountable SAN, purchased back in 2015. It's been rock solid and I have recently upgraded the drives from 12x 3TB to 6x 8TB, changed from RAID5 to RAID6 and also changed the volume type from CIFS to iSCSI. Coupled with it's 4Gb connection (4x 1Gb built-in ports, trunked), our backup performance it now where we want it. Our 19x virtual servers are configured with forward incremental backups and they're all generally complete within a couple of hours (unless big changes are made, the synthetic full is being created or it's performing a backup health check, the latter two can take quite some time). I shouldn't need to touch the QNAP or VEEAM configuration for a good while now.

Chocolate with nuts in, despite I have always hated nuts. From my Dad. Maybe he was trying to tell me something?

This looks promising, but does it illiminate the remote connection limit issue? We find that after a short while, the machine maxes out it's remote connections and refuses to allow new connections until the machine has been rebooted.

That's better, but still not great for backup files in the hundreds of GBs or even TBs.

I recently sorted this on our site and it was an issue with our GPO that pushes our Internet settings. We specifically push our Internet Explorer settings in: User Configuration > Preferences > Control Panel Settings > Internet Settings. Within that policy, cefrtain settings are enabled/disabled in the Advanced tab. Now I don't know exactly which one it was, but it was one of them. Here is the list of settings I have configured in the Advanced tab: Accelerated graphics User software rendering instead of GPU rendering Enabled AccessibilityAlways expand ALT text for images Disabled Enable Caret Browser for new windows and tabs Disabled Move system caret with focus/selection changes Disabled Play system sounds Disabled Reset text size to medium for new windows and tabs Disabled Reset Zoom level for new windows and tabs Disabled Browsing Automatically recover from page layout errors with Compatibility View Enabled Close unused folders in History and Favorites (requires restart) Disabled Disable Script debugging (Internet Explorer) Enabled Disable Script debugging (Other) Enabled Display a notification about every script error Disabled Display Accelerator button on selection Disabled Enable automatic crash recovery Enabled Enable flip ahead Enabled Enable FTP folder view (outside of Internet Explorer) Enabled Enable Suggested Sites Disabled Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart) Enabled Enable visual styles on buttons and controls in webpages Enabled Enable websites to use the search pane Disabled Go to an intranet site for a single word entry in the Address bar Disabled Notify when downloads complete Enabled Reuse windows for launching shortcuts Enabled Show Friendly HTTP Error messages Enabled Tell me if Internet Explorer is not the default web browser Enabled Underline links Always Use inline AutoComplete Enabled Use inline Autocomplete in File Explorer and Run Dialog Disabled Use most recent order when switching tabs with Ctrl+Tab Disabled Use Passive FTP (for firewall and DSL model compatibility) Enabled Use smooth scrolling Enabled HTTP 1.1 settingsUse HTTP 1.1 Enabled Use HTTP 1.1 through proxy connections Enabled International Always show encoded addresses Disabled Send IDN server names Enabled Send IDN server names for Intranet addresses Disabled Send UTF-8 URLs Enabled Show Information Bar for encoded addresses Enabled MultimediaEnable alternative codecs in HTML5 media elements Enabled Enable Automatic Image Resizing Enabled Play animations in webpages Enabled Play sounds in webpages Enabled Show image download placeholders Disabled Show pictures Enabled Security Allow active content from CDs to run on My Computer Disabled Allow active content to run in files on My Computer Disabled Always send Do Not Track header Disabled Allow software to run or install even if the signature is invalid Disabled Block unsecured images with other mixed content Disabled Check for publisher's certificate revocation Enabled Check for server certificate revocation (requires restart) Enabled Check for signatures on downloaded programs Enabled Do not save encrypted pages to disk Disabled Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed Disabled Enable memory protection to help mitigate online attacks Disabled Enable DOM Storage Enabled Enable Enhanced Protected Mode Disabled Enable Integrated Windows Authentication (requires restart) Enabled Enable native XMLHTTP support Enabled Enable SmartScreen Filter Enabled Use SSL 2.0 Disabled Use SSL 3.0 Disabled Use TLS 1.0 Enabled Use TLS 1.1 Enabled Use TLS 1.2 Enabled Warn about certificate address mismatch Enabled Warn if changing between secure and not secure mode Disabled Warn if POST submittal is redirected to a zone that does not permit posts Enabled Again, I don't know which one of those specifically changed it, but I have deployed those settings above (and changed nothing else in the policy, or any other policy) and it started working for our users.

We never managed to do this. You need layer 7 filtering, which is apparently something that our Smoothie can do, though it requires an extra license. Our Ruckus ZoneDirector also has an option to do Layer 7 filtering, however it's apparently not recommended to do it at that level (and should be done at the filtering/firewall level) and also can have a big hit on that device's performance.

One problem with using OneDrive is that there's a 10GB max file size limit. We use Google for our cloud backups - it's free for education, unlimited storage, including max file size limits of 5TB (though there is a 750GB download limit, where you get throttled if you reach than that in a 24 hour period). Sure, it doesn't incorporate into VEEAM or anything, but we use RClone to sync our synthetic full backup files

As Arthur said, Chrome and now Edge (Chromium) can have their extensions pushed out and enforced by the supplied GPOs. The original edge does support extensions and they can be enabled via GPO - they cannot be enabled/enforced by default, meaning that they can be enabled/disabled by the user. Impero for example have an extension available for the original Edge and I've pushed that via GPO, but there is no way whatsoever to force it to be enabled.

Turns out I can't use the SMART Admin Portal. You need to have a current active license or an expired but more recent license. 11.4 is simply too old and not a valid license for the Admin Portal.

Unfortunately the only key we have is for 11.4, which 19.0 does not accept as a valid license key.

Unfortauntely "disabled"="true" is the default setting for us.

It's a beast of a solution and can do a whole varierty of things, but does come at a cost and a lot of time for installation and learning, so it's worth bearing that in mind!

Do you have SCCM? If so, it might be worth looking at SCEP as the extra licenses for it are relatively cheap.

Yeah, though these types of electric oil radiators often come with timer functionality, so at least they can be scheduled for better efficiency.

A friend of mine rents a place where the landlord (for some crazy reason) ripped out all of the central heating and replaced them with electric radiators. They're absolutely pathetic and one issue with normal electric heaters is that they don't retain heat - so when they turn off, they go cold very quickly. Whereas a conventional central heating system will heat water/oil, which takes time to lose heat when turned off...meaning it outputs heat for longer. So with that in mind, they bought this De'Longhi Dragon 4 TRD40820T Oil Filled Radiator. I have to say, it does work better than I expected. I'd also recommend hanging some materials on the walls, maybe some carpet or even cheap/old curtains because you'll probably find that the bricks will be terrible insulators and you'll lose a lot of heat through them.

Have you thought about looking at refurbs? We purchased quite a few ex-business HP EliteBook 2570p laptops a couple of years ago and they were second hand then. i5 processors, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSDs and extended life batteries (which have actually degraded quite badly and don't last too long, though replacements are still available)...but for £165 a piece, they're still going very strong and extremely responsive, especially given that they are 2012 models!

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this in Chrome? I've been monitoring our bandwith and noticed that machines will periodically pull massive amounts of data for a brief amount of time, somewhere in the region of 160Mbps each, on our 200Mbps line. I've tracked it back to Chrome, specifically when the application launches (may be first use at logon). I don't know exactly what's causing Chrome (78.0.3904.70). It is the enterprise version, with updates disabled and the only extension deployed is Impero.

We're trying to figure out what caused our Wi-Fi to slow down to <1Mb and to the point that pages don't load. Compared to our wired clients at the same time were reporting speeds of ~180Mbps. We have a Ruckus ZoneDirector 1200 with 25 R500 APs. The ZD and APs are all spec'd for b/g/n/ac. The speeds have improved and now reporting in the region of 50-90Mbps on both a wireless N desktop and a wireless AC laptop. However despite that, some news pages on BBC or MSN are taking ~19 seconds to load (despite being mainly text with few images). Loading news articles from the same sites on wired devices is instant. I have installed the Ruckus SpeedFlex app on my phone and done a speed test to the ZD, which reported 75Mbps. We have also disabled main BYOD VLAN, leaving our RADIUS VLAN for AD clients and our VLAN for iPads. We dropped from ~200 connected devices to 63, of which 50 of them are iPads. If someone else has a 200Mbps line and a Ruckus ZoneDirector, could you do a speed test from a wireless N device and let me know what your real world speeds are? If you don't have the same line speed, but do have a Ruckus ZoneDirector, would you be able to install the SpeedFlex app and let me know what speeds it reports? (You need to change the configuration and enter the IP of the ZD in the destination IP)

We use Salamander to manage our accounts, so when they're marked as leavers in AD, their accounts are automatically disabled and archived. We very rarely get requests to retrieve data for previous students.

If you're using the local version of Spiceworks, you can only have one instance per server. Have you considered using the Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk? I migrated to this a couple of years ago and it's been great. Sure, it's not as powerful as the server version, but it's free and removes a server from our setup. The only thing you need to install on your local server is the AD authentication plug-in. You can only have one plug-in per server, so you can create a second free cloud help desk, which uses another authentication plug-in that you install on a separate server. https://community.spiceworks.com/support/help-desk-cloud-edition/start

I believe the upload limit is 750GB and the download limit 9-10TB, both are for a 24-hour period. The University of Utah have a documentation on it for their usecase. https://www.chpc.utah.edu/documentation/software/rclone.php Yeah. As I've just mentioned, the 750GB is upload only and not download. At the time of pulling the data to fully restore your server infrastructure, you're going to be limited by your download speed. Then like you said, you can prioritise which servers to restore first and download another whilst it's restoring.