GrumbleDook

I'll be going from Fareham. The train is the one I used when hitting Cardiff for meetings so pretty happy with it. At least it is not the London cattle class trains!

I'm in! Coming up by train so if anyone else is we can meet at the station. You'll be able to reognise me as I'm the one not wearing facepaint ... ... ... oh ... ... ... Well, I'm sure we'll sort something out.

And the folk turning up with sunglasses on after partying hard that last night.

I know ... but that would mean selling them. Some of my Clarecraft pieces go for silly money on fleabay too ... but not interested in selling those either. There is a point to being a collector ... you collect things, not trade them.

When working at the LA, the system we operated was that with great power comes great responsibility. If a school took over their own filter they had access to all the relevant reports and so on. It had to be signed off by at least the Head, and they always had to have an open conversation with myself ... a) to make sure that it was a choice for the right reasons and b) to make sure that the Head new how to make sure the people managing it could be held accountable. Things have changed since then, and if I was back at the LA I would be saying that either the LA had staff dedicated to the safeguarding role, who had regular contact with the relevant staff in schools ... or the schools were given the access to the systems themselves and had regular training to make sure it was being used properly. If your LA has the dedicated staff, then yes ... there is an element of trust that needs to be reviewed (and the LA should be as transparent as they can here) but try not to throw it all away until it gets to the point where it is clear that the school *can't* fulfil it's stu tory requirements.

Damn ... if only the HSE had a section about municipal and commercial waste collection safety ... oh ... http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/waste04.pdf

I'll come via train and both dates look ok at the moment.

I have a handful, some I got at early conventions (when I could actually make them) and a few I was sent by friends ... and they are precious indeed. Bernard and co produce some quality items, and I would love to add to my DW collection ... but will have to settle for a few bits and pieces occasionally snapped up. I need to update my UU degree actually. I had one of the original ones (achieved in 2000) but I am looking to advance my B. Thaum as I am still a measly Level 1 wizard (still higher than Rincewind though!) and I need a few diplomas to help me get to level 2 ... before I scarper to Braseneck College to try and get a Masters.

This is a catch 22 situation. There is often a lot of personal data in school reports and so we should be taking special care when they are produced and issued ... especially electronically ... where a typo on an email address can cause so many problems. However, data protection is about electronic and hard copy ... and schools have sent reports home with children for years!!! One of those areas that because nothing has gone wrong (well, nothing has been a major disaster in the public eye) then for some doing a risk assessment, they could incorrectly mark it as very low (typically this would be medium to low on a 5 point matrix, depending on what sort of information is in the report and how you categorise your risks) Of course ... this is on the presumption that anyone does a risk analysis in the first place. Companies that produce systems that issue such reports can give examples of what can be safely placed into reports that are sent out unencrypted or not access via a portal, or at least I hope they would.

Frameworks can be good for fact finding, but also good for finding folk who already have integration with other areas (e.g. managed print provider may have a relationship with an eCommerce provider for electronic payment ... handy for places like libraries or universities ... but in a school that could tie in with catering payment systems ...) so it is always worth having a look, even if it doesn't work out.

I may pay a visit too.

It all depends on what you are going for. If you are down for 3 days I would suggest that you spend some time looking at who is exhibiting, if there are any educational sessions that could be of benefit and also what the school expects as a return for you attending. Attire is generally smart work wear. For some it is suited and booted, for other IT is branded polo shirts and trousers.

If buying iPads, try to remember to get them onto your DEP so that they can be managed better.

If you are stopping afterwards to have a drink with fellow members (appropriate drink for the designated driver, of course) then you will probably miss most of the Blackwall tunnel problems by the time you leave. To be honest, it doesn't make much difference what time you head off ... at some point you will be on the M1 and then M25 during rush hour. Have some good music, some snacks / drinks and relish the good company you will have.

It sometimes works like this. Not long after a terrible incident you will get a raft of people wanting to speak to those involved. Some will be journalists, some will be lawyers. The lawyers tell you that until a case has been settled you won't know if you *will* get any money and if you are offered a package by a media outlet then consider it ... the lawyers will get some payment for giving this advice as it is not related to the case ... so is not covered under 'no win, no fee' or legal aid. Once the media outlet has the story then they will get as much usage from everything you have said to them and anyone else as they can. They rarely publish all quotes at the beginning of the stories, and will save up facts for later ... ranging from how well you did at University compared to what you expected, if you have married the person who was your boyfriend/girlfriend at the incident and so on. Some deals will give additional money if more stuff is published but not always. Many folk consider it 'human interest' to see how corporate greed and corner cutting has affected real people like them and so that is what media outlets produce as stories. It sells papers and magazines. Maybe not to you, but there is a thriving market for it.

I've been on both sides of this, having had consultants brought in and also having been the external person. There is nothing wrong with a critical friend, it is when the consultant has their own agenda that you need to be careful. Whenever I've gone in I generally give the following rules to people. Ensure everything said is factual, backed it up with evidence, there is no such thing as the perfect solution and we are all only human (or mainly human in some cases).

Use Parallels to run a VM and have it in Coherence mode (so it looks as if she is just running a Mac) ... a bit of a pain as you are managing the Mac and a VM, but works. The other route is via Remote Desktop ... have it hosted elsewhere and she logs in as needed.

This is my 6th in 20 Years ...

My 5th job in nearly 19 years ... I go into jobs with the aim of spending a max of 5 years in a role ... I may change roles whilst there though. At the end of Year 3 I consider my options, including whether my job is still needed ... at Northants, part of my job was to get schools up to speed so that I would no longer be required. How many people have 'make yourself redundant' as part of their job spec? Got it so that schools chose their own VLE, connectivity, application services, support provider, tech suppliers ... seemed to work out well. ;-) Kit wise ... I'll pass on your details (and waiting for the influx of other sponsors saying asking the same )

As some folk may have seen from this post, I have started a new job. After 3 1/2 years with Learning Possibilities there was a restructure and so I took redundancy, allowing me to take up an interesting job opportunity I had been put forward for. Massive thanks go to @tom_newton for his advice and support. A large thank you goes to all those EG members from Wales who have not beaten me up over the last 3 1/2 years too. I've now joined Mobile Guardian as their Technology Manager, working with the Sales team, the Dev team and with a variety of partners, to make sure we have a tip top product that can be easily rolled out across a range of devices, with control by parents and schools. I'll also be working on the eSafety message about how you can use mobile devices within education without just blocking everything. So, I get to be involved in documentation, implementation, chatting to partners and customers and get my hands dirty playing with EdTech in schools again ... talking about education. As always ... I won't bombard friends and contacts with sales pitches (there is a team to do that ), but I will talk about things that generally excite me in education and technology. Oh, and I'll still talk about chocolate ... And DiscWorld stuff ... and generally fun things... and things the kids have said which amuse me.

Mac Classics in the shed (need to bring them back in before the cold spell, again), iMac DVSE is presently my footrest, but pulpit it out once in a while to test boot or to work on some old DV tapes (the firewire 400 is brilliant with the old video camera I have ... an old camera but with a cracking mic and shoulder support for filming), the Mac minis are in boxed away for the moment, but will get out soon for eldest child to do touch typing and use with a USB Piano Keyboard, old MBP is now running OSX Server and doing a variety of tasks (the most important is housing the iTunes library purely of stuff for the kids), iMacs on both desks (with monitors for extended desktops), Brother mono laser printer, HP MFD (with sheet feed on scanner), A3 Colour HP, Canon inkjet for photo quality stuff, old iPhone 4 effectively has become a touch and mainly used as remote control for Apple TVs (Gen 1, 2 and 3), iMacs on both desks, another MBP mainly for cloud based work or for testing things, 2 Windows laptops (Win 7 and Win10). Will get the RPis out again at some point, but that will be cooler to Christmas, once I have more time and space. Most of the other windows kit has now been imaged and turned into VMs to run on my iMac, the kit then broken down to be recycled (hard drives reused in external drive cases or waiting for drilling). The last Linux box (an old Athlon 1000) hadn't really been used since we moved so that is now gone. Some old phones, PDAs, etc. I'm tidying the office at the moment in prep for the new job on Thursday, so tomorrow will be very busy. Some of the new kit from work is being shipped to me at the moment (another MacBookPro) so that will be sat on the desk soon, and some more kit arriving for testing. I was going to put a lock box in the house for when we are away for any length of time, but instead will box up important backup drives and leave with family (also backed up to cloud services and also backed up to hubiC anyway). I don't have as much as I used to have ... ditched a lot before moving. Trying not to keep things I don't need or have use for either.

I'm in the camp of giving a healthy amount of respect to start with ... it is an optimistic approach and not without risk ... but I just like to smile and think nice things about people. It also gives people a larger drop if they start to screw me around!

Ridiculing someone is about attacking a person not an idea. At that point you lose a portion of the audience who wants to see you attack the idea itself. Ridicule has its place, but often as a tool to bolster you own position with those that follow you, not follow the ideas or your arguments. If you have never read it then look at Rhetoric http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.1.i.html It is a good grounding in this. Also look at Socratic method. Finally, watch Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister. Although it may appear dated, it is still a classic for looking at power struggles within organisations and political chicanery.

This starts looking at H&S law and ALARP. The risk has to be reviewed against the harm, not in comparison the the benefits (which are difficult to quantify anyway).

Part of the problem is that there is no evidence that the radiation involved is harmful but that isn't to say that there may not be an issue. When we review the risk we assess it as low, but we *have* to assess it and review that on a regular basis. The problem you have then is that this brigade could take that as "so you think there might be a problem? Turn it all off then!" as in so doing missing the point of managing risk. The phrases to use are things like, "at this point there have been no recommendations from official sources that schools should turn off their wireless networks, and no instructions to take further action. We regularly review all relevant advice from official sources and take action where required." Those who as hell bent of using poor research or pseudo-science will continue but counter with real science rather than ridicule.