Rough Cuts Ltd Blog

If your school has Chromebooks or anything that uses Google services, at some point, either as a head or an IT leader, you're going to realise you need to upload your entire school to Google Admin console. This can seem like an overwhelming task. You could input this information pupil by pupil (not advised) or you can upload a .csv ('comma separated value file' or 'spreadsheet').  Stay with me, it doesn't matter if you don't know what this means or not.  You also need to input every pupils email address, and create a unique password for them. Imagine trying to make 200-300 passwords up! Doing this manually is a wicked waste of any teacher or secretaries time. So I'm going to share my tips for simplifying this seemingly overwhelming task.  1 DOWNLOAD THE TEMPLATE Fig 1 Login to you google admin console. Click Add Multiple users. (see fig 1 - this option only shows up under USERS and the top level of the organisation).  Select add mul...

So; family sharing. Setting up a family account with either Google, Apple or Microsoft has a number of benefits, for example locating your kids (and wife), controlling PC access, checking web history, setting parental controls and generally looking after your family online. Plus, the great benefit of sharing apps between a number of family devices. For example; Minecraft , which our family is heavily into, having built  @chester_craft on Xbox 360 and having over 2 million downloads via maps for minecraft on Android (Search Chester if you want it for free). We've used family sharing on Apple devices in the past, Downloading Minecraft on the Parent iOS device, and easily downloading it for free on a childs device. However everything over at Apple hasn't always been plain sailing, sometimes I've had problems with purchases, which have needed rectifying. Once my very young daughter inadvertently bought £12 of in app purchases (while in app purchasing was still in it...

If your local ATM display showed that it had a virus would you be worried about your bank balance? I'd assume the answer is 'of course not'. As you'd know the bank would be keeping it safe. If the worry of a ransomware attack on your computer concerns you, then it's possible you may want to rethink the way you manage your files. Cloud based storage has existed in various guises for many years now. The first service I used was Dropbox. Google are now (in my opinion) market leaders in this respect, with Microsoft a close second. iCloud is sadly too dependant on Apple powered devices to be taken seriously, where as the other solutions are happy on a number of platforms; including Apple. If you still use 'my documents' or your home folder on your computer to store your most important documents, or worse still, your desktop, then ransomware will still most likely be a worry. This will be more true if you don't keep regular backups of your data. However, O...

This is a question I get asked more often than most others. And for the part, I answer without thinking. Yes, I say, If you can fly one of the cheaper drones, you'll find the more expensive one's simple. And to a degree that's true. The smaller £30 drone's like the one I started with, the Hubsan H107 is a real handful. In fact the first time I took it out, a few days after Christmas (wihtout my glasses on) I lost sight of it at about 50ft, the wind got hold of it and I spent the next 40 minutes traipsing round a field looking for the little flashing lights, which fortunately, because of the quick loss and lack of power going to the motors were still flashing. (They usually only last 6-7 minutes). The reason the smaller drones are harder to control (and thus better to practice with) is because they don't carry any technology that would aid the pilot. No GPS, no ultrasonic or visual sensors, no altitude controls or compass, although the Hubsan does have a gyrosc...

It's important if you're going to hire a drone operator that he or she, or the business that they represent are properly insured and qualified. I know this, and hopefully those who hire drone operators to carry out any work for them, know this as well. How you go about finding a legitimate drone operator is more of a quandary. There are now a number of drone registers appearing who will put the customer in contact of a legally qualified operator. Regardless of the size of the work or the location in the UK, these drone registers will point you in the direction, or let you search on their website for a local drone operator to you.  For those of us running a one man show; who look after the site survey, risk assessments, video capture, flight, equipment, video edit, final production and delivery, who can keep the cost low for clients, this is a considerable additional expense, especially if we decide to register with more than one.  But how do small businesses get f...