AngryTechnician

I haven't used the content filtering features personally, but I'm not convinced it offers a complete solution. I don't think it does any filtering of HTTPS content, for example. My advice would be to get in touch with Meraki (or a reseller) and request some trial equipment. They were more than happy to supply me with trial equipment for just a single site; if you wave the potential for sales to 44 schools in front of them they will probably fall over themselves to help you out.

Shared Calendars are a bit of a PITA, because unlike personal calendars, Google Apps Sync won't touch them, and they can't be published online using ICS via Outlook. I ended up writing an exporter that uses Exchange Web Services to pull the calendar direct from our Exchange server and convert it to ICS using a library. I have a scheduled task that runs this a few times a day and uploads the resulting .ics file to our website, which can then be imported into Google Calendar. Unfortunately our specific school calendar ID is hardcoded into it and creating a UI to configure it for general use is on the back-burner at the moment.

It's alright for a basic note-taking app, and the cloud sync is a bonus. Calling it an Evernote competitor is a bit of a stretch though. Both Evernote and OneNote allow for more structured organising. I know Google are all about search, but even they added folders to Google Drive once they realised what a pig's ear they'd made of it insisting on a flat file structure where you just search for everything. I also would have thought Google would allow sharing of notes between accounts, for example to share a to-do list or shopping list between people. Seems like something they should already have the infrastructure for; perhaps it will come later once it better integrates with Drive.

I think you specifically need to use the Google Groups interface.

Hauppage or PCTV are my personal choices for hardware brands. I have had 3x Hauppauge dual tuner PCI cards and a PCTV HD USB tuner streaming Freeview onto our network 24x7 for over a year without problems. (Edit: just checked and the Happauge cards have been going non-stop since July 2010. They are rock solid.) Windows Media Center is easy to use and pretty reliable, so if you already have it with Windows Vista or 7, try it out. The only real downside is it only supports 1 channel per tuner at a time, unlike MythTV which can record multiple channels simultaneously if they are on the same multiplex (e.g. BBC1 and BBC2 can be recorded simultaneously with 1 tuner, but BBC1 and ITV1 can't).

I believe that to share a calendar with a group, the group needs to be in Google Groups, not just in regular contacts. This is different to how Google Docs works.

Another vote for Small Basic. The class library it comes with means pupils can have a program that does something 'interesting' without getting bogged down in the minutiae of API calls and the like. For example, I seem to recall that pulling CC licensed images from Flickr can be done in just a few lines.

There are a plethora of scripts and logging systems available for this in various threads on here. I use Lansweeper to record all of our logons, but it doesn't record logoff events, so is more of a record of who last logged on to a particular computer. On the very rare occasions that I need to find out exactly who is logged on at that very moment, I just log on to the file server that stores everyone's redirected folders and have a look at the active sessions list.

O2 usually brand their Android firmware with an O2 logo. Do you remember if your original ROM had an O2 splash screen? If it didn't, there's a good chance it's unlocked already.

a) Yes, though the user may be upset about it. There will be no impact on anything other than Minecraft. b) There are several ways you could go about it, ranging from savage beatings to instil fear in your userbase, to using something like AppLocker to prevent Minecraft from running.

Luckily that has a 'normal' group policy setting. User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Internet Explorer "Disable changing home page settings" When set to enabled you can set the homepage you want, the only possible downside being that the user cannot change it to something else (personally I don't want them changing it as it means they then can't 'forget' to check the Intranet for messages).

Yes, you could also use the Internet Settings part of Group Policy Preferences. However, my experience of this is that the all-in-one nature of the UI means it's quite fiddly to just get it to apply proxy settings on their own without a load of other settings that you might want to leave well alone. Easier to use GPP to apply just the above registry settings, in my opinion.

The root of the problem here is that in IE10, the Internet Explorer Maintenance GPO extension is no longer supported. TechNet: Replacements for Internet Explorer Maintenance You will need to either implement the registry settings as above (perhaps using Group Policy Preferences if you don't like scripts), or do what I've done and get auto config working using a WPAD file so you don't need to change anything.

Step 1: Call your union. It is likely you will be fighting an uphill battle on this one, regardless of evidence, and you will need someone local who can support you.

Very slow here, but I can get on. Google are investigating: Apps Status Dashboard

PoE on the switch is definitely the better route in my opinion. Depending on the number of phones per switch it may also end up cheaper, in which case you could spend the difference on a "guaranteed to-to-fix" warranty service for the switch.

No problems with Google Safesearch here on our Smoothwall, either on image search or otherwise.

Neither of these options can be set by the administrator in the Google Apps control panel. Last time I checked there was also no API exposure for these settings, so I don't think you'll find a third party app that can do it either. One more thing we all have to get used to with consumerisation - we're not allowed to set things up for users any more.

I did think of that, and have been checking the exhibitor list. So far, all of them who are claiming to be calling about BETT were indeed there. Doesn't rule out that theory though.

I've had quite a few cold calls from companies saying they are 'following up from BETT' in the last few weeks. Companies I am quite certain I didn't visit or allow to scan my badge. This hasn't been my experience in previous years; has anyone else noticed the same?

I would recommend calling the Safer Internet Centre's professionals helpline for advice. Details here: Helpline - Safer Internet Centre

How big is the backup file getting? Could it be running into a maximum file size problem on the filesystem of the NAS? Conversely, are there any large files in the source that could be too big for NTBackup?

Not directly. You have to use Google Cloud Print, which effectively means sharing it from another computer. If the Chromebook is to be her only computer, your are out of luck.

The issue we found with formatting on Word documents is when staff have laid out a document/template for printing. It rarely looks the same as the original, page breaks when you print are often in a different place to on screen, and is different between browsers (it's only ever correct on Google Chrome). If you want to print to your shared printers from the Chromebooks, you'll need to use the Google Cloud Print system built in to the Chrome browser. You have to have it configured on a workstation that can see all the network printers, and that workstation needs to be left logged on.

Chromebooks are basically a machine running the Chrome browser with some bells and whistles. Everything you run on a day to day basis is a web app. To edit Office documents, they will have to be imported into Google Drive and converted to Google Docs format. This will work for Office 2010 documents but there will be a loss of formatting fidelity, and as you are probably aware, Google Docs is not a fully featured as Office. To log on you have to use a Google account, which can be a Google Apps account. There is some management via the Google Apps dashboard. They do not join to AD, and I'm pretty sure you cannot connect to Windows network shares. In my opinion, if the school is already using Google Apps well, they are a decent option. In almost all other circumstances they require a big change to the way you use IT, which may not be popular.