Rob_D

Started watching Constellation on Apple. Apple seems to be knocking it out the park with all the scifi recently.

You can do it using the web version of PowerPoint, but it's a bit involved. In the web browser version: Go to, Addins>My Addins>Forms (you might have to add this addin first.) Then paste in the URL of your form into the forms integration item (the actual URL in the browser when you're creating/editing the form not the sharing link). Once you've added a form you can move and resize the forms "item" in the slide. Once it's been created you can open the ppt in the desktop version without anything breaking.

Surely that's only applicable if the school (or someone at the school) is directing or suggesting the students use that site. Again, it's the grey area between having the children use the site/service and blocking it that statistically a large chunk of the internet probably falls into. You can't practically block every site that's not been vetted and approved (well you could, but then you'd be over-blocking).

Can someone confirm what the latest version of EWP is?

Come on, you two. Not-blocking a site and requiring the students to use it are 2 different things. Frist let's draw the destitution between proactively "allowing" the site, and simply "not blocking" it. So, yes if you're unblocking a site, then there's probably an expectation the kids would be using it, so yes, you would need parental consent if that's what the sites ToS require. If you're just not blocking it but also not asking the kids to use it then I don't see why you would need consent. True, if the kids can't use GPT without breaking ToS then there's little point in actively un-blocking it. But over-blocking is a consideration that has to be taken into account and kids need to learn that just because it they can doesn't mean they should.

You can teach it without giving the kids direct access. In fact, you would have to as letting them use GPT would be against the ToS. We aren't blocking GPT as standard, although that might change. What about Bing chat/copilot? (and I'm sure if they haven't got one yet google isn't far behind)

How is the best way to keep up with these things and the filtering/firewall updates required to keep them in check?

Awesome! Blocking QUIC seems to have fixed the issue. Now to make sure that's not going to break anything else. Thanks!

Thanks for your reply. The only other YouTube content mod we have enabled is ad-blocking, which has never worked, even when the hide comments one did. - I've just put this down to google's on-going battle with ad-blockers. The certificate doesn't look like a smoothwall issued one (see below). I've double checked and we do have a decrypt and inspect policy for youtube enabled.

Hi, Our Smoothwall, Youtube comment removal policy has stopped working. We've not changed anything recently, and as far as I can see the content modification policies all look correct. Is anyone else seeing this?

If you go to Config>Office365 Integration > Classroom Sync (the button at the top of the screen), you should get to the list of all your sync created class teams. If you select one of the classes, you'll get the option "Include/Exclude Users" at the top of the screen. Click on that and you'll get a window where you can manually remove or add a user to the Class Team. This won't get over-ridden by the next sync. Hope this helps.

I don't see how being government owned would make it any better. At least a profit focused org has a good reason to invest in improving the product (in theory anyway).

Storage is the only thing I'm a bit iffy on getting second hand. But I guess RAM could have the same write-endurance issues as SSDs.

We've been with Smoothwall for (must be about 10 years now), and it's always been pretty good for us (some early teething problems but otherwise it's just ticked along nicely). Our current setup is an on-site appliance linked to their cloud filtering. Syncs fine with both local and Azure AD. Filtering can be fully cloud, but I'm not sure they offer cloud firewall. Personally, I wouldn't want to go cloud firewall. I'm probably just being old-fashioned, but I'm uneasy about the firewall not being a physical box that sits between the internet and internal network. They're also good at keeping up with current issues, I found out about the Ticktock "barreling" craze through one of their safeguarding updates, and some years ago, I remember finding out about a big school shooting from the Smoothwall email saying "we've pushed out an update that blocks the videos of this for you".

I'd want more beans with the veggie option to make up for only 1 sausage.

There's no reason you could't build what you want in a small case. You just need to make sure your parts will fit in the smaller form factor (motherboard, PSU length, GPU size, CPU cooler size, even the ram height), and it might be a trickier or more complex build. Generally speaking it will be easier to build in a larger case without making compromises.

(Assuming you're self-building) How important is the portability? Most cases that have handles and/or are more portable will mini or micro-ITX, which is going to have a big knock-on as to what parts you can get. Either way, you probably want to look at the GPU and case together as the 40 series can be pretty massive and effect which cases you can use.

I can't say to what they did in the background, but when we moved to Bromcom, our data was uploaded to a testing environment, partially for us to learn on, but we were also told to check all the data had imported okay.

When we set up MFA, part of Microsoft's documented procedure was to set up a "break-glass" admin account for use if MFA failed and the regular, named administration accounts couldn't log in.

I've pretty much just told our business manager about EOL date and every capital project request I've put in for the last year or so (and probably for the next couple of years, unless something else comes up) is for new (or refurb) windows 11 compatible machines to hurry this refresh cycle through more quickly. We're looking at LTSC builds for some things and where we can moving non-contact machines (like signage) to linux, but that's a tiny fraction of the devices on site.

According to Smoothwall's website (https://smoothwall.com/solutions/monitor ) So yes, by the sound of it not all captures reach the human team, but I think everything that comes through as email/phone alerts has been vetted by a human.

Isn't that just because Monitor is a managed system (as in all captures vetted by a human team)? (or is there a non-managed tier?)

From what I've read about OCRs plans to have a language exam on computers in 2026, it didn't sound optional.

It's no different from an LA or MAT doing centralized procurement, only on a bigger scale. I'd guess the schools have the choice to go out on their own if they want, but having the EA's support and backing is a pretty big carat to stay.

I might be wrong, but when we moved it looked like we got all the data for current students and 5 years worth of historic students.