sigma

Since Jan 1 Teachers at one school can open Word 2016 at school and save documents. If they go home, on opening word they get a "We can't open Normal.dotm because we found a problem with it's contents". This seems to be affecting all staff. If they go ahead and create a document and try to save it they get a "Word has insufficient memory do you want to save document 1 as a Rescued Document" which fails. This seems to be indicative of a corrupt normal.dotm I've not changed anything on the server. I have released some updates WSUS, but some staff don't have these installed yet and are still affected. I've tried renaming the normal.dotm so it get recreated. Same problem. I've tried repairing Office 2016. No joy. If I use admin rights it's fine, I've not changed any permissions lately. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Too late deleteing. Glad it workd!

I have had staff using https://www.airserver.com/Overview successfully. If all they want to do is to controll the PC while walking arount the room, maybe a air mouse (with or without keyboard)?

Promethean "Presenta" board? The ones the preceded the Activeboard.

When we were clearing my parents' house there was a similar old white Fairy bottle under the sink which sold for just over £10 on Ebay.

And she's clearly using Sparklebox | EduGeek.net . *Disgusted*

I do some hours at another school in Suffolk who do have County Broadband (and others previously) and always get told the same thing. My prefered solution is for them use the "visitor laptop", and that seems to be OK for them as they can't hotspot to their phone as there's no mobile signal at that school.

Just to say, regardless of the quality of the product, if it does not involve a dedicated device or configuration, you also have to trust that your Broadband Provider's pre-set settings are appropriate for your school or you can spend a lot of time tweeking. By appropriate, I mean are any word block lists likely to be sexist or non-inclusive by current standards? If computer science is taught, will common terms relevant to that couurse be blocked? In our case, we have found some defaults to be overblocked/inappropriate.

This is GDPR though https://bestofprivacy.com/eu/germany-forces-a-microsoft-365-ban-due-to-privacy-concerns/

Germany said Nein back in 2019 https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/07/17/germany-bans-schools-from-using-tech-giants-clouds/

I bought mine in Leicester it was "a lot" cheaper than for similar in Suffolk.

Wondering how many schools have moved from RM to vanilla compared to the number of schools that have gone the other way over the last 20 years?

Yes to everything said above. Compared to a vanilla solution, RM or whever will always want their cut on top and that comes out of the school's IT budget that might better be spent on more/better devices. If they do go with RM or another company, they should ask for references and make contact and ask searching questions. Remote support can only do so much. It depends on the IT competency of the school staff. It's hard to diagnose that somebody has unplugged a power injector to a wireless access point remotely, "my board isn't working" (bluetak stuck to the board, things stuck round the board, someone's unplugger the computer and only put back the HDMI and not the USB....etc I spend more time fixing this kind of thing on my weekly visits than I do on software installation or issues. (Yes I always show shomebody how to fix it themselves rather than waiting for me....) The amount of support time also depends on how much of the getting quotes for kit and sorting out licences the school will do and how much they expect to be done for them.

Well, I'm feeling very settled and happy on Mastodon so far, and spending alsmost zero time on Twitter now.

I'm still trying to get a clean sweep on Heardle Decades for 60's,70's,80's 80's No1's and 90's on the first few seconds. My best is 4 out of 5.

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2022/11/department-for-education-warned-after-gambling-companies-benefit-from-learning-records-database/

https://unforgettable.dk/ Also has an active zip bomb download link.

When they are working, there are a lot more data points on a smart meter.

I suppose we'll be getting Cellbrite devices next and have to examine everything in their phones? (Not entirely serious). If I was asked to hand over social media accounts details, would anyone believe that I didn't have, nor never had any accounts with or on any Facebook owned properties ever, or would that just count against me?

I've just blocked: v2cloud.com kasmweb.com shells.com Which would all seem to offer similar functionality with free trials that were also unfiltered here.

No, I think it's worse now than in my living memory. We have a housing crisis and have done for a while. The pain of correction alone would likely put the country into recession. It's a shortage/cost of homes relative to pay that is way out of whack. Yes, interest rates spiked in the 80's and 90's, but nobody needed to borrow so many multiples of their income to buy somewhere decent to live as they do now. My first house (1980 £21K, borrowed £17.5K, age 21), was around twice our joint income (unimaginable now), so we could still manage our morgage payments when interest rates skyrocketed. The multiples of earnings that people can (have to) borrow now means that even a small shift in interest rates is a huge amount of extra repayment per month as a proportion of pay if not on a fixed mortgage deal. Some might be able to reduce payments by extending the term of their mortgages, but as in the 90's, there will likely be a huge rise in reposessions, and when property prices crash, a large number of people being trapped in negative equity for a few years, which makes selling difficult or impossible. Previously, where some had little equity in their homes, they simply handed the keys back to their lender as that was the best option at the time. There's nothing really new this time around, and we know how it's ended previously. Sorry to be so gloomy. I am an Economics grad that did my thesis on housing economics. (Mortgage free for the last 25 years)

Simply IT http://www.simplyitgb.co.uk 01924 666097 Have supplied me with Lenovo kit at very competitive prices They are also "no nonsence" and sort out any issues quickly and properly.

As we have Economy 7, we move what we can to the cheaper rate overnight when we are not solar generating. That always inclues a tank of hot water 365 days a year. Our standing load probably unusually includes our sewage filtration plant (which pumps liquid about from time to time) as we are not on mains drainage. I will shortly be putting my greenhouse heater onto frost guard (after I've put the insulation back in), and run heated propagaters from time to time. I am currently making new curtains for some rooms. Heavier curtains (lined and interlined) do seem to make a difference the amount of heat lost even where there is double glazing.

Sorry. We are still with Bulb on the Variable 2 rate. Electricity only (Oil central heating, + solar) The price is the same either way. Tariff name Pay Monthly Variable Tariff type Variable Payment method Monthly Direct Debit in advance, or payment on receipt of bill Electricity Unit rate 35.0564p per kWh Standing charge 38.9361p per day (£142.12 per year) Tariff name Pay Monthly Variable 2 rate Tariff type Variable Payment method Monthly Direct Debit in advance, or payment on receipt of bill Electricity Day Unit Rate: 38.5928p per kWh Electricity Night Unit Rate: 22.8375p per kWh Standing charge 39.0274p per day (£142.45 per year)

From the OCRComputer Science GCSE spec: