GeekyPete

Thanks for this. They used to have https://sites.google.com/site/new1studyhall/ but they must have changed it. Looks like I'll be adding *new*studyhall* to the blocked list.

What categories are you blocking? Should NewStudyHall be in one of those? You can submit feedback about block lists on the Smoothwall website if it needs to be in a different category. I have only ever had to block it on a SmartCache site. I just set up a deny rule with a Wildcarded *newstudyhall*.

Psion organiser

You mean every single one in Harvard school of business? If you are teaching people to thrive in a capitalistic world who better to teach them than capitalists. A good teacher knows that the success of the students and their own personal gain goes hand in hand. It's actually the lazy ones who don't get it that are letting everyone down. Including themselves and their own prosperity. Teacher care, without a doubt but take off those rose tinted spectacles. Take away personal gain and you'll have no teachers in school. Good, bad or indifferent.

“But the underlying problem is of course that most teachers, particularly in the secondary sector, are graduates. “They know how universities work, they know what you have to do to get an A-level, they know about UCAS forms – but they know absolutely nothing about the world of work.” Pretty rich from a Cambridge graduate who's knowledge of work before becoming a Politian was Finance advisor to the Kenyan Government, Economist for Shell and a Economics lecturer in Glasgow Uni. A real Average Joe. He's been in politics since the 70's and an MP since 1997. When do you think the last time he put in a hard days graft, the kind that would let him experience "the world of work". These are the ramblings of a man in his dotage. He should be boring his cronies over a G&T with his pet philosophies in his local. He's only making himself look foolish. The comment about Most teachers are Graduates just shows what an idiot he is. What he's actually saying is that the problem is that most teachers are qualified to do their job.

Or do they, the mozilla site has a Free Software link to what they mean by Free Software which states: “Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”. And later it goes on to explain that you are also free to charge for it!

I need to find a best practice guide that lays out what school should and shouldn't put on their websites. Specifically reagarding photos and names. I have seen some good and bad policies. I have examples of both. But what I can't find is an authoritive one. Ideally a DFE set of guidelines. I know what I think about putting kids pictures on the school site. I can show other schools policies that go along the same lines. But I can't find a best practice set of guidelines that a school can use as a foundation to base their policy on? Does anyone know of one?

They are not charging for it in anyway. They are charging for their time and effort. Lets say if they install a paid for app, there would be £X for the app and then £16 to install it. @Jawloms of course you can charge them for your time, but not to distribute it, download it sell it on a flash drive etc. But you can charge them for your time and effort.

I'd rather go online than buy at halfords. Something like this - Ridgeback Motion 2013 Hybrid Bike | Evans Cycles. If you want mud guards and a back rack I'd wait until Aldi get them back in. Cost you about an extra £20.

Firstly that isn't aimed at anyone with a modicum of computer awareness. We've had many discussions on here about what we charge for Private work. It tends to be in the region of £25-50/hour. £16, would that save you 15-30minutes to download and install it? Yes? Then the price is about right. Regarding the free software part, if you had a load of bricks and cement given would you expect a brickie to build you a wall for free? So on that basis Dell are quite within their rights to charge for this. In the same way that I would charge an hourly rate to update free plugins. I don't have an issue with this as such. However, I am still disappoint that Dell would charge this much for it and it tarrs them with the same brush as EasyJet for me, who chrage for refreshments and luggage. Dell don't spend 15 minutes installing it, They probably have various images. It will just be a case of applying image B instead of image A. There will be some cost involved in setting up image B but I'm sure they could afford to do it for free or for just a couple of quid and still make money.

You'll need to talk to Capita really. The modules can vary wildly too. I've been made aware of the prices of two modules and these were for small schools (<120 pupils) via an LEA agreement. IEP writer 3 around £400 and Classroom monitor around £2500. SIMS is failing to deliver in so many areas my schools are looking elsewhere. They've mostly stopped investing in SIMS and are looking at cloud solutions, Mainly Arbor and RM Integris. Better reports, easier to use, no server/updates/maintenance, no client installs or update, home use without any other supporting technology... and Oh My Word! the cost savings... EDIT: If you are working out the costs remember to add all the licences you need, not just the capita ones. Your server may have licences for AV, Backup solution, SQL if it is a sizable DB, Server OS, are there any costs for virtualisation? You could ignore these if it's on a shared server and you would need them anyway but the SIMS installs I am familiar with all have a dedicated server.

It's a great price, esp when you think that the full boxed DVD version of Win8.1 costs you £165 (£100 to upgrade from Win7). Cheap as chips, You should write a full review of them. PC advisor style.

If you don't use outlook in a properly configured Exchange/O365 environment you could add vLookup to the spreadsheet to output the actual email addresses.

To be strict about it it doesn't even need a server OS. It's any computer that offers a service to another. Every server, or desktop for that matter, has to be fit for purpose. And EVERY device is a compromise. Some servers compromise power consumption and noise for performance and fault tolerance, others, like a digital signage server would compromise fault tolerance and capacity for better noise levels and a smaller form factor. I've seen a cheap desktop used as a licence server for AutoCAD compromising just about everything for price (not running autocad you understand, just a licence server). Look at what you need it for and make your decision accordingly.

I had something similar a while back. During the usual "what the heck, lets just try it anyway" stage of any good diagnositc process I found that changing the proxy settings on the client from a hostname to the IP address fixed it. No Idea why, no idea if it will work in this instance but it would only take 15 secs to try it. Worth a stab I'd say. Update: Took about 6 secs on IE9, just over 30 secs if I change to the proxy server's hostname. Still can't explain it. One day when I've caught up with all my jobs I'll look into it.

Apollo is still a halfords own brand, Very unconvincing spec for £200. You can get better for the same or very little more. Don't be fooled by the £200 saving, because it's their own brand they put a silly price on it for 28 days then they can legally call it half price even if they never sold any.

I take it you want to use extended desktop rather than duplicated screens. As far as I know this can't be done. Dual Link isn't the same as duel head. The extra pins provide double the data rate so that you can use a much higher resolution monitor. If you are happy with duplicated displays then just search for DVI-D Splitter. You need to use separate outputs to each monitor if you want to use extended desktop.

Sweeping statements that expose a total lack of any understanding for yet another group of voters. We can now add teachers (again) to the list of disenfranchised, along with firefighters, doctors, Police, nurses, the unemployed, the retired and anyone at all who works for local government. And it's all done to save us money. Shame the debt is isn't coming down.

What are they going to do if you don't pay? Stop Support? I'd like to see them try and take the school through the small claims court for a service they haven't delivered. It might be worth asking the CEO to comment on here.

Give him two lists, everything it can do, Browse the internet, use google docs. And everything it can't do, everything else. In fairness, These might actually have a place in schools. I've seen FE colleges use them in library settings, but again, what will they be used for?

BYOD can include laptops. But then do you install AutoCAD, Sibelius etc on any device that someone happens to walk up with. No. I think you and I are on the same page regarding BYOD. For teaching and learning everyone involved needs a consistent experience. So until everything is cloud based we are still looking at school managed devices. Back to the original question, It's not just what the teachers want, what will the school consider as an acceptable risk and what do you have in place to mitigate that? It is irrresponsible and bad governance to give people an iPad and open access to the internet.

He didn't mention smoothwall. @seawolf - do you have a secure solution for your IOS devices? One that can audit use by Who, What and When. Filter, including safesearch enforcement and blocking individual images in Goole Image Search but is invisible to the users not just on Safari, but also all apps and for the app store and apple updates? This I what I need and I am still looking for a solution. So far smoothwall looks like the nearest I can get.

I've been using the Asus 510 myself. It's a great little device. It's won't replace my desktop but to have with me it's perfect. While away from my desk it's good for taking notes, internet research, Plugging into my switch's console via USB-Serial, checking email for new calls, running a spreadsheet or accessing our asset register online to Audit, update assets or track maintenance jobs, RDP to the servers. Every techie should have one.

There is way to little information here to give an sensible recommendation. The one thing I would commend him on trying to gain some uniformity. There has been too much hype around BYOD recently and too many apparently knowledgable people touting it as the future. What happens when you try to teach a class of 30 students on BYOD? You find out that the class has a mix of WIn7, Win8.1, IOS and 4 flavours of andriod? Anyway that's off topic. You need to audit the expectations of the users first. The teachers and students need a sound platform. Think about what level of security the school consider acceptable. If they need Securus say, then Andoid is out. If they need internet browsing at home to go through the schools filtering like Smoothwall offers through port-forwarding then IOS is out. What Apps are needed? How much human resource do you have to manage them? What do you need to connect to or Control (printers, scanners, IWB, Robots, data collectors, Musical instrments)? Purely use in school or at home too? Are built in Cameras a good thing or Bad? Will they be used for animation or used to record a teacher being ridiculed and then posting it on youtube? To be honest once you start asking your teachers and students what they need I think the answer will become very clear, very quickly. And the interesting part is that it it may well be different for each school.

You are all Wrong... You know you are an IT Technician when You are Accepted and Feared by the Technology. You know you have acheived this when you turn up to fix somthing and the user says... "Oh... Look it's working now. It didn't do that for me!" Smile to yourself and say "I know, I'm a techie it knows better".