rayfleming

I think the difference between this and schoolquote, is that it is a govt. initiative and funded(?) by Dept BIS

Has anybody used the Lower-value Contract Opportunities - Public Contract Bidding - Lower-value Contract Opportunities - Tender Opportunity Portal website for procurement? It's run by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and seems to be designed to help connect public sector low-value tenders to potential suppliers. Seems to be a useful way to get out of the "find 3 suppliers" problem, but in a Government-sponsored way (Hence the .gov.uk domain). Whilst it sounds like a good idea, that's only if anybody is using it?

Hi Tony, Can't guarantee availability without dates etc, but would you like me to see if there is one of our more technical people available to attend too, if you want a bit of an extended presentation? (Or possibly to video conference in?) For others, if there are regional IT co-ordinators meetings (say with 50+ attendees) I can see if MS people are available for sessions. Just PM or email me Ray

Official answer for Windows Server 2008 R2 19 Aug for existing customers with Software Assurance (ie School Agreement) Windows Server Division WebLog : When to expect Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM

Is it just me that feels, given the late hour, and given that this could all wait until tomorrow, that this thread is the opposite of the "Do you work in your lunch break?" question on another thread?

I suspect our servers are getting a hammering tonight! But the big fat pipe of the Interwebs appeared to run downhill to Dorset this evening, because Dave Coleman from Twynham School was first in my Twitter circle to have it downloaded from MSDNAA and installed and to get Tweetdeck back on, all before 9pm: The valedictory blog post

can't change this one, but if there's enough demand, I can see what I can do. (The challenge is getting such a great line-up of speakers to travel on the same day).

Ooh, this is quite exciting. After following your blog for so long (and laughing at it so much), does this finally mean that I'm going to be in a position to peer through the anonymity-shield? I think I'd better keep it to myself though. Sadly there were a few who booked yesterday, so can't narrow it down yet

Hi All, A quick note to pass on details of the event we're hosting at the Microsoft campus in Reading on 21st August. Maybe this shows "there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's a Windows 7 workshop, where you’ll have the chance to hear about Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and to explore what they mean for education. The agenda includes: - James O’Neill from our Developer and Platform Evangelist team - Richard Lane, one of our Account Technology Specialists - Gareth Hall, Windos Server 2008 R2 product manager for the UK - Asif Jinnah, who runs the Microsoft IT systems in the UK (he'll talk about what we've done internally) - Alan Richards (fellow EduGeeker who's rolling out this summer) - Dave Coleman (ditto!) We aim to explore how the new products launched this year can help you to streamline your ICT infrastructure and improve the ICT management and user experience. With Windows 7 available to existing School Agreement customers from the end of this week, and Windows Server 2008 R2 available from the 19th August, it seems like the perfect time to take a day out of school to understand how it fits into your future plans. There are already a number of schools planning to implement Windows 7 this summer, and so we hope to make the day as interactive as possible, with plenty of time for discussion with your peers from other schools, to compare notes and experiences (there will be schools attending who’ll have implemented Windows 7 by the 21st, so hopefully they’ll have practical advice for us all!) To allow for those making longer journeys, we’ll start at 10am and finish by 3pm. Full details of the event are on this webpage

Hi All, School Agreement definitely includes the Windows 7 Enterprise. The same is true if you buy under Select, with Software Assurance. Ray

I read the Guardian report, saying that schools could save £110M on ICT spend. But turns out the Audit Commission report actually said £110M on NON-ICT spend! So I went on to read further, and it actually talks about the positive model of schools having IT technicians and generating income from sharing them amongst schools. Quick summary of it on the blog - along with a recommendation of which bits to get the highlighter pen to before passing to the head

I guess they have the same problems at the receiving depot too. I wonder how many vouchers the weight of a staple is? They'd probably notice if you sent a box of staples in instead

Definitely weigh, don't count them...as that's what they do at the other end when they receive them. I don't think the 6 on my desk would be an appropriate index, but perhaps some people could announced their discovered weights of 1,000 of Tesco/Sainsburys etc. (Mind you, my daughter would have ended up doing science in her Science lesson on Tuesday if her school did this, and she wouldn't thank me )

At first, when I read this I thought we'd announced something I didn't know about...but on further investigation, I think there's a bit of detail that's important. This isn't about Windows licensing, but about what we call the Application Platform (or SQL to you and me). As the article says: Applications available under APA include all editions and license types of SQL Server and BizTalk Server; all editions of Office SharePoint Server 2007 excluding server-only licenses; all editions of Visual Studio Team System; and server licenses of System Center. So not Windows upgrade, or office etc. Just the server licences for SQL etc The Academic Licensing schemes you'll already be using (School Agreement or Select) will be much, much better value - this is really something that's for big multinationals, buying commercial licences - which, as you'll know, are a little bit more expensive than yours

I've been away for a few hours, and come back to find somebody drawing me into this conversation... I'm not going to dive too deeply into this, as I'm not an expert, but I can pass you along to someone who is. We have mainly promoted this service to colleges and universities, because schools are guided to choose a service which has met Becta certification, which neither of the services do as they stand - they all require additional filtering services adding. So for schools use, we have been concentrating on working with the RBCs and LEAs to build a solution for school use, incorporating Live@edu into an appropriate solution. (Which is what London did when they announced their move to Live@edu last year - details here) In terms of considering a choice between Live@edu and Google mail, I believe that the majority of education users (colleges and universities) in the UK have made the choice for Live@edu based on: Data storage within EU (to comply with Data Protection act and Becta guidelines). This doesn't just apply to email, but any cloud-based service. We have to setup a specific data centre in Ireland to host the UK's Live@edu customers, rather than using our normal 'anywhere in the globe' data centre model Integration with existing identity management (eg sharepoint). (Becta Information Security info is here) You may want to talk to your local authority/RBC to find out their future plans before making a jump yourself. PM me if you want me to get more info, and I'll put you in touch with the right person.

You may know that Encarta has reached the status we refer to as "end of life" I was asked a question by a school this morning about what the situation is for a school with Encarta on their School Agreement, and after I found the answer, I thought I'd share it more widely. It was our UK education licensing team that knew the answer ([email protected]) Encarta has reached end of life, so there will unfortunately be no free download for customers. For every Encarta subscription licence in effect from April 09 or later under a CASA (Decode: Campus/School Agreement), one perpetual licence has been granted so that the software can be used permanently after the agreement expiration. Please see link below for more information: http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/7/7/D7702BE5-3FC2-4E3E-9465-35E66EF1AE8C/perpetual%20rights_student_encarta.pdf Hope that helps (and praying it doesn't raise more questions than answers!) Ray

Thanks for all the continued input. I've updated the table on the blog with the input from this thread, and the PMs that I've received. I've also updated the blog post to credit the EduGeek community for your continued input The emerging consensus is 512MB is possible, but slower than XP. 1GB is okay and "fast enough", and 2GB is 'waste products leaving a digging device' Microsoft UK Schools News Blog : What does Windows 7 run on?

1 year old Lenovo X-61 Processor - 4.4 RAM, 2Gb - 4.8 Graphics - 3.5 Gaming Graphics - 4.9 Primary HD - 5.2

I've just updated my blog post "What does Windows 7 run on?", which does exactly what it says on the label! Microsoft UK Schools News Blog : What does Windows 7 run on? Rather than a big technical list of specs etc, I wanted to try and capture the general spirit of seeing how older machines coped with it. Thanks to all for the input so far, and feel free to add any more as comments on the blog post, or just email me directly. Ray ps I still haven't found the time to put it on the 8GB SSD of my EeePC 901

Just got an update internally about this (ie within Microsoft), and it appears that we had put in place some easy ways to allow you to continue to do web searches and enforce the filtering of any adult content. We'd just not circulated the info, beyond releasing it to the main web-filtering companies. Anyway, here's the key bit, which allows you to add one domain to your filter list to remove any explicit cotent from a Bing.com search, regardless of other filtering/strict search options. This means that even if a user sets the search to have no filtering, your filter will still block it Bing returns all explicit images and videos from a specific domain. Customers can block either *.explicit.bing.net (assuming wildcards work with your solution) or the following four sub-domains to prevent bing.com from displaying images, videos or even thumbnails of content we suspect is explicit because of the nature of its source site or metadata. Images, videos and thumbnails for non-explicit content will still work. • ts1.explicit.bing.net • ts2.explicit.bing.net • ts3.explicit.bing.net • ts4.explicit.bing.net The internal team also told me "only Bing serves explicit images and videos from a specific domain. Many vendors will still choose to use the source information returned with explicit content, but serving explicit content from a specific domain allows customer and web filtering vendors the option to block only *explicit.bing.net, rather than having to manage a huge list of blocked domains or content." Ray

The other route (beyond client-side cookies) to enforce strict filtering of search results, is by appending a querystring parameter to the outbound request to enforce content control. Simply append “&adlt=strict" to the query, and it forces it, without needing any cookies etc - and can't be user-bypassed. I'm not familiar enough with the different content control packages, but I understand it's a standard way that is used with other search engines too.

Have just blogged a little about the release, and starting to build a list of laptops etc that people are running Win 7 on happily. Microsoft UK Schools News Blog : Windows 7 is getting closer Feel free to send me any more details on netbooks/laptops/desktops that it's running on - will publish the full list from everybody tomorrow. My thinking is that it's likely the device profile in schools will be different from a typical business, and so it'll be good to know if older devices found in schools will work happily with Windows 7 or not...

..Tom Tom is obviously a good choice. From The Times this weekend: Travel, food, chauffeurs - quangocrats are at it too - Times Online

You mentioned Work at Home rights, which allows you to give your staff software to use on their home PC. In discussions with schools, many of them don't use this, because of the obligation on the school to keep a reasonably tight rein on the software - for example, to ensure that staff have removed it if they leave school. And the other issue that comes up is that technically staff are only permitted to use this at home for school work. If you've got a School Agreement, or Campus Agreement, or subscribe to Software Assurance (which means this will apply to a few thousand schools) then there is an alternative way to help staff get Office for home use, and it is a darn sight easier to manage (and more flexible). It's called Home Use Programme, and it allows the school licensing administrator to tick a box on a web page, and then staff go independently to a website and order the Office Enterprise themselves. It costs about £13 per copy, and staff pay with their own credit card, get the software shipped directly to them (and can Microsoft for support, in the same way that they could if they'd bought a retail version). You (the school) are obliged to tell them that they should stop using the software if the school discontinue your School Agreement, or if they leave the employment of the school. But you aren't responsible for managing their licence, and they aren't restricted to only using it for school-related work. You can also place a bulk order, and then distribute to staff. And at the moment, if you order bulk copies on behalf of staff, you pay £6 per copy as long as you order 20 copies. And of course, under this way of buying, you'd probably charge staff for their copy - it's just an easy way to bulk order Blog post, and all the relevant links, are here

There's two questions, buried into one! Firstly School Agreement: School Agreement is a subscription - ie you buy the right to use it this year, and if you don't renew you have to stop using it (bit like a Sky TV subscription). So you wouldn't transfer a subscription - you'd just stop paying it and stop using the service. Perpetual licences (like Select) give you the perpetual right to run that specific version. So if your local council has spare licences for Office that they've bought, they could transer them to you (as long as you're all part of the same organisation (there's some fancy wording that uses the word "affiliate"). Mind you, persuading your local council to give you their spare licences, rather than them keeping them for a rainy day, may take a while