Oaktech

Our old WEEE provider had it written into their Ts&Cs that if the device or a part of it was offered for resale all identifying marks would be removed or permanently obscured. One of the reasons we used them.

I tend to buy GP in bulk from our local security suppliers - they undercut pretty much everyone!

Fine here too - 3 seperate logins all working.

Edict from SLT - 1 hour for classroom PCs. PPA and Laptops (we are all desktops in classrooms) 10 minutes.

You need to get the code read otherwise we're just guessing - if you've got an EML light on pretty much any old code reader off ebay will get you the info out. If you lived closer I'd come read it for you, I've got the Forscan specialist software.

We've migrated away from Meraki free, Apple Configurator & Mosyle free recently. One school uses Intune for IOS and my other 2 uses Google MDM alongside our android fleet, it's only very basic restrictions/customisations/app installs for IOS as they are all staff devices. There are discussions around moving all our devices to Intune from Google, but nobody quite has the stomach for it. It's hundreds and hundreds of android devices between the class sets, special devices, kiosks, and wider school community devices!

Sys admin of the year!

Only available for intune managed devices. Browser access everywhere else, with 2fa.

One of my colleagues has set up a thing to collect the error log of delprof, do a takeown on every error and use it as a input to delete the error keys. I just leave it, so far it has not caused me an issue.

It's not you. The newest version is awful. I have 7 outstanding tickets with Smart currently. * Frequent crashes without an obvious cause * Crashing on save to OneDrive - seems to be worse for larger files (Workaround: save to downloads and then move) * Crashing using snipping tool on windows 11 (Workaround: using Smart capture Toolbar) * Crashing/Hanging on connection to dock if Notebook window is foreground (hangs) or full screen (crashes) (Workaround: minimise to taskbar before connection) * Not responding to app scaling so inking is in the wrong place when connecting to board (Workaround: reset scaling or do not connect with Notebook open) * Notebook only taking unacceptable time - up to several minutes - to become touch reactive after plugging a genuine SMART board in. * Smart Ink opening multiple copies when connecting/reconnecting different models of SMART board (we run 4065, MX, MX-V2, GX & GX-V2) - can make the machine virtually unusable unless all instances are set to the same function - close from task manager works. And a seperate one: * GX V2 Boards make windows report 'too many USB hubs' using a single active USB extender

The lack of alternative coverage was why we went for it for our event - we were bringing hundreds of extra people into a rural location where only EE had any 4g coverage and it was a single mast. We approached them and they told us that they would not warrant it's performance.

I used it for an event on a 4 week mini contract through bytesdigital last summer and it was pretty good - we used it in conjunction with a fairly large (80 APs) Unifi mesh system for staff systems and exhibitors. We got a consistent 80/50 connection with around 20-40ms latency which was fine for ticketing systems, card transactions and general internet. We did have to restrict a bit to stop people from trying to stream sports! We've been told that EE/3/Vodafone will all have 5g coverage of the site by August, so we're looking at renting a Mushroom bonding appliance instead.

There's nothing wrong with the bracket - I suspect the bracket is by Sahara. I can see how it's fixed up- I've seen this type of room before. The girder is 2 L sections and there is piece of M10 stud between the 2 L sections clamping the strut to the girder. From what I can see, it should be fine, but it would be better with a pair of beam clamps either side of the L to affix the strut. If it has to be like that it should be a thick plate washer and a nyloc to stop it possibly vibrating loose. I'd make a note to examine that every year minimum.

As an addition to the above... Don't keep calling me, if I want something, I'll call you. I'm not averse to a KiT email every so often, or a product bulletin, but I don't want them spamming everyone who might have a budget. I'm naming no names, but I got a quote from a new supplier before christmas, which was fine, good price and responsive sales team. What wasn't fine was them then visiting the school website, scraping the details of every senior and middle lead and from the pattern of my email address extrapolated their emails and spammed them every other day with click bait-y "Do you know your telephones might stop working next year", "Are you ready for the 2025 windows 10 switch-off", "Your computer isn't fully protected get better protection with Malwarebytes Enterprise" until I blocked their domain. I know they extrapolated from the website because one of our staff is known by a different name internally which makes their email differ from the normal pattern. Spammy company sent it to them it with the normal pattern and I got a postmaster bounce notification.

Worth noting that Netac do a USB stick with a switch on it that makes it identify to bios and windows as a usb fdd drive...

There are very few needs that can be accomodated regardless of cost! Some of what I do with requests for $Thing is not for immediate purchse, it's to be included in a bid for budget. In an ideal world it should always run as below, but we know that isn't true. Our financial year is based on the academic year rather than the financial, so for us, budget bids are submitted in June for approval or revision in July. Some projects are then approved for the summer and paid for in september when the new money arrives, some are only begun in september and staff are asked to arrange their planning acordingly if $Thing is not going to be purchased and ready until spring term. It's worth also mentioning that my finance dept allow projects to borrow from other budgets with the budget holders knowledge if the project documents show relevant benefits. Recent example: A software suite primarily fulfills requirements of the ICT curriculum - coding, image manipulation, animation, blogging etc but is several hundred pounds out of budget for ICT. We are able to show a cross curricular benefit to Maths and Science as the software allows for statistics, graphing, data analysis etc. The SLT members doing the validation will speak to various departmental or subject leads to decide if there is a curriculum requirement to be filled and planning can be adapted to use those facilities. Mostly with agreement, budget can be acquired from other departments.

That's fair, but much of that is what the pro-forma details and is the grounds for the approval from a member of senior curriculum staff. The example was recent and simple. There have been ocasions where following discussion with me and filling in the proforma has led to a much wider discussion around how we do $OtherThing stimulated by someone in SLT who has a much wider overview than I, or the requesting member of staff. I've asked if I can share our pro-forma but I haven't heard back yet, and I'm going to have to debrand it quite hard!

Normally I wouldn't break the sanctity of read-only-friday, but this isn't a change, it's 'just' a reboot

I wouldn't wait until holidays, I'd do it on a Friday evening about 5pm and give myself the whole weekend to fix it if it goes to hell...

They're all in one and really very sturdy. We've got about 120 of them and we've only had 1 failure in 2 years and that was someone shutting a cable in a very tight fitting door and snipping the cable.

Staff meet with me in the first instance to ensure $Thing cannot be done with anything pre-existing, and if it can't, I check $Thing out to ensure that it is technically feasible and is compliant with our various obligations (like GDPR). Staff are then invited to draw up a business case on a pro-forma word doc. They have to attach medium term planning to support how they are going to use $Thing, and for how long. The Business case goes to SLT, and SLT shoot me an email to ensure I have actually said that it can't be done with anything pre-existing, and then it gets approved or denied. About half the things that staff meet with me for can be at least partially done with something we already have - for example making a proposal viable by installing an app from playstore on our existing chromebook fleet to support 15 data loggers instead of also requesting 15 £250 tablets to support the dataloggers, because they didn't know the Chromebooks had bluetooth. SLT approved 15 dataloggers, but would not have approved the additional tablets. Everyone wins & I don't have to set up yet another MDM!

You may have a 'commit'ment issue? Worth noting that for some reason one of my sites has an issue where if you lose contact with DHCP. the DHCP server needs to be restarted before the Wifi starts being able to do DHCP stuff again. This may be a DHCP server issue as much as anything else, because the issue for us has persisted across a change from Meru wireless and HP switching through to all Unifi wifi and switching. Might be worth a look though.

I've managed to drag the info out of our purchasing dept... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Headfoams-HF-W100-Kids-Wired-Headphones-Blue/dp/B0752VM1YH They're called HeadFoamz

Wer're just looking into the Asus Flip

We've used the ClipChamp website signed in with a school Google account