IT Ideas

I'm retiring soon and as this Blogger site is on my school account, I suspect it will, at some point vanish. I've not been able to really keep up my initial enthusiasm for posting as my responsibilities have grown across the Trust, but I hope a few of the posts here have been of some use to people.  Anyways, good luck with whatever IT endeavors come your way. Roger

 Brief guide to MTA-STS setup on Google Workspace

The Managed Browser feature in the Google Admin console allows you to apply Chrome policies to the Chrome browser on a variety of platforms - Windows, MacOS and Linux. The application of these policies is done via OU and apply without the user having to turn on "Sync". I'll go through the specific steps to enrol browsers using Google Advanced Desktop Security as the Group Policy method is well documented elsewhere. Deploy the Chrome ADMX template file Down load the Chrome management files from here . Unzip the package and open up the chrome.admx file with notepad. Create a new custom OMA-URI Policy in the admin console and apply the following settings: OMA-URI  ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/ConfigOperations/ADMXInstall/Chrome/Policy/ChromeAdmx Type = String Value = copy the entire content of the chrome.admx file into the value field.  Apply to the root of your domain. Set a policy to enrol a browser into a specific OU Create a new custom OMA-URI Policy in the admin console ...

 If your ChromeOS device is on 103 or higher you can now access the new Screencast app. Quick demo below:  

 A few people asked me to do a practical run through of what this looks like - so here goes:

 I've spend the last year upgrading our Trust schools to dedicated leased line ethernet circuits. This process is still ongoing and and at some sites painfully slow - a bit like their current VDSL connections. However, 5G broadband is now starting to be offered on unlimited data tariffs and its starting to become an attractive option if you live in the right area. I've just switched from my BT VDSL connection to EE's 5G unlimited broadband. Below is the before, BT speedtest: Our home broadband speeds have not changed at all in the last decade since VDSL became a thing. No sign of fibre to premises here - at least not in the short term. Back then we went from about 2Mbps - so going to 20ish was great.  However, after setting up the new 5G router (and to be fair I have 5G on my phone - so knew what to expect), we now get: The download speeds we get exceed those of some of our schools on 200Mbps ethernet circuits for about a sixth of the price. However, upload is somewhat slow...

I've previously posted about the ability to manage Windows PCs in the Google Admin Console. However, what if you are still managing your PCs via local active directory, but use Google Workspace for most things? Well you can have your cake and eat it - you just need to use  Google Credential Provider for Windows  and do a few configurations. Step 1 - update your users on the Google Admin Console You need to add a custom attribute to all of your users (at least those who use PCs) on the Google Admin console to link them with their local AD account. So you need to create a custom attribute in the Google admin console and populate this with the AD windows user details: The custom attribute you need is Enhanced_desktop_security and the field is AD_accounts. Detailed instructions can be found here . You can auto populate this field using GADS (Google Apps Directory Sync) if you use this to auto provision your accounts in Google from AD. Alternatively, you can populate them in bulk w...

Given the times and how often I'm asked about how Meet works with Classroom, I've done a quick tutorial. Please be aware that how things work, does depend on how the admin console is configured: For the demo: Meet is enabled for students as a service, but they cannot start video calls and all of the admin options are turned off for their OU. Some feature require Enterprise licenses.

We have just started moving over to Google Voice in Trust schools. This is to replace the existing telephony systems. If you are a G Suite organisation, then its a really cool solution and works very well. If you didn't know, this is a cloud-based solution and you users can use their Voice number on any device, anywhere - not just the physical desk phone (entirely optional) sitting at school. You have integration with all of the other G Suite tools - especially Calendar and Meet. Basically read all about it here . I'm not going to duplicate the Google blurb - but go through a few things to be aware of. Cost Voice licences come in at around £8 per month. Each user who needs a Voice number needs one and every physical handset is associated with a user. Handsets - you have to use the Polycom handsets - VVX150's start at around £75. Remember you can use Voice on any internet-connected device - so these are strictly optional. You can see the full range of handsets here . Calls t...

Quick demo of the Linux Apps I use on ChromeOS. This was done on my HP X360 14 G1 - i3 with 8Gb RAM.

It's come to my attention in the last few days that not everybody necessarily knows that you can actually voice type in pretty much any app. Voice typing is natively supported in most operating systems now, including Windows 10 and Chrome OS. In Windows 10 you simply press the Windows key and H how to turn on voice typing. In Chrome OS you turn on the on-screen keyboard and click on the microphone button and you can type into any app be it an Android app, the web browser, or a chrome packaged app. A quick demonstration is in the video below. It makes putting comments on student work considerably quicker in something like Google Classroom. I've also just written this paragraph using the on-screen keyboard on a Chromebook.

I support one school in the Trust that used Bromcom and was finding it a bit tricky to get the data directly into Sheets. However, I've sorted this now and thought this might prove useful to someone. Step 1 - The Bromcom Report Write your report (or pick an existing one). Click Run Report and then select “Live Data Feed”. Copy the URL it gives you. Step 2 - Your user name and password to access the report You need the site ID which is the username. You also need your “User Access Key”. To get this click top right and “My account” and you will see a box with this in. Make a note of these. Step 3 - Setup the Google Sheet Make a Google Sheet that is going to receive the data. Click on “Tools” then Script and paste in this code: function populateSheetWithCSV(sheet, csvUrl, user, pw) {   var resp = UrlFetchApp.fetch(csvUrl, {     headers: {       // use basic auth       'Authorization': 'Basic ' + Utilities.base64...

In my previous blog post, I gave an overview of Google's new mobile device management for Windows 10 devices. A few weeks in now, we have a number of users using Windows computers managed this way. So below is a more detailed video look at deploying policies followed by some of the policies and how to configure them that we have used to date. Policy Settings It's important to note that unlike ChromeOS devices, you don't put machines into OUs, but the machines pick up policy based on the OU of the user used to enrol the device. OMA-URI policies we use: AllowManualMDMUnenrollment ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/Experience/AllowManualMDMUnenrollment Integer 0 This prevents users from unenrolling a device. AllowVPN ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/Settings/AllowVPN Integer 0 Prevents editing the VPN settings PageVisibilityList ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/Settings/PageVisibilityList string hide:network-vpn Can be used to hide bits of the set...

Been here before - but this is the latest from the Google beta....

This is a relatively new Papercut feature that allows you to push print queues to none AD joined PCs and Macs. I've made a short video that goes over the main points below and some notes follow that. Before you begin you need to fully configure Papercut and have a test VM that you can use ( not intuned and with no printers on it at all - remove all the defaults ). Make sure Mobility Print is deployed and the print queues you want to deploy are published. On the Test VM follow this procedure: https://www.papercut.com/support/resources/manuals/print-deploy/set-up-print-deploy/topics/computers-not-joined-to-local-domain.html Once the print queues are installed - make sure you change the Drives to the Kyocera ones and set the defaults. On the Print Server edit the config file: https://www.papercut.com/support/resources/manuals/print-deploy/set-up-print-deploy/topics/advanced-set-user-ID-method.html Change useridentitymethod to “ prompt ” IntervalSecs = 300 MinRa...

We have had a lot of HP G6A EE touch's (UK keyboard) with a few keys that have stopped working. After a lot of fiddling around the fix appears to be to unfold the keyboard cable and flatten it out. See the before and after picts: Before with folded cable: Note the fold in the cable. The fix: Not sure why they are folded in the first place. Hopefully, this simple fix will help people out.

I've previously blogged about how to make Google Classrooms and sync them from Capita SIMS using GAM - you can see that post here . However, that post required groups made by Hapara Teacher Dashboard to work. What if you don't want or cannot afford a paid-for solution? Well, a couple of scripts will allow you to to do this. I've gone through the process in this video: Script to clean out "s from SIMS output (run in the path oif the script): $Path = "c:\gam\hapara\students.csv"  (Import-CSV -Path $Path) | Select-Object -Property 'Email', 'Class Code', 'UID'| Export-CSV -Path C:\gam\hapara\classroom\students.csv -notype (gc C:\GAM\hapara\classroom\students.csv) | % {$_ -replace '"', ""} | out-file C:\GAM\hapara\classroom\students.csv -Fo -En ascii py classes.py  Change the file names and paths to suit yourself. The Python code def readStudents(infile):     students = []     try:         student...