Lolsies @ Bradford council parking fine efforts

Posted on by primaryt

Bradford council have sent me the most pathetic hollow threat I have ever read. They miss read my parking ticket, tried to fine me, then they agree’d it was their mistake and then threatened me. Hillarious. .

I can’t help to think that humanity needs to move on from generic mail merge threat letters, it is so easy to lose respect by chosing the wrong words..
Back to work…

School ICT ownership model

Posted on by primaryt

I am in the process of writing an article on how schools can adopt and approach an ownership model which means parents/pupils contribute towards the cost of the ICT used inside of the school.

The principle idea is that the parent/child then owns the device and can be used in the future outside of the school.
Various schools have offered to contribute already to this paper but if you know of any school that has adopted this model and wants to talk about the advantages, disadvantages and the learning curve experienced throughout their deployment then please get on touch VIA twitter, email, a comment on this thread or facebook.
I am hoping to have this article completed by the end of the summer holidays 2009 and as always I will post for free on my blog.

Hosted Operating systems in schools

Posted on by primaryt


I have spent the last few days looking at fully hosted OS’ for schools. My consideration has been:

  • What problem are we trying to fix by using a fully hosted OS in a school?
  • Who will benifit most from using a hosted OS in a school?
  • What are the cost implications of using a hosted OS in a school?
An example of a fully hosted OS is http://eyeos.org – Basically an operating system you access through a web browser. It is available anywhere which means your applications and files follow you around.
Why use a hosted OS in education?
  • Reduce cost of software licensing & hardware requirements
  • Increase stability
  • Increase availability
  • Safe environment (not safer but safe(truly safe))
  • Simplify application deployment and delivery of content to the pupil/teacher
Why not to use a hosted OS in education?
  • Unfamiliar OS
  • Unfamiliar applications
  • Lack of printing availability
  • Inability to install x32 applications
  • Complex video streaming
The fundamental flaw…
Why have an OS thats completely hosted when 95% of people have a perfectly working OS on their desktop at home atm which was purchased OEM with a pc from a retail outlet?
The arguement against that flaw…
Applications do not require installation so a pupil/teacher can go to their safe environment as a restricted user and focus on learning without being at risk at all.
My opinion…
I believe in (MS/Open) Office over Textease. I may be wrong on this but my fundamental belief is that you have to introduce children to an ICT environment that will be familiar with when they leave school.
Further reading:
Is that interactive white boards are part of daily school life in most western countries, so erm, do these work with a hosted OS? In a nutshell, yes. Just like a Microsoft Windows OS you are required to install a driver on the actual hardware device.
A video of a school using eyeOS (not over the internet but hosted locally on site)

Review of Microsoft Family Safety Installation

Posted on by primaryt
Today im reviewing Microsoft Family Safety with a consideration on e-Safety for parents

“With Family Safety, you decide how your kids experience the Internet. You can limit searches, block or allow websites, decide who your kids can communicate with when they’re using Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail, or Spaces and monitor what websites they’re visiting…”

In this review I will be installing the package and looking at what this really means in real life.

The product is easily downloadable from http://download.live.com/familysafety

Once you have downloaded and run the package you get this installer screen:

I was shocked to see Photo Gallery, Toolbar, Writer, some outlook and some Live Add ins bundled. Also SQL Server CE 3.1 is required and some of my applications will be updated.
For me this is bloatware already. I want an application that does what it sais in the blurb so I am going to remove all of the additional programs except from Family Safety (However you may want some of this functionality).
With everything else removed the install is a quite large 109 MB. I hope this disk space usage is justified.
I needed to close MSN messenger to proceed and the install process took 8 minutes to complete on a machine with with an Intel Core2 6600 & 2 GB ram.
Once install is complete you are presented with this screen:
I have already set my search provider to google safe search and my home page to Primary School Safe Search so I don’t want to do that. I also don’t want to help improve Windows Live, not right now.
Now for a restart… Microsoft never seemed to learn that this is the most frustrating thing about most of their products for IT professionals however parents might not mind this restart as much.
After the restart I was prompted to “Sign Up” to Windows live but I already have windows live so I clicked Close. Nothing has been placed on my desktop or start menu and Windows Live Messenger has not opened as it usualy does. Very bad first impression.
I had to browse to Start – Windows Live – Family Safety, here I tried to sign in as a parent using my hotmail/live username/password. I was given an Error That I have not yet ereviews the Windows Live Terms of Use. No link was provided. I logged into my hotmail to look for the Live Terms of Use.. I clicked More then Family Safety and then clicked “I accept”.
Then I clicked Sign in again, now im in. Already im convinced this is too complicated for parents.
I am going to leave it here for today, it has been 30 minutes so far and the install is done but the configuration isn’t.
In my opinion most parents would simply not go through this entire process as it is too complicated.
Part 2 of this post will review configuration. Expect it in a few days.