londonbg

We've tried a few things (Securus and some others) but we now lock down our iPads using Netsupport Classroom Cloud All devices registered in Apple School Manager. Software and configuration managed by JAMF Pro. Removed Safari browser completely using JAMF and force all users to use the Classroom Cloud Web Browser instead. The web browser forces them to log in using their Google G-Suite accounts giving us a good overview of what's happening from a safeguarding point of view.

Hence my question. What I'd really like ideally is a nice friendly man with an assistant that isn't too expensive to both source the bulbs and fix the problem.

That was definitely my thinking. It's no mean feat though finding someone capable of helping you take the bloody thing off the wall!

Had two Promethean screens fail recently Has anyone got any recommendations for someone that can come and repair them? Looks like the backlight has gone in both as I can see stuff on the screen just very faintly. We are in Central London Many thanks

It's in Computers / Restricted Software James. Add Safari.app there and choose which Macbooks you want to restrict. Mine is cloud hosted but yours should look similar.

Slow reply. Apologies. We use Tailscale and/or Zerotier as all our connections are non fixed.

I wasn't actually aware they did an educational discount

We're using Starlink load balanced with several other connections as we're still not properly cabled where we are despite being in Central London. We used the residential option on a bank card for the purpose. Has been very reliable thus far.

Extremely late reply but hopefully helpful for others discovering this thread in future. I've have had to do about 10 SAR requests for numerous schools in the past 12 months. They definitely seem to be becoming 'a thing' which from an IT perspective is a bit of a nightmare given everything else we have to do. As regards G Suite eDiscovery (now called Google Vault I think) we run the searches and then export the data, which in the case of the gmail we choose to download as an MBOX file We then use MacUncle MBOX Converter to then convert the MBOX file into individual PDFs (one PDF per email). We then join/merge those PDFs in Acrobat pro or PDFSam in order to provide a PDF file for redaction in Acrobat Pro. One bonus we discovered with the above software is it also separately has the ability to push MBOX files back INTO gmail really elegantly which means we can do easy gmail restores from MBOX files which is great for migrations or giving a new user the archive of a previous user where they haven't inherited the original account.

Yeah we've literally never had an issue at all with them till the majority of them all decided to simultaneously turn themself off forever in the space of a month. There seems to be lots about this happening online having dug a bit further.

http://www.splashtop.com

Warning - ALL of our Lenovo 300e's have died all within weeks of each other recently so currently searching for flip screen / touchscreen Chromebooks currently aswell.

Which system are you moving to? Have done this a few times now and I think the key thing to remember is that whatever the salesperson for your new MIS system tells you (Big shout out to K***** at Engage) he will almost certainly be lieing to you in order to get the sale!

We've just had about 40 of these machines die all within weeks of each other. Literally dropping like flies. Anyone got any (urgent) suggestions for non Lenovo touchscreen Chromebooks that can also be used as a tablet?

I'd probably describe my job as 'basically running the entire school'

NetSupport basically sends alerts to your chosen admins / safeguarding team depending on severity. They then log in via phone/tablet app or via the web where they can address it and mark it as false positive etc Anything urgent (terrorism / radicalisation / grooming) can be set to fire out to the safeguarding team aswell. Our admins do a login every couple of days to clear the less serious entries that wouldn't have alerted.

We use NetSupport DNA (previously had smoothwall) at one of my two schools. Seems to still work reliably and reports well despite a few Mac setup issues.

I use Ecamm Live for this job which is designed as Mac based live streaming and/or recording software, but does a great job of overlaying / obscuring things if required. I imagine the free OBS could so something similar for a quick fix. I just set up what I need and then run the clip, re-recording it to disk (in Ecamm aswell) in real time.

I'd imagine it's now on a student's bedroom wall connected to an Xbox

I don't even know where to start with this..

We are very sad that Matrep have announced they are shutting down. It's a great example of a system that does one job really well as opposed to being a jack of all trades / master of none. It's much better than what our MIS (engage) offers and WAY better than using Sims. I support multiple schools (not all of which have a useful MIS) so I need to find a Matrep equivalent ASAP for a couple of them.

We have two IT suites both with 26 machines (iMacs). Has anyone got any recent recommendations for network colour laser printers? Both of the HP machines we currently use have felt a bit woeful and somewhat flakey in the 3 years we’ve had them requiring constant attention. Any recommendations gratefully received.

You need to make yourself a USB install disk. The HD boot thing is just for consumers in an emergency and isn't actually very helpful or useful. Grab yourself a copy of Diskmaker X You'll need an 8gb or larger ideally USB stick If you need links to particular installers please feel free to give me a shout Diskmaker X will do the rest https://diskmakerx.com There are older versions of diskmaker on their web site for the correspondingly older system versions Once you've made your USB installer simply restart the machine whilst holding down the ALT key and then you can choose the drive to start up from.

Thanks all this is really helpful

We're thinking of moving away from SIMS What would be the best way of accessing historical data (past students and teachers etc) that we don't bring across to a new system? Does SIMS stop working when a subscription ends? Assuming we can't use the SIMS.net app/server is there simple way of exporting ALL data to a CSV for future use if the historical data ever needs returning to?