theeggmaster

Office 365 will only need you to verify that you own the domain. I have O365 Directory Sync pulling the users from AD up to O365 through a one-way sync. Passwords are their AD passwords, so I don't have to manage that either. I did have to do a bulk update of email addresses, but I just used BulkADUsers from WiseSoft to do that (free).

We use GAFE, but I've also got Office 365 set up to use the same domain (mainly to give staff and students access to download Office) with identical looking email addresses. Email delivery will be down to where your MX records on your domain direct your emails to. Ours only send mail to GAFE, meaning nothing is ever sent to Office 365. I imagine if you set up a GAFE account but didn't change your MX records, then nothing would be affected.

I've also got my eye on Rise Vision. Haven't actually used it, but if we get asked for more complex signage than we've got, I'll dig a bit deeper.

We've probably got 10 that you can borrow. VGA only, I'm afraid. We're based in North Tyneside.

I'm currently running some Chromebooks with Google's Chrome Sign Builder for our digital signage. The Chrome devices will have to be managed as part of a Google Apps domain (£19 per device). We've had a few Chromebooks with damaged screens, so rather than throw them out, I just used the HDMI out to output to the various screens. If I need any more, I'll use Chromebits. All of the configuration is done through the web browser. Anything can be scheduled as long as it is available on the Internet. We run a YouTube playlist with events that have happened in school, and I just change the schedule if we have open evenings etc.

Could you install VNC onto each Rasp Pi, and then access them from the PC's? That way you wouldn't need the monitors plugged into the Pi.

I have a Pebble Kickstarter edition, and I love the original Pebbles. I think they're down to around £50 now. They've just been updated to the new Pebble Time interface, which is great. Doesn't do heartrate monitoring, but I find that having physical buttons is more useful than a touchscreen for me. I use it a lot for cycling and being able to change music tracks/volume with gloves on.

I'm watching with interest because our new school was supposed to be getting a Meru wireless network next year, but due to the buyout by Fortinet, they switched over to Aerohive instead in case Fortinet didn't keep the current Meru focus.

Yes, I'm watching what they do next with Meru. It's an interesting acquisition and they're clearly trying to improve on the Secure Wireless LAN that is mentioned above. It may also be a response to Cisco's acquisition of Meraki.

Thanks for this. Last year I stayed at the Holiday Inn near King's Cross, which gave me decent access to the train home, and I could manage the Tube/DLR from there. I was just wondering if anyone had any local knowledge that might be any better than me just Googling places. It would be nice to get out for a meal, rather than staying in the hotel. I was warned that the nightlife at the Docklands wasn't the best.

I'm by no means a Nagios expert, but I set up NagiosPi on a Raspberry Pi, and used NConf on there to set up pings on VM hosts, switches etc. Are you using NConf, or just Nagios Core?

I'm going down on the Friday, staying overnight and going to BETT on Saturday. I'm travelling down from Newcastle, so if anyone has any good (reasonably priced) hotel recommendations with good transport to BETT, I'd very much appreciate some advice.

Thanks for that. I knew there would be a way!

This setting in particular.

I wrote ours in line with the school's raising achievement plan. That way I could see what the school's aims were overall and could plan the IT spending to enable this. Over the past 3 years we've completely changed the way our IT works, but it was always with teaching and learning outcomes in mind.

These ones: https://dl.google.com/dl/edgedl/chrome/policy/policy_templates.zip (From https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/187202?hl=en)

We had this issue, but it took over a year to solve. Our external IP address changed and so Google thought we were making too many requests and basically shut down our searches until the requests died down. The thing that fixed it for me was when I finally got a contact at Google Search, and they said that the GPO that is provided doesn't have the correct search string in, so each search was making too many requests. Multiply that by the number of machines accessing Google, and it was in the thousands! If anyone's interested, we replaced: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q={searchTerms}&hl=en&gl=uk with http://pastebin.com/zJwD1kmc (using pastebin because Edugeek's post editor is changing some characters to smileys)

Yay, socks! Thanks very much.

We have a load of Acer C720 and C730's. Great battery life and portability. The XMA/Viglen Chromebook is good value and has a 3 year warranty - Chromebook. We're offering these, the Asus Flip and the HP 14 on our Chromebook leasing scheme.

I've never found a 100% 'safe' way of allowing users to run compiled executable files without investment in separate systems, which is why I always try and find out what the course requires so I can give some advice about what to use. We're currently looking at Python/Scratch which can be done either online or on a Raspberry Pi (connecting to PiNet where everything is saved to the PiNet server), or the educational version of GameMaker Studio, where compiled applications run within the editor.

So even though I suggested cable tying the USB cables to the chassis above, I actually don't do this at our school. If the students aren't breaking anything, then I've learned to get over the fact that plugging them into the front makes no sense. I then just spend 30 minutes putting it back in order during holidays. Any damage gets referred to their Head of Year to pursue. Most of the time our teachers are static in their rooms, so they tend to look after their equipment. Shared rooms always get more damage.

Have you got all of the exceptions listed here in your proxy?

The kids do that at my school too. If there is no option in the BIOS, then you could look at removing the front panel from the motherboard. This may also switch off any power buttons, however. It would also mean that they can't use the front USB ports for their memory sticks. Why not cable tie the keyboard and mouse cables to somewhere at the back of the PC (padlock hole, depending on model)? That way the case is secured and the cables have to be at the back.

Yes, I used them a couple of years ago when I was doing a network refresh. Bought a number of HP ProCurve Gig switches, and some UPS batteries. No problems with them whatsoever.

I've been buying universal ones as replacements so that they can be re-used when the projectors change. The last round of Panasonic remotes were about the size of a credit card and really flimsy. The teachers broke the 'freeze' button in about a month. Link to remotes