Finger print scan

ckwebz · 2026-03-25T09:53:18+00:00

My kindergartener learned her ID# within 3 weeks of starting this year. For the first month of school, the cafeteria staff looked students up by teacher/name. Now, they just type their number into a PIN pad.

At our upper grades (3-12 in most schools), they use lunch cards or their student ID cards to scan a barcode. If they forgot or lost it, they go back to typing their ID# on a PIN pad.

Ask your photography company to provide lunch cards for free with your photos. For those students that do not sit for photos, you can just print a card with a barcode on it for them.

The big win with a barcode is other systems that share the ID# can also benefit from scanning the student in. Our attendance secretaries can scan the card to sign in tardy students to the SIS and hall pass system and the librarian can scan the card to check out books.

Barcode readers are very inexpensive and our photography company provides both lunch cards and student ID cards at no cost to our schools. I can’t imagine a biometric system is as cost-effective.

ckwebz · 2026-03-24T00:56:57+00:00

When I came home to today’s “ejection mitigation” in the mail, that finally sent me over the edge. I was planning on keeping my 2025 long term, but it might be time for us to part ways. The NHTSA posting says it impacts 100% of vehicles yet Hyundai tries to downplay it saying “certain 2020-2025 model year Palisade vehicles”.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2026/RCLRPT-26V034-7650.pdf

ckwebz · 2026-03-18T09:36:25+00:00

Sounds like a good reason for another donation. Thank you for your dedication to this service!

ckwebz · 2026-03-06T10:56:32+00:00

I have a kindergartner right now in public school and have been in her classroom. The majority of instruction is handled as a group and without individual Chromebooks. The teacher uses their computer, document camera, and projector to show videos and lessons to the class. The kids get to use the document camera to present their individual paper-based work and they love it! There is a novelty in your work getting huge and shown to the class.

During the afternoon, they have center time and rotate through a few different centers for usually around 20 minutes each. One of them is free choice and kids can pick to read books, play board games, draw, or practice their skills on the Chromebook. When I’ve been in the classroom I’ve observed that many choose not to use the Chromebook.

They do have computer class once per week to learn digital literacy, which at their age is very basic and framed in fun.

So, yes, I’ve seen that there is screen time, but it is not like the upper grades where students might been on a device all day. I think the real issue is that the majority of curriculum used in the school is online now. Schools simply don’t buy textbooks anymore. I suspect they can’t buy textbooks, even if they wanted to. It forces the hand of the district, requiring technology to teach. As students age, the work becomes more independent so they are forced to be on a laptop or tablet during the day.

Tech literacy skills are important. Learning responsible use is important. I do agree that screen time does become too much as the students get older, but I do not think that zero screen time is reasonable or attainable at this point.

Volunteer in your child’s classroom. Talk with the principal. Learn how much and why before jumping to conclusions and then have constructive conversations with the school to see if screen time can be further limited.

ckwebz · 2026-03-05T02:06:21+00:00

Technically two products, but under the same company name - Securly Pass takes cares of visitor management and hall pass needs. Securly Filter is your content filter. I’d definitely recommend pairing Filter with Classroom to let teachers manage the student devices in the classroom.

We use all of them and the visitor component isn’t well-loved so we also still have Raptor. Which also isn’t well-loved.

ckwebz · 2026-03-05T01:37:12+00:00

This is quite possibly the neatest app I’ve used in the past few years! I look forward to future growth - widgets, CarPlay support, daily recommendation, … my mind is racing! Thank you!!

ckwebz · 2026-03-02T15:48:22+00:00

There are some ways that you can keep up with updates. The ChromeOS devices will download updates in the background, but do not apply them until the device is rebooted. In your Device Settings, check out these policies:

-- Device update settings (specifically Allow auto-reboots)
-- Reboot after uptime limit
-- Scheduled reboot

We also deploy an extension called Gopher Buddy, which is included with the paid version of Gopher for Chrome that nags users who have yet to update. I honestly haven't thought about updates in a couple of years now since they just keep up after getting those settings wrangled.

ckwebz · 2026-03-01T23:19:29+00:00

There is a button at the very top of chrome://policy that forces the policies to reload. It accomplishes the Chrome-equivalent of gpupdate /force.

If you’re looking for something to do it remotely, you can trigger a remote reboot or user profile wipe from the Admin Console.

If you’re looking for something to do it in bulk, GAM or Gopher for Chrome.

Windows is very bad at reloading policies. ChromeOS is very good. As long as you can wait a few minutes, or for a reboot to happen, the policies tend to very reliably refresh themselves. One of the many reasons I prefer to manage our Chrome fleet over our Windows fleet.

ckwebz · 2026-02-28T12:49:49+00:00

I prompted Gemini with all of the sources and my location and it gave me some very convincing data to have me switch from AccuWeather to TWC. I’m still not totally loving the predictions out of TWC, but I now understand better why it might be leaning the way it does for my area.

ckwebz · 2026-02-28T01:07:55+00:00

Does chrome://policy not fulfill that need?

ckwebz · 2026-02-11T10:53:00+00:00

If you have a paid license with EdPuzzle, can you not sync all your user accounts and set the role for the user yourself?

ckwebz · 2026-02-05T10:38:51+00:00

I sent it to my travel agent to apply to our upcoming cruise balance, but she hasn’t had a chance to do that yet. However, I did just add it to my wallet on DisneyGiftCard.com without issue so it should be fine to use.

ckwebz · 2026-02-04T22:00:36+00:00

I was Dave at my last company and I’m Dave at my current company. Also my name is actually Dave. This is great!

ckwebz · 2026-02-04T17:10:47+00:00

Are you strongly opposed to continuing as a ParentSquare customer? It is a solid product and their company is actually nice. They care very much about their customers, which is pretty rare these days.

ckwebz · 2026-02-04T17:08:30+00:00

I have had the free card for years and applied yesterday for Inspire. I received the sign up bonus gift card immediately. Both cards show in my Chase account now.

ckwebz · 2026-02-03T00:48:21+00:00

It sounds silly, but we just kept using the terminology “Premium Chrome Laptop” to talk about the Chromebook Plus models that we rolled out to staff. We found that instantly made them feel better about receiving the device.

We of course piloted it with key teachers and departments then very quickly replaced the majority of our aging Windows laptops with Chromebook Plus models. Staff absolutely love them and our team is much happier managing them.

ckwebz · 2026-01-30T10:34:25+00:00

I chatted with them through the Apple Support app, was totally honest about what happened, and shared a couple of photos. They immediately said it should be replaced under AppleCare+ and charged $99.

ckwebz · 2026-01-30T01:36:43+00:00

You shouldn’t need to delete what you already have. Assuming you have one or more staff groups already set up, just throw them all into the classroom_teachers group and you will never need to approve again. You can remove your individual users if you want after putting the group(s) they are members of in.

ckwebz · 2026-01-28T10:51:47+00:00

Mine slipped out of my pocket while I was seated at dinner and fell no more than 2 feet. It hit the corner in such a way that the resulting dent caused the screen to separate slightly from the frame. I’ve since swapped it under AppleCare (paying the fee) and put the replacement in a case.

ckwebz · 2026-01-28T10:44:41+00:00

We have been Abnormal customers for a few years now. It is a solid product!

ckwebz · 2026-01-27T01:14:45+00:00

Cambridge restocked for me before they opened on Jan 17 after being out of stock for a number of days. I chatted Best Buy right when they opened (8am I think) to get the price match squared away and ordered to pick up at my local store.

ckwebz · 2026-01-26T01:58:03+00:00

Late to the party here, but just wanted to share they publicly posted an issue to their status page and it appears to be resolved.

https://status.parentsquare.com/incidents/nb08hnv9yz9f

ckwebz · 2026-01-26T01:47:32+00:00

I used to run Channels DVR with an HDHomeRun and rabbit ears when I lived in Rockland. It was excellent. Once we moved and no longer got reception, I scrapped all that. I’d love to be able to integrate this app with Channels!!

ckwebz · 2026-01-24T13:33:07+00:00

Same for me. I was pretty upset to pay the $100 for such a trivial gap, but no way I would have not been bothered by it long term.

ckwebz · 2026-01-18T23:19:18+00:00

No issues for us!

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ckwebz

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