pete

Depends on the status page layout, but a big enough monitor and Chrome or Firefox's split view in conjunction with "open previous windows and tabs on launch" may also work.

^ We found the Verkada kit was very sensitive to deoderant / body spray. Especially in the girls toilets. Whether that's overlap between flavouring compounds, I don't know (less likely to have something that tastes like Lynx Africa).

So, follow-up for anyone wondering. Finance had to do some legwork, but overall the secondary school migrations were straightforward. Like, suspiciously "it would be nice if something went a bit wrong because that's more reassuring" well, with only a handful of parent queries across two schools.

I've used Iron Mountain in the past ( https://www.ironmountain.com/en-id/services/document-scanning-and-digital-storage ) and they're very good. They are not cheap, however.

^ That stuff (description, dept, line manager, extension, office etc) is all very visible as soon as you sync to M365 and hover over a person or click on them. Can't remember how much Google Workspace sync off the top of my head, but there are some optional synced attributes from AD you can turn on.

I mean, back in the day that'd just get you the cheatsheet for Granny's Garden*. *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granny's_Garden

^ Basically that. They get a "you need to do X by Y" notification, with nagging and then you get the domain. Also, make sure you create [email protected] accounts for administering Apple School. You need an account that's not synced by Apple School if it goes sideways. Make sure any cert renewals are linked to the appleid.com account(s).

We've had Iiyama touchscreens for a while now (easily 4 years). Apparently anecdotally the Airplay option (via iiShare app on the TV) has been troublesome for staff trying to connect to the TVs for $indeterminate time (few months) and we've been trying to work out why. We know it did work without issue during install and at least in September 2025 it was working. We've made no changes in VLAN/switching/routing configs that would inhibiti connectivity during that time. Airplaying to an Apple TV works on all the devices below. I don't think it's the Airplay implementation on the tablets/laptops. TVs have an ethernet connection on the same VLAN as the devices using AirPlay. We're still in the testing phase but so far: iPad Air M3 = erratic behaviour when connecting via iiShare AirPlay. Rebooting the TV allows connection (and connect/disconnect cycles) but it isn't a long-term fix. iPad Gen 8 (base model) = One iPad (same firmware and age as the others) connects flawlessly every time. Four other other iPads only connects after the TV has been rebooted. Macbook Air M1 = erratic behaviour when connecting via iiShare AirPlay. Macbook Air M4 = erratic behaviour when connecting via iiShare AirPlay. All of the above can reliably connect if we use the EShare App's AirPlay functionality on the TV. Has anyone else come across this? cheers Pete

Danger of a misguided whistleblower running around all the local papers saying "Sigma at SchoolName puts admin credentials in the description fields of user accounts" though. We tend to use these https://canarytokens.org/nest/generate for honeypot-type activities.

Sure, if the organisation wanted to create a public record that they'd done the IT equivalent of posting credentials on a billboard outside Tesco and then acted surprised when someone tried them. Suspect it'd get dismissed though.

I had a "you realise most AD fields are visible to normal users, right?" conversation with a technical person while visiting a school that shall remain nameless (and wasn't a school we were responsible for). The problem I spotted there was "maybe don't save your unprofessional comments about the user in world-readable fields on the user account?".

https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/06/25/uk-schools-network-left-wide-open-for-invasion-student-found/5261567 ....or it's a made up story/exaggeration.

One of our schools is considering letting Y13 students who have no more lessons to finish their school day from lunchtime onwards (assuming no lessons in the afternoon). If any of you do this, how do you easily distinguish between "I intend to finish my school day and leave" and "I have a free afternoon, but I intend to come back after lunch to do $whatever in school"? Our concern is making sure we know who's "missing" (and we need to search for). Do students register "I'm going out to lunch" and "I don't intend to return" via different methods? Or can they do both via the same method? What're you using? Is it decent from a student/attendance officer point-of-view? The school has Bromcom and LiveRegister for Y12/Y13 "out to lunch/back from lunch/PM reg if it's between ~13:50 and 14:10", but it's not flexible enough to offer a "do you intend to return?" option.

^ I'll second the 3M ones, and the assertion that people will want them removed before long, especially if they're running dual monitors. We nearly always end up rearranging offices so monitors can't be viewed from the doorway / windows (window film) or restricting access to the office as the long-term solution.

And a few more: Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun by Keza MacDonald. If you liked the Iwata Asks interview series it's worth a read. The Rise: A Short Story - Ian Rankin. It's crime, it's Ian Rankin, you know what you're getting. City of Last Chances - Adrian Tchaikovsky. Overall good, but a bit baggy.

Just finished Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. "Gabriel de Leon, the last living vampire hunter, is held prisoner awaiting execution for killing the Forever King, Fabien Voss. However, the Undying Empress orders Gabriel to tell her personal historian, Jean-Francois Chastain, his entire life story." It's grimdark in that lovely Joe Abercrombie way.

Not yet, so I'm watching this with interest. It'll cost me 3 ancient laserjets but the print volume on them is so low I can't really justify replacing them. @chazzy2501 for print release on the copier? Or to assign a cost centre to a print job while printing?

Hard reset it and load manufacturer firmware? Edit: You have the opposite problem - needs Gamma firmware, running stock instead.

They really don't - it's security theatre and intended to keep the children in. Most schools around here have metal fences (the thick square welded mesh variety) that create toeholds, especially for smaller feet. Vanishingly unlikely they'll be killed by a rando at school. Statistically (and in my experience working in education, anecdotally) more likely to be harmed by family members. Unless your parents/family are rich/powerful or are investigating the rich/powerful.

^ Wait, a school website provider who isn't creating a "For Xmas, you could change all their heads to elves/reindeer/whatever in conjunction with 'snow mode'" option?

A more selective school with a decent perimeter who're familiar with/know how to handle discreet bodyguards is the alternative to "you get to be locked in a tower and home schooled with private tutors and you grow up to be even stranger and out-of-touch than the average royal". See also: Royal goes on combat deployment. Newspapers decided to spread word that royal goes on combat deployment. Royal withdrawn from combat deployment due to increased danger/more enthusiasm from opponents toward royal and their colleagues. I'm very much not a royalist, but I can see the appeal of not having your kids killed because of random idiots.

^ Ah, we have a few Yealink wireless phones, but we're mostly Fanvil on hosted 3CX (trust-wide phone system) with a SBC VM at each school. 3CX forums suggest multicast paging support on Fanvil is a bit erratic compared to Yealink. It looks like we'd need a paging gateway/relay at each school. Either hardware (Fanvil PA3) or something like this: https://github.com/bengrabau/SIP-Multicast-Relay

Expand a bit more on this if you don't mind?

Definitely do it. Nothing quite like slowly freefalling down to a reef or wreck safe in the knowledge no-one* can bother you for ~30 to 45 mins (depending on air consumption and depth). This is me trying to make sure our students behaved around a green turtle, while also trying to film it on a point-and-hope GoPro. *OK, technically you can get paired with a buddy who wants to spend the next 30 mins photographing one specific nudibranch, but photographers usually get paired together.

Spotted a new widget in M365 admin centre about governed tenants and found these: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/id-governance/tenant-governance/overview https://michev.info/blog/post/7696/introduction-to-microsoft-tenant-governance-part-1-basics-and-establishing-relationships I'm mostly interested in the configuration management side of it. Being able to deploy a known-good baseline when onboarding new schools with interesting M365 configs would save days of work.