pete

^ I could understand: "Bob and Fred can have read access to my class, but they click around like misguided woodpeckers, so don't let them change things" But: "I want write access and no-one else should be able to see the files" + poor results? = Yeah, need some due diligence here. The person's actions may be completely innocent (poorly phrased request) but if you implement it as requested, they've put themselves in a position where accusations can be made and they (unless you're auditing file access to user shares by default) won't have a good defense against said accusations. It's your job as a sysadmin to draw attention to and guide your users around such potential landmines where possible.

I'm using the tool here: Azure Speed Test to gauge latency between our site and Azure datacentres for a potential project. We're within spec (average of 32-35 ms) for the closest datacentres, but the "Content Delivery Network" is way out of spec (at ~200ms), so I'm wondering if the vendor has used desired latency figures for West Europe and North Europe (dynamic content) for the CDN (static content) as well. Alternatively it may be that our RBC connection has terrible latency and someone upstream needs a kick. cheers

This is when ticket analysis of the "% of our time was spent reminding Eric to check it was turned on" is handy, especially if you calculate actual wages cost (Eric not being able to do his job + technician time spent pandering to him). Persistent offenders should soon be costing the school more than their dept has in the textbook budget, which does raise eyebrows.

You're not letting them fail often enough and so they don't need to learn basic skills.

As you're probably aware, the current Activdriver release on macOS Sierra is problematic - the second stroke (write, lift pen, write again) of any text or diagram is usually missing unless an extended delay is left between taking the pen off the board and putting it down again. Do you know when a revised/beta quality driver will become available? (Yes, upgrading to macOS Sierra before verifying driver support isn't the wisest decision my users could make, but that's one of the painful lessons they'll have to learn to make BYOD stable).

Hardware has 4hr or NBD warranty, depending on how critical it is. Certain hardware has additional support (phone system, storage backend, tills), simply because we don't deal with enough broken systems of that variety to be able to necessarily fix in a timely manner. Software-wise the MIS and a few other bits and bobs have vendor support as part of the annual cost.

Yes, but (to continue your analogy) teachers have to ask for the exercise books to be handed in, they don't get to go rooting through schoolbags on the off-chance there's geography homework in there. The onus is on the student to submit their work in a timely manner and ensure that the work handed in is the correct document, rather than the teacher wading through their homedir and guessing.

I have a Motorola 360 v2. It does most of the stuff on your list apart from: More than a week's battery life in one charge - depending on what you've got on you'll get 3-5 days. No idea about custom roms or IFTTT, haven't looked into either. I paid ~£210 for mine within a month of them coming out using a randomly-googled discount code.

We found that for the smaller domains we were using (such as sisra), everything was fine by Thursday.

Unticking something in Products & Classifications doesn't delete any updates it's already downloaded. You have to go in and decline them manually and then run the server cleanup routine. To avoid repeating myself: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-server-2008/165919-moving-wsus-files-external-hdd.html#post1421995

Have they offered you the new "wedge" (non-IE) plugin? If not, raise hell with the support desk. MLS are notorious for not informing customers about available fixes to common problems.

^ Yes, we check everyone. Facebook's track record needs to be considered as part of the risk analysis in the same way that we would consider someone with a drink-driving conviction applying to be a minibus driver. Both examples show lapses of judgment that are pertinent to the subject under discussion.

Two off the top of my head: Changing privacy settings at the drop of a hat? Meeting their data protection obligations only when their arm is twisted behind their back?

Eeew. Last I checked it was lurching around Office 365 in the hope someone would take it behind the shed and put it out of it's misery.

Fair enough. In my defense, your plan shows a big window there, not a double door

How are you planning to get into the back garden? Does your kitchen/diner have patio/french doors? I suspect whoever eyeballs your plans will take a dim view of you removing a potential fire exit (the door from the kitchen to the garden) unless you provide an alternate route.

Not really. It needs to roam between 3 different places, so self-contained is best.

So.... for reasons we won't debate in this thread, one of our cashless catering tills is a consumer-grade Asus tablet which has predictably now got slack/broken ports. If you're using a mobile till running Windows with a 3rd-party plug-in usb fingerprint reader, what've you got? Requirements are: Touchscreen 2 or more USB ports Netbook size (ish) Robust I'd be tempted to get a refurb X220 from Dave if it weren't for the touchscreen requirement.

I think I'll need a bit more evidence before I treat this as anything more than 4chan or their ilk trolling Google's Jigsaw program to self-destruct itself. Where did the story start? Far-right Twitter and Facebook users make secret code to avoid censorship | The Independent

If you're starting from scratch, use Icinga and integrate Check_MK as Geoff suggests. Check_MK is also a lighter load on the server running Icinga. We've been using NSClient with Nagios and then Icinga for years. Read the manual, secure it properly and you'll be fine.

Yup, the person on the other end of the Internet will have variable IT proficiency and won't have admin rights to install stuff. Anything more difficult than "click this, type this" is likely to involve me supporting them. Yeah, you're right - I was testing OneDrive with a folder which doesn't allow the creation of a "View" or "Edit" link without logging in: Individual files are fine: That might just do the job.

We do have OneDrive for Business, but (IIRC and just tested to confirm) external sharing access it requires someone to have a Microsoft/Live/Hotmail login in order to get the file/folder. We don't have Google Apps setup, though I know you can (well, Google Apps for Business at least) set a public link that doesn't require a login.

I don't mind whether it's commercial, open source or otherwise free. Just that it a) works b) an end-user can upload a file and convey the credentials to the correct third party. We've done the "here's an encrypted zip on $webserver, get it within 2hrs or it'll be deleted" for less sensitive stuff, but it's a bit Heath Robinson and we're doing it often enough that something more robust would be useful. Specific self-hosted (or UK/EU service) because I don't want to set a precedent of "it's OK to upload stuff to random web services if you password protect it with Bob123".

We occasionally need to send large (200MB+) encrypted files to external agencies/companies. I would like a self-hosted option where we can upload a file and generate a one-time URL and password that can be communicated to an external recipient (url emailed, password phoned through). Ideally no Flash, Java, Silverlight etc involved and the external recipient shouldn't need an account/have to create an account. Bonus points if files are automatically deleted after X configurable limit. I'm aware of things like Zend.to, but the "hasn't been updated since June 2015" element concerns me. What're you using for this (that isn't Dropbox, OneDrive (needs MS login to download), Google Drive)?

Main sticking points: Have an up-to-date network map. Check it. Make sure you know where important things are connected, verify visually if you're not sure. Take note of where you've got a switch from manufacturer A talking to a switch from manufacturer B. Ensure they can agree on what's a VLAN. See if the firmware on your switches is up-to-date. Look at the release notes for newer releases - does it fix anything that may bite you? Check CPU utilisation on your cheaper switches - just because the manufacturer says your switch can do 30 wonderful things doesn't mean it can do them all at the same time without falling over. See also: spanning-tree. Plan what you're going to do before you do it. For example: CCTV server has a two-port intel NIC. NIC01 will be connected to SwitchA on port 03 in the CCTV VLAN. NIC02 will be connected to port 15 on the Desktops VLAN. So Switch A needs to have port 28 (uplink to rest of network) tagged in the Desktops VLAN and the CCTV VLAN. It also needs port 03 untagged in the CCTV VLAN and port 15 untagged in the Desktops VLAN. Switch B (PoE) needs ports 1-15 untagged in the CCTV VLAN with PoE turned on for cameras. It also needs port 28 (uplink) tagged in the CCTV VLAN so it can pass footage to the CCTV server. If you have a device with multiple interfaces in different VLANs, label them in the device config. In windows you'd just label the network connection "NIC01-CCTVLAN" and :NIC02-DesktopsVLAN" Ideally test it on spare hardware so you can compare what you think will happen is what really happens. Especially routing, Make sure your technical colleagues know what you plan to do and where the documentation is. Involve them so they can diagnose issues. And that your monitoring solution can access things on the new VLANs. And document it properly so future you doesn't hate past you.