MartinT

I have experience of both Android Auto and running Waze natively. It's tempting to think of the former as being ideal, but after trying it this way, I stopped. The on-screen representation of the phone view was not ideal and it makes the phone do all the work, using the Android screen as a dumb mirror. I now just tether the phone to provide an internet connection. Waze, Spotify, Radio Paradise etc. all run natively on the Android screen and are presented far better than a mirrored view optimised for the phone. Phone/Teams/WhatsApp calls still integrate perfectly into the car's hands-free audio and microphone connection and display nicely on the screen. I can still answer using the steering wheel controls, which integrate using an App called WheelKey with the Eonon.

I bought an Eonon on eBay a couple of years ago and it's been a great Android head unit. This one is 4-core but all the newer ones are 8-core. It runs Waze perfectly, as well as internet radio. I did require a harness adapter (cheap on eBay).

We use Barracuda O365 backup for Exchange, SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive. I can recommend it and it has helped us restore lost (deleted) files on a couple of occasions.

Your data retention policy will specify the length of time to keep their mailbox contents. In our case, we put them into Exchange Litigation Hold as best practice, held for the appropriate time as specified. If they are SMT, then the length of time held is extended for safeguarding and continuity reasons.

I'm reading Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. A strange time travel SF novel where the future seems faintly Victorian.

The Teclast is a good cheapie with decent performance. Beware, though, that it doesn't seem to have any OS updates, or at least I haven't received any in the 12 months I've had mine (despite there being an OTA app for checking). I have just bought a Samsung S7 FE and that is quite the best Android tablet I've ever used, brilliant display and very swift. It rivals my Surface Pro 7 for sheer usability.

W11 runs well but I've not tried RSAT AD tools on one yet. There is also the question of running something different from the users. I often send screenshots and helpsheets to users to help with tasks and that's not going to work with a different OS.

Really enjoying the Finnish Scandi noir Bordertown. Definitely pulls you in.

PRTG in a VM works well for us.

Attaching files as Share Links to an Outlook e-mail message seems to be very inconsistent in that sometimes a Share link is offered and other times it isn't. Things we have ensured: - All files are Office files and are in the cloud (OneDrive, Teams or SharePoint) - Options | Attachment options | Always share them as links enabled We've even tried opening the file just before using Insert | Attach file so that it appears at the top of the list, but that isn't consistent either. Are we missing something or is it always inconsistent and we have to live with it? We are using up to date Office 365 A3 with Windows 10 21H1.

It looks like we can proceed with just the three PowerBI Pro licences for the data team, publishing the dashboards to a workspace. The teachers should be able to get by with the PowerBI mobile app on their iPads and Surfaces. We're still testing to make sure this works properly as some of us invoked the Pro trial period.

Are they on the same SSID and VLAN as the PCs?

Agreed, the James SA Corey (a nom de plume for two authors, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) books are excellent. I, too, have been reading SF all my life

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

We are looking for a new supplier that is able to: 1) supply bulk iPads for school use 2) supply iPad bundles to parents via a suitable portal We have a fleet of 350 school-owned iPads and about 1000 parent-owned iPads. Can anyone recommend a vendor we should talk to?

It can be helpful not to tick all the reports, forcing you into the generating loop, but instead ticking just one at a time, previewing, then ticking the next etc. The issue doesn't happen with Word 365.

It's quite poor, unfortunately, but could have been great. I do like Katee Sackhoff, but the script and acting are so over-the-top melodramatic. This is supposed to be a highly trained mission team but they all appear to be highly dysfunctional. It's typical of Hollywood's idea of good SF - put some needless drama and flawed characters into it when the setting itself is sufficiently dramatic. It bears no comparison with the superb The Expanse, which shows how good SF should be written.

We were under the impression that we could buy PBI Pro licences for the creators of the dashboards and teachers could use the basic PowerBI mobile app to view them. This seems not to be the case with 'licence required' warnings. How exactly does PBI licencing work? I certainly don't want to be buying Pro licences for all teachers, which would become prohibitively expensive.

My Windows 11 PC at home (with AMD Ryzen 5 6-core) has been remarkably stable and very fast. Using it for remote admin as well as general Office 365 and Adobe stuff. It's important to get the cumulative updates in as the release version has been heavily patched, but right now it's working fine. I have a test W11 workstation in VMware here at work, and that seems ok with domain login and general testing. Our bigger problem is rotating out old machines from the fleet and performing a lot of BIOS updates.

Yesterday we had a few problems with hung connections but nowhere near as bad as on Wednesday. We stuck resolutely with the HTML delivery method since the SecureClient is a pile of poo. As for feedback, I've already sent BTL a rocket in the feedback request and our Exams Officer has written two full pages, with screenshots, in the special considerations form. All done now, 15 students managed to complete their tests.

We've had horrible problems since the start at 09:00 today and only really got the students re-started at around 11:50. Using the HTML delivery method, but the biggest problem was the Invigilator console, which broke and wouldn't allow us to Resume students that were Paused for a break. Surpass support have only provided boilerplate responses which haven't helped at all. Meanwhile, we're trying to get the SecureClient installed for tomorrow but we end up in a loop of update/restart/needs update again. Our Invigilator console still shows one student disconnected even though she's ongoing with the exam. What a sh*tshow. Very stressed students, we feel for them. Two of us in IT have been overseeing the whole thing as we dare not just leave the Exams Officer and invigilators alone as it's playing up so badly.

I've been watching Black Spot (Zone Blanche), a French dark thriller, on Netflix. They have their own take on 'Scandi-noir' style drama, but it's well done and has moments of genuine creepiness.

It would have been a tragedy had they not. After Arrival, Blade Runner 2049 and, now, Dune, Villeneuve is the new SF master.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. A different flavour of SF for me, starts well.

It's definitely there.