Ditto

The current GCSE specification for Digital Technology does say this for one of the Non-examined assessments (NEA). So not quite a must, but a bit naughty in my view. It appears the Welsh Qualification Authorities have done a deal with the software company on discounted licenses. Also seems to be the case with some Adobe stuff too under their programme ‘Adobe × Hwb’ programme. I'm not a fan of the approach persoanlly.

I did subsequently notice the manual documents the error you hit (Page 7) and it provides a link - which is on longer valid, not doubt for the reason it's out of date. I do wonder however if the later version of the redistributable is supported, but I couldn't find a clear answer either way. The SP2 version is at https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=13255 and may be supported, even if the version of the 2010 Access Database application in it's entirety isn't. Perhaps slightly reassuringly https://www.cvedetails.com/version/176419/Microsoft-Access-2010.html doesn't show any vulnerabilities. You might also find https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/made2010 interesting. However, at the end of the day, you are right to query this with them and they need to convince you that they are asking you to install something that is current, supported and not vulnerable. Keep me posted on their reply!

Wow, that's a serious loss for Advanced. It's hard to see Cloud School (formerly Progresso) surviving this. I also hope AET were thorough with procurement process!

No, it's not right. Their manual advises to install the latest version, although the link is dead. Aren't DfE also advising schools to look to be Cyber Security Essentials compliant - surely installing the latest updates would be required. I'd stick to your guns for now. A quick google did seem to suggest for some users, it's better to install the 32 bit version of the redistributable - might be worth a try? It's been a while since I had to deal with redistributables, and to be honest I managed the experts rather than being hands-on myself, but I do know it could be a bit of a nightmare, but that's the software suppliers issue to resolve. Out of interest, do you have .net 3.5 SP1 enabled? It's probably unrelated, but it is another prerequisite - to my surprise, 3.5 is supported until 2029.

Some interesting observations in the article, but given the calibre of the candidates observed, I would suggest the teaching is lacking. If they can not explain the concept of files and folders in very quick time, something is amiss. It's really about being organised and being in control of your environment. Whether it's labels and searching, or files and folders, I'm not sure it should matter too much. I wonder how many people who have endless artefacts on their desktop, OneDrive, google drive or other are really in control if they rely on searching it every time.

In a programming environment, I search and it finds 2 versions. One is labelled 'latest', the other is labelled 'latest' too. They were both 'latest' at the time. In fact, neither is the sub-module I want, because the actual file that I need, I forgot to label it 'latest'. In software, version control is really, really important. It's a question of being in control of your environment.

Coursera offering some free Google Cloud training https://www.coursera.org/promo/google-cloud-free-courses-2021

Hmmm - my Kindle fire report the same issue this morning - is the internet broken again?

Vaccine data now includes all 12+ year olds. Current first dose percentage is 85.3%. It shouldn't be, but it's a bit annoying not to have hit 90% milestone when it was 16+; we were so close! In some ways, a milestone of limited value, but would have been good to see it reached. The level of uptake in this range is going to be interesting to watch given the preamble. My kids school have now processed permissions, so school vaccinations seem to starting to move a bit faster. On cases in general, comparing against previous weekdays, shows the reduction for about a week has turned and we now have a couple of days of rising numbers. It's still be yo-yoing, but at high numbers. Today, a Thursday, we see over 40,000 - that's only happened 4 other times (on a Thursday), once in July and the other 3 in December/January when the numbers were at all time highs. On the positive side, healthcare numbers are holding steady. One anomaly I've not yet got my head around; the weekly deaths on certificate, by date registered, has been steadily rising since mid June, where it was just below 100, but now is showing over 1,110 for the end of September. The same isn't reflected in the 28 day numbers. Am I missing something or are a lot more deaths happening after 28 days now?

Yes, we did and it was an all-though school so from Reception to Yr13. We were a fully Google School and used a variety of third party apps where the email address fed in to account creation. If anyone saw my earlier, now deleted posts, it reminded me I would not include it in CTFs when passing to another school - I saw no logic in that!

Which MIS system is this? Normally, assuming SIMS is a fair guess, but that's increasingly less so.

Do you know if the charities income is more than £5000 per year or is it a charity that just use volunteers to provide a service? You're right about registering a charity being a fair bit of work, and some would be on-going. At >£5k, I believe you have to register, but the upside is, as you suggest, it's easier to get non-profits accounts set up.

It is, for up to 300 users which is plenty for many small charities but it is quite limited. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/nonprofit/plans-and-pricing?activetab=tab%3aprimaryr1, but it is quite limited. For up to 10 users, Microsoft 365 Business Premium is potentially a solution? How big is the charity? ***Edited with a more appropriate UK link ***

Have you considered Workspace for non-profits? https://www.google.com/nonprofits/offerings/workspace/. If the transition away from MS is bearable, the admin is pretty easy to pick up in my experience.

Is there a standalone compatibility checker for Win 11? I've got many intel series 2 running the latest Win 10 that are unsupported but have been trouble free. Also have a few Intel-Nehalem based Xeons that have been equally trouble free on Win 10.

I hit the same issue when looking for emoji's to represent a turkey shoot! Swapping all US guns for water pistols would be progress though!!!

I'll try to remain non-political, but is there a point where any ruling government in a country should just make vaccines mandatory unless there is a good medical reason not to have it, rather than force large chunks of the population be indirect means? I see from the US president a mandate forcing vaccination that could potentially cover two thirds of employees; including all federal workers and employees of businesses with more than 100 staff. Australia, China, France, Greece, Italy, parts of Canada, Wales and England have made vaccines mandatory for some work sectors. There's also the approach of requiring vaccine passports for certain activities - like nightclubs, air travel etc. Indonesia, Micronesia, Turkmenistan have made vaccines mandatory for all adults and in the case of Indonesia you can get fined for non-compliance. Whilst I'll never defend a anti-vaxer, I suspect some of those protesting have a deep belief in the freedom of personal choice. But, all countries have laws such that there are restrictions on that choice - you can't freely go around shooting people without consequence. I guess it is up to each government to decide on their tipping point. Personally, I don't think the UK will ever go for an outright mandatory programme (and yes, I know it would need a law change), but it could well use an increasing variety of indirect, with life impacting consequences of deciding not to. As for the US, I could see the president making a mandate, but with there state structure, it would be hard to enforce. and, as is often the case, it'll be the legal profession that does best if they do!

#2 son is an avid reader of Cassandra Clare books, including the Shadowhunter Chronicles, so we watched The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones free on Prime video. It was excellent and had me jump out of my seat once, which is very rare! I'd recommended it if you are looking for a young adult science fiction movie, but for balance, the critics didn't rate it highly, yet Joe Public feedback generally appears stronger. I have to say, they have moved on a long way since Octonauts - what happened?!

A couple of points in that article caught my eye. Firstly, vaccinations in schools. It said "there has been no sign of vaccination programmes beginning at schools". That's in line with my local observations - is anyone seeing progress in their schools? Secondly, one expert commented in relation to the high case rate potentially leading to a more infectious, vaccine resistant variant "It is a real prospect, ... I have been predicting a strain worse than the Delta variant for a while but it hasn’t happened". It shows how unpredictable some things to do with covid are now. A small slight positive, case rates have shown a small decrease for the last three days compared to the week before, and in some ways that's unexpected. Rates of growth or reduction have swung between negative and positive since mid July. Finally, one perhaps for the annoying thread. The https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations site is not currently updating percentage vaccinations for 16+ whilst they sort out tracking for 12+. We were just about to hit, or have just hit , 90% first jab for 16+. It's perhaps no longer the most important milestone, but still a significant one nonetheless. I'm really not sure if there's a lot more can be done to move the figure a lot higher, without getting in to more controversial actions.

Ooo'err - mathematical humour! It's cool, but not unreal man

A significant statement about a drug treatment using molnupiravir - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58764440. It's early days and there is no statement on long term impact. It doesn't take anything more than a wiki search to see some questioning of drug safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molnupiravir. But it's clear science is hard at work in the battle against covid. It's easy to forgoet or under estimate the impact of the vaccines and the speed they were developed. I suspect when looking back in a decade or two's time, the achievement will be better recognised.

I love these sorts of challenges! How structured is the text file? I'm sure it's possible to use powershell, but I'm wondering if the data concatenated and then imported to another worksheet in your work book. If yes, you could probably find a solution using something like XLOOKUP. Once at this point, the real fun starts when you start to do forecasting. I don't have a lot of Excel experience on this, but I believe you can do time series forecasting which in theory should allow projections that take in to account termly data variations. If there is nothing confidential in the data and you were happy to share a few days or weeks worth of data, I'd be happy to see what solution I can come up with. No worries if your not comfortable with that, but if OK drop me a PM. There are of course other options, such as Python, R, and even maybe a relational database like SQLite that could be used. I've dabbled in all of those but I used to be a professional programmer. What's always a frustration with these tasks is that masses amount of time can be saved, but there's a learning curve to go through and in the work environment we never get time, to spend time, learning how to save time!!!

Assuming they have all given consent, beyond having that documented you are most likely to be compliant. You may need to ensure the new employer has taken steps to ensure the data is properly protected. I guess you need to also think about data retention - once they have moved over, do you have any need to retain the data? There may be an argument for a short period of time, but not endlessly. On the topic of consent, it is of course just one of the lawful basis - see https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/ for others. In this case, I wonder if you really needed consent and whether you had a legitimate interest, but having gone down the consent route, I think it's on longer relevant. I would be interested to hear an opinion from @GrumbleDook though.

Just on this point - yeah, some SLT never learn and I can only sympathise. Personally, I'd still go through the steps I advise accordingly. Being super rational with SLT can be empowering, but I do know in some environments they can be impossible to work with - and that's when I leave them...

I no longer have access a Google Admin account so could be a little out of date, but I understand the concern with a parent accessing a child account. However, I thought the parent guardian offered a controlled experience. Definitely worth checking, even if not for this issue, but I'm happy to learn if it's not suitable and why. Life-long learning - I'm always ready for that!