Over the last ten months I have converted 3 different applications for different schools to the cloud.  Most of the apps software developers provide a hosted version and the organizations decided to move offsite.  I can't say I blame them :) This strange new technology in schools is changing faster than people notice.  Teaching today in the classroom no longer requires laptops for students. The Ipad or products coming out like it make sense in schools.  As schools go more towards hosted apps the need for local computing power drops.  After "playing around" with an ipad I realized that it worth it for an educator just change their way of using technology in school to work with this type of product. No more waiting 15 minutes for every kids computer to be on the same website.  Forget the IT guys having to rebuild laptops due to infections. In walks ClearOS...  The reality is that servers in a school are required less and less.  A strong firewall with bandwidth shaping and protocol filtration/web filtration is sometimes all that is needed... Check out the following CloudBased school applications.  Yes these used to be onsite: 1.  Powerschool (School Administration & Grading App) - Pearson Publishing2.  Destiny Library Software (Hosted Version) - Follett3.  Senior Systems (Hosted Version) - Finanical & Development App4.  Raisers Edge (Hosted Version) - Development App5.  Accelerated Reader (Hosted Version) - Renaissance Software If you are school or school district looking at the ClearOS there really is no better way to go.  Especially if your critical software apps have moved up into the clouds. -J

I realized yesterday a policy that we implemented at a couple of schools may not be the best policy out there. We had configured the web filter to bypass teacher machines so they could go where they want to go and do what they want to do (at their request). The problem with that policy is that teachers have just a big a chance on clicking on a bad site or installing an app on their local systems as students do. So, it made me rethink what we have been doing. The better route, I believe, is to white list teacher requested sites so that all systems stay protected. What do you do and what are your thoughts?

Honestly, I haven't use the content filter built in to ClearOS because I needed a password override and wanted to centralize filtration from my datacenter. I have spoken with ClearCenter about providing a centralized solution, as well. That being said I did enable the ACL function of the firewall today for 3 mac addresses associated with a customers kid systems on a nightly schedule. The solution was really easy to setup and the customer is very happy. This is one of those features that you just can't get with an off the shelf firewall. I know there are some members who have configured the password override feature built into DansGuardian and used by ClearOS and I would love to hear how it works for you. -Jim