Koldov

Just need to work out what these bad boys are rated at now somehow (1/4" mono jack connection)... ...although they are currently powered by a Yamaha AX-470 which is rated at: Power output: 65 watts per channel into 8Ω (stereo)

Honestly I'm tempted to just go for a consumer amp unit (we already have a couple of large (ish) speakers that I could cable to)... https://www.richersounds.com/aiwa-amu-120bt-black.html Change my mind...

Yes** Next question...? **No, not really, but if you work in an under funded rural Junior School, it might as well be!

Unfortunately, it's a bit of the usual really.... They don't know what they want, I don't know what they want... The possibility of wireless microphones has now been added into the mix by an excitable teacher who saw us discussing speaker placement in the hall... and 'what about CDs?' has reared its ugly head... EDIT: I think best not get too excited, it's a small school with an equally small budget and (luckily) small ambitions regarding putting on a full production... Is there anyway to source an amp that has lots of potential to have things added to it at later stages (build as you go), Audio and Visual not really being my thing in case you haven't guessed. But something that can run a couple of speakers, with inputs for computers/laptops, iPads, whatever anyone else wants to plug in... and then later can have a small mixer or something to power wireless mics...?

I know this request is ridiculous even before I post it but... The Headteacher has just asked me to look at a 'sound system' for our hall, the hall isn't massive just average 'Primary School' size. He hasn't given me a budget and he hasn't given me any idea of what he wants this 'sound system' to actually play (do I bother with CDs?), so I guess I am not really looking for a full mixing desk/wireless mic capable/speakers on stands job, but if anyone has had a similar generic request for a small hall, please let me know what you ended up with and why...

Thanks, I can't see the offending 'Year Group' in the Pastoral Structure and it doesn't look like next year has been set-up in 'Admissions'... It isn't a pre-defined report but I can't see any way to check if it has any legacy aspects (or was created using a pre-defined report and 'saved as' a new report) but I'll check with our SIMS user when they are back in tomorrow.

I'm going to presume that if SmallPDF was previously linked to for unlocking, is it any safer locking it using SmallPDF...?

Looks like a hell of mess... So the initial GPO was for 'WSUS' and changed to 'NO WSUS ITS BROKEN'...? How do the clients now get Windows Updates? GPO 'controlled' but essentially over the internet from Microsoft? Yes, the computer seems to at some point (possibly on 09/03/2022 - 18:10) been able to contact Windows Update when not controlled by the GPO and bypassed what you had set for 'no drivers' (as the screenshot shows), therefore I presume it bypassed pretty much everything else in your GPO somehow? If the computer has already contacted Microsoft for its Windows Updates, the updates are possibly already (queued on the machine waiting to download) or downloaded waiting to install (possibly something in the Software Distribution Folder). As said, removing the button now is lock/stable door/horse... and I don't think it will stop the computer looking for updates, just that the user can't manually check (could be wrong though). Can you (and advise everyone else) just click 'Stay on Windows 10 for now' while you work on the issue? Like others have said Windows 11 appears to be more like a feature update, so if you didn't have a way of specifically blocking it, it might just behave like any other update.

If you can copy them to an external drive, you can verify their integrity on another computer and if you can access them, you have them as a back-up copy... job done, no?

OK, not really a SIMS user so I'm a bit lost! Our receptionist called me because a report she uses had started returning zero results (nothing complicated, just names and addresses for Year 5 pupils). I looked at the report and it seemed to be fine, so I started looking at each individual part. When I got to 'Apply Filter' I saw they had chosen 'Student where Year Group is one of' and selected 'Year 5' from the options that SIMS returns, so I thought I'd see if I could see anything wrong with that, ticked Year 5, previewed the report and it came out fine.... So I closed the report and get her to run it.... NO RESULTS!!! Now, I've gone back into the report and when I get to the 'filter' part it now shows me these options... ...scroll down and I can see it has added a new option 'Year 5' (with an extra space) and ticked it... this happened every time we changed it back and ran the report. Anyway, we fixed it by changing the Year Group back and saving the report under a new name, but if anyone knows why this has happened or more importantly where SIMS gets the list of Year groups to populate the options for the filter, I'd like to know!

I think it appears Adobe do it for free? https://www.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/online/password-protect-pdf.html EDIT: How did I not know about this...? EDIT 2: Didn't read the bit about 'must be locally installed software'... still... good to know.

Well, that seems to have fixed it! Many thanks @eddyc I'll have to see if it 'auto-downloads' the others tonight...

Well, that's weird... I've logged in tonight to deploy the updates only to find they aren't even downloaded into SOLUS (they are set to auto download). Anyway, I set them to download within SOLUS and waited... and waited... as they are only a few kb I was expecting it to be done within seconds... but it just didn't download anything. In the end I downloaded them chose the 'Download' tab > 'View in browser' downloaded them manually into a folder and imported them, anyone else seeing this behaviour?

Just a couple of observations (I am NOT a decorator)... From the few skirting boards I have ever removed, finished plaster rarely goes right down to the floor. I don't think (as has been said) that you 'need' to fill the gap with anything, plaster is just for aesthetics really (and some small amount of insulation and cable covering I guess). It may even benefit you having a gap there if you want to run cables (in some form of trunking) behind the skirting, or if the floor ever gets flooded it won't seep up the wall...

Just to clarify, the confusion about which patch to deploy (or not) stems from the fact that we don't have any sort of MIS Manager/Data Manager and I don't get time to read every single 'Knowledgebase Article' for every patch, we don't use about 90% of what SIMS is capable of and I've very wary about introducing issues by patching parts of the system we don't need. For example: "Please note that we are investigating a case where it appears that application of Fileset 2101 has removed our solution for issue vii below, so that the Support Unit link is missing from the communications box until the Website has been entered in the Support Unit Details panel of Focus | School | School Details. With the above in mind, we recommend that this consolidated database patch is applied after Workstation Patch 2 has been applied and Fileset 2101 has been imported." So, I could have caused an issue by doing them in the wrong order (not that I believe we use the 'Support Unit' but I don't know for sure)... Also things like this: Am I going mad or does an earlier version of SOLUS have a later version number and why were they released to us on the same day (we already had 3.12.50 at version 1.0.152.1 on 19/11/2018)...?

Well, it looks like SOLUS 3 has multiple patches available to patch/fix various issues as usual... I got an email from our admin asking me to patch SIMS as they can't import a fileset and therefore run the census without it. Bit strange I thought as I've never had to do a patch for a fileset import, they've obviously done something wrong, but as the ESS support site says: "Please note that that no filesets for the SIMS Spring Release 2022 can be imported until Consolidated Workstation Patch 2, or above, for the SIMS Spring Release 2022 has been applied." I've never really done any intermediate patches for SIMS/FMS unless we had a particular issue that it fixes, it made me wonder if I should be just hitting deploy on everything that pops up, so I'd like to ask what your patch management strategy for SIMS is? Also, I'm sometimes a little confused by SOLUS as to what actually applies to us, does this system only deliver updates to SOLUS that are needed by each individual school...?

Not sure if this should go in here, Security, Windows 10, Data Protection or Wireless Networks... Last thing Friday I just happened to flick through the Cisco Meraki page and saw a teacher laptop had connected during the school day... Not unusual I hear you say... however our Meraki doesn't get through the filtering and so only connects outside of school (as they sometimes take their laptops home or to other schools/meetings)... but the thing is I know this teacher was at school all day! Looking a bit deeper, I find an SSID in the 'Preferred SSIDs' list called 'TEACHER X iPHONE' and there is also another called 'ANDROIDAP1234' in the list as well. Now, they could always have done this at home or elsewhere if they had no network/Wi-Fi, but looking at the connection log I can see the iPhone connected at the time in question. I'm obviously going to have to speak to the Headteacher about this as it is against policy and although I am concerned about Network Security (however, they could always pick up a nasty at home), there is also a Safeguarding aspect (which is where I think my strongest argument will be). I guess I am going to have to rely on the soft 'against policy' quiet word from the Headteacher approach, but I just want to double check there is no hard 'SYSTEM/GPO' approach to this other than to block all other SSIDs somehow (which I know is not going to be acceptable)...?

Interesting concept... I can't tell you how many evenings the OH and I have sat flicking through all our subscription services and found nothing we both want to watch (and we have Virgin/Netflix/Disney and Now to choose from)... Do any streaming providers have any issue with this behaviour (like a proper services provider like Virgin, where you can't cancel and then become a new customer to get a good deal)? Any 'gotchas' to watch out for like the Fire stick or Now dongle being tied to an account...?

I'm still a bit miffed by something like this in Windows 10! I always forget when I go to do something in 'Settings' whilst signed on as admin and it tells me I don't have 'sufficient privileges'... however if I find the equivalent item in 'Control Panel' or even search for the actual file and run it... no problem!

Which user is it running under, do you have the 'Do Not Store Password' option ticked (and does the task even have to run as a 'user', I have this task set to 'SYSTEM')?

As above, I don't think you can have a task set to run 'only when a user is logged in' and then expect it to run when it's 'logged off'... I remember when I first started I used to leave the server logged in and just locked as I was worried things wouldn't run when I was logged off!

Possibly not a SIMS issue as such (apart from the out of date Capita cert). What has the user got in the Macro settings for Excel (and check the setting of an unaffected user)? Is the user in a different OU that might have Macro settings pushed by GPO (there's a few)? Same Office version etc...?

I think our last class set for renewal is still on 12.5.5 so hopefully will just scrape in! I've never used anything like this before, does anyone know what is actually involved? I'm hoping to just deploy the app and not hear from the teacher about it again... Or is there going to be a lot of we need to save these files somewhere, we need to print these images/codes, we need to share something with/access the other iPads or we need to access these websites...

Or alternatively any other (free) AR app for the iPad that is just as good (or even better/easier)...?

Just been asked to put this on our iPads, apparently so the children can run around the school with their iPads looking for dinosaurs.... what could go wrong? Looking for anyone with any experience in this app for opinions, ease of set-up and creating whatever (can a teacher do it)...?