Ephelyon

Have a word with @ICTDirect_Dave to see if they have any good deals on refurb server hardware that comes with a decent warranty (look at a separate maintenance agreement too). We recently saved a bomb with them on last summer's server refresh; we got the project in under £10K, and that's with hosts with 24 cores and 128GB RAM each!

Could you get the costs down further by going virtual at the same time?

Free upgrades from Server 2012 R2 to Server 2015 as well?

For us, it's now official - we'll be migrating over the February half-term. I expect I'll be in (more) need of follicle stimulation formula by the end of the break!

Have a word with Lee at NEOS IT Training about this offer: NEOS IT Training Ltd

Just as an aside, if it occurred during a lesson, on a student-owned device that was authorised for use within the lesson (but not for that activity) by the teacher, then my research indicates the school probably would be legally responsible, though a prosecution would be highly unlikely and hasn't happened so far. It's an intersection of: * Law of Contract (Duty of Care); * H&S Law (failure to risk assess); * But mainly: Negligence Law (Neighbours directed to use resources without due regard for potential misuse, such misuse cannot readily be differentiated from legitimate use at a normal distance and the school would be deemed to be aware of this).

That's correct on the technical side (though whether it was IT's negligence or SLT not authorising proper filtering or providing a budget for it, we don't know). I should have been more clear; I was referring to the education in these matters as provided by the school, as this is what others were saying must be at fault.

Again... how do we know they weren't already making all reasonable efforts? I'm not saying I think they definitely were, just that there always seems to be this assumption that if a minor misbehaves, those responsible for them could have done more. Sometimes that's true... but then again, sometimes it isn't. We really don't know in this case. We also don't know what was going through the victim or the offender's minds. We really don't know very much about this case at all. This is a classic case of pointing the finger for the sake of it. There is no reason to be throwing blame around here because it's not important. Couldn't be less important. Quite simply, the school should review its safeguarding policies and block access to all forms of social media and chat rooms post haste (at least in the interim while the situation is reviewed). The victim's parents should be having very serious words with her and possibly confiscate her devices until she can show she can use them responsibly (or however they want to handle it). The offender should be brought to justice. The victim should be doing some very serious thinking about what else could have happened and nearly did. See how we're able to come to all those conclusions without ranting about whose fault it is? It really doesn't matter, guys - what matters is that the victim is now safe (we presume) and that the matter is resolved on all counts by all parties, to the best of their ability. Nothing more needs to be said.

I agree completely with @elsiegee40, but just as an aside and a talking point... how do we know the school wasn't in fact educating on appropriate use, but the advice was ignored? How do we know her parents weren't, or weren't doing it well enough? Can we verify empirically that, as long as the quality of the education is high enough, it will always be effective? This is a point that often comes up in this sector. Some people seem to believe education is the answer to everything, and indeed it's a very powerful tool that can be incredibly effective... but the fact is there are some people who are just not going to listen. Now, personally, I have a very high tolerance (and a long patience) before I come to that conclusion as I hate giving up on people. Really hate it. Can't stand it. But unfortunately there have been times in my life when I have simply had to because holding onto them was ultimately damaging me. This is where the question of "to block or not to block" comes in, and a number of influential figures (@GrumbleDook being one of them) have made their stances known on the topic. My own is that education should be the first response, but where that fails we do sometimes have to put the block in place. We acknowledge this as a society also; it's why we have maximum-security prisons, for criminals with terrible offences to their name and who seem so unlikely to reform that we have to separate them from society and deny them their freedom for the greater good. So back to the question... leaving out the issue of whether any blame lies with the victim, what about her education? Was it insufficient, or was it just never going to work very well on this particular person?

To be fair, this is precisely the kind of thing I was talking about when I posted that big long "legal obstacles to BYOD smartphone use" thread, though I wasn't talking about tablets at the time (not that it makes much different except they have bigger screens).

Not defending Volkswagen here, but it's also worth bearing in mind that, although you were in the same room with them, these other people almost certainly had no idea whom the personal data actually belonged to... unless they already knew you, that is.

And Saturday We're both going.

Crashes on launch for me (Android KitKat, Oppo Find 7)... :/

Try running a Resultant Set of Policy wizard for the computer/user you're testing with, once with the policy Enabled and once with Computer Configuration Disabled - see if there's any difference.

Be sure to check the exact wording of what you're disabling. Make sure it's definitely the computer settings that show as disabled (not the user settings).

What would you say your major IT skillsets are, ideally that you can prove / back up?

On the contrary, many people (some of them experienced members and/or mods of this forum) have retrained in later life and joined the profession - you've got plenty of time! =] Out of interest, I'm guessing from your location the accent is Liverpudlian?

Welcome to the forum! =] Could be a number of things depending on your setup. Is loopback processing enabled? Is this GPO applied to a user or computer OU? Are there any WMI filters or security group filters in place? PM if you want some more directed help (slow afternoon over here).

You can use GPP targeting for e.g. "Windows 7 Enterprise" or "Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit" if you create the variable that way.

Just set up a beefy RDS box/VM (ours has 12 cores and 64GB RAM) and install all the apps you'd normally deploy to workstations on there. Users can access it via RDS Gateway and you can install RemoteApp to give it a web-based front-end (while also allowing for seamless apps). It's made a world of difference here; we have full remote access for both staff and students without needing to faff with VPNs and the tablets can use the same system during the day while no-one's on it from home.

That's the main reason I stayed in this town when I got my first house as anywhere else around this area of Cheshire (that isn't in the middle of nowhere) is significantly more expensive. Unless you count Winsford, and no-one wants to count Winsford. (I jest, I jest... )

We've just had the same one through.

Out of interest, what impact does it tend to have on pricing that brings it within the realms of affordability? Are they just quarterly payments? Would you get significant bulk discounts for ordering a couple of hundred and are there external services you can engage to help with the massive scale legwork of a rip-and-replace on that order?

The process can be more or less involved depending on how far you want to go with it, but we're doing something similar here to allow staff with Macs at home to access school applications. PM me if you like.

What I'm saying is that the choice for me wouldn't be between IWB + projector and touch screen, but between that and drywipe board + UST touch interactive projector. Much closer in price and offering the same functionality. Though yes, it would be interesting to see what happens in the market if touch screen prices do fall to the same level as the above.