jmak

Haze [emoji450][emoji450]

A door that closes.

More agreement. The only caveat I'd add is that it's often almost essential for someone supporting the systems to have a very good idea of what's actually required so that they can ask the right questions. I've had both the "don't worry, we don't need to do anything" response when there's something that's a legal requirement and the "engage full panic mode, fix this tonight at the expense of everything else and spend whatever you want" when there was no need to do anything at all. Having a decent understanding of the requirements can also help with selecting the best solution to achieve what is required by the people making the decision and the regulations.

Wrong (tree)

Underground

If you work in education, you should be able to get access to the Microsoft Imagine Academy for free: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/education/imagine-academy/default.aspx Not 100% on what licences are free, but you used to be able to get all operating systems with full licences. You can also get Azure trials and deploy servers for free. I've just subscribed to a Microsoft 365 Business Basic account at my own expense (£3.80/month) so that I can play with all the settings in the admin console without any chance of breaking anything that's user affecting - also seemed like a cheap way of getting 1TB cloud storage.

Broth..

After my post above saying I should think of moving from Lastpass, looks like I've got an incentive now. I don't think it's worth $3/month https://www.theverge.com/22285499/password-manager-lastpass-free-bitwarden-zoho

No reason it wouldn't work, but sounds like something extra to manage to me. Personally I'd go with either SharePoint online or Google sites depending on whether you're a Google or Microsoft organisation. Failing that, create a controlled access staff and/or student area on your external website and just have a page which links to the documents. The other option I'd look at is including it with your helpdesk - I used to use Spiceworks online and it had the option to add documents to a knowledgebase. I'd guess others have similar.

I put something like that together. While it didn't stop many enquiries, when combined with a helpdesk it did make it quicker to respond. I arranged it as a SharePoint site so that the intrepid could theoretically find their own solutions. I used to send a link to the "how to" in the ticket response. That way if you update systems, people with a repeat problem could conceivably look back at their history and find up to date information.

The other thing to bear in mind is that you can't buy the Hikvision cameras direct anymore. They have a consumer range, but the decent ones lots of people here used to buy can only be bought through approved installers.

Or a Boxster for fun and a Leaf for every day. https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202012227338875?advertising-location=at_cars&transmission=Automatic&price-to=8500&postcode=W1a%201aa&model=BOXSTER&page=1&make=PORSCHE&include-delivery-option=on&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=New https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202009113590045?advertising-location=at_cars&transmission=Automatic&price-to=12000&postcode=W1a%201aa&sort=price-desc&page=1&price-from=10000&fuel-type=Electric&include-delivery-option=on&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=New

An electric one (this isn't @mavhc's 2nd account). For those miles, the only reasons not to on your budget are if you don't have a drive or have a fetish for the smell of petrol on your hands or you think you'd miss the social interaction of the weekly trip to the petrol station! Assuming that battle is lost here.... From the VAG group, Skodas make the most sense, but I'd say are definitely not the answer for you as they'll have the same gearbox as the Audi. Can you get a BMW 330e or 530e for that budget? Should be loads coming off company car schemes now and you'd do most of that 35 miles per day on electric if you can plug it in.

First reaction is there are loads of issues with that, starting with being able to insist that all pupils allow you to have video access to their home and in many cases their bedrooms. I'd be amazed if you can get past the child protection issues. After that, I'd say your biggest problem will be the ratio of invigilators to pupils; how many screens can an invigilator monitor effectively? My approach would be to restrict the time available (by releasing the question paper only at the start of the test and withdraw access to both the questions and the file being used for answers at the end of the allowed time. I'd make it an open book exam - if the questions are set with that in mind, you can still test knowledge - as a start restrict the time available so that pupils don't have time to look up the answers. It's possible to make it so that even if candidates look up the answers to reassure themselves, they have to know the content inside out. Realistically, mocks taken remotely aren't going to be possible to control in a way that replicates real exams. It should be possible to set something that will allow the school to create a representative distribution of pupils to award reasonably accurate grades. If the purpose is for pupils to practice sitting an exam in controlled conditions, it goes back to the mantra "the only person you're cheating is yourself". Not all problems need technical solutions...

@mikeprice did claim his keyboard had a virus earlier this week...

How long is your garden? I've just set up a PoE CCTV camera at the end of my garden. It's out of range of my WiFi and was cheaper than most trail cameras. PoE is supported up to 100m. Depends whether you're a grown up who can wait to go and retrieve the recording or an impatient child who wants the option of checking in live to see what's happening now! And also no batteries to charge or change.

It's Mike's thread, so hopefully he'll tolerate a slight and brief deviation from the topic [emoji57] Does anyone have any suggestions about how to login to an Xbox without typing on the on-screen keyboard? My Microsoft account is one of the few that has a rubbish password because of having to use an Xbox controller to enter it and out of all the accounts to have a short, memorable password and no 2fa, this seems like a particularly bad idea...

Might be looking again at Lastpass... I used to pay for the premium version as that was the only way to get cross device support (I know that cross device support means trusting someone else with your database, but that seems like a worthwhile trade off for me) but went back to the free account when they made it part of that. However, I've just read the reviews again and they've taken "Digital Inheritance" out of the free offering. If something happened to me, my family would really struggle to access everything needed to sort out my affairs without access to my password manager. Also recently started using Sophos Intercept X for Android - not sure how good it is, but previously didn't use anything on my phone and it's got to be better than that, hasn't it....

Lastpass can import via csv and Avast can export. With most of the options you could get a free version/trial and check the transfer works before you commit. I keep thinking about moving from Lastpass because of the LogMeIn issue but can't bring myself to pay the annual £39.99 for Dashlane. I haven't managed to persuade any of my family to use a password manager as they all think it's too complicated and that I'm paranoid. I have far fewer password difficulties than any of them. Another Windows Defender user here. In the past I used to swap most years based on the reviews, but I found all of them more intrusive and system heavy in the end. Defender didn't used to be good enough, but the reviews suggest that it's close now and hopefully with a bit of common sense from the user I'll be ok [emoji1696]

From our gatepost this morning - doesn't look like a normal hibernation spot...

In fairness the nasally administered flu vaccines that we organised for the infant age kids every year have always had pig products in them. Several Islamic faith leaders have made statements that people should get vaccinated against Covid even if the product contained porcine products - I can find the ones for UAE and Egypt. I thought I heard something similar from India earlier this week, but can't find it now. Also important to note that as you say, none of the approved vaccines contains porcine products.

Effort

Vector

Although you are required to get it updated if you move house which makes it more difficult to avoid getting a photo card licence. (Unlikely to be a problem if you never drive though...)

Gratuitous