Beebug - Newsletters

Design an E-Safety Poster and Win a Tablet for your School!

We recently announced the BeeSafe Buzzer! a new safety button that is included free of charge with any BeeSafe subscription. We have since deployed the Buzzer! in a number of schools and it has been well received.

What is it?
The BeeSafe Buzzer! is a a friendly floating Bee that hovers around the desktop, on top of other windows. It is there to help students protect themselves while using a computer. In the event that a student is exposed to inappropriate content or cyberbullying, the Buzzer! is there to protect them. They simply need to click on the icon to immediately blank the screen, removing the offending content from site.

If this sounds familiar, that is probably because you have heard of Hector Protector, the floating dolphin from Hectors World by ThinkUKnow. While the basic features are similar, the Buzzer! has additional safeguading features. Unlike Hector, the safety screen cannot be removed by a simple click. Each time the button is pressed the system generates a random unlock code which is displayed at the bottom of the screen in words so that the adult supervising them can then key in the digits. This helps to ensure that an adult is aware of the situation and discourages from over use.

The other big difference is reporting. A click on Hector simply covers the screen, the Buzzer! actually reports the content back to the BeeSafe system. A new screenshot capture is generated and flagged that it was initiated by the Buzzer! Optionally, BeeSafe can be configured to email staff members each time Buzzer is activated.

What does it cost?
The Buzzer! is free to any schools with a BeeSafe subscription. If you don’t have an e-safety monitoring solution (if not why not!) then BeeSafe is available from as little as £550 per year!

How can I use it?

A quick call to our support desk on 01727 840303 or an email to support@beebug.co.uk from an authorised member of school staff is all it takes. The solution can be site wide or targeted to groups of workstations.

You mentioned a competition to win a tablet?

Our skills are technical and not artistic, therefore we need some e-safety inspired images for the Buzzers! "blank" screen. We would like these to come from your students. The best entries will be put on rotation and the students school will be credited.

The best entry will be the first screen on rotation and the school will be awarded a certificate along with a 12" Linx 2in1 Tablet! The tablet will be awarded to the school to use as they see fit. Entrants must be under 12 years old and attend a school with a valid BeeSafe subscription. The winning entry will be judged by a panel of Beebug staff.

The closing date for the competition is 6/07/2018 and we'll announce the winner on 12/07/2018. The winning image will then start to appear the following week.

Entries to the competition as well as any queries should be directed to support@beebug.co.uk or the support desk on 01727 840303.

GDPR Preparation for May 2018

GDPR During our investigation into GDPR both for ourselves and for our clients, we've uncovered a vast amount of conflicting information.

This seems to be because several companies and organisations are attempting to “cash in” on peoples fear of GDPR. They want customers to sign up for long periods of time, 4 years is the one we hear the most. Perhaps this is because they know you will realise that you don’t really need the service but are now tied in? This means the information sent out is aimed towards organisations signing up to services that they may not actually need.

We have had discussions with a number of companies and consultants, but found a meeting with a particular specialist in Data Protection legislation and former ICO employee the most informative. From this meeting we have produced these documents to help you see to the heart of GDRR and avoid the common “myths”.

Speak with Beebug before signing up to any long contracts or if you have specific questions or would like further guidance.

Downloads:

GDPR – Guidance.pdf
GDPR – Myth Buster.pdf

Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Plan - Do you have one in place?

All maintained Schools and Academies are required to have an up-to-date Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Plan (BCDR)

A key part of your BCDR plan should be an effective offsite backup. This is your last line of defence in a major data loss situation. The importance of this was highlighted recently with the WannaCry ransomware attack.

In the past, online backups have been slow, hard to manage and costly. Thankfully this is no longer the case. We recommend two affordable options using Veeam Cloud Connect:

Complete Cloud Backup – Total peace of mind. All files and configurations are backed up off site to an encrypted cloud Server. In the event of a complete disaster, everything would be recoverable. Storage costs increase with size of data so may not be feasible for some establishments.
Hybrid Cloud Backup – In some scenarios the Complete Cloud Backup could be cost prohibitive. If this is the case, we recommend that you at least identify critical data that you require as part of your BCDR and backup only that. The less data that you backup offline the lower the cost will be.

Veeam Cloud Connect Backup.

Beebug recommends Veeam Backup for Hyper-V. Providing fast, flexible, and reliable recovery of client hosted applications and data. This is especially effective when paired with local network storage to comply with the 3-2-1 backup rule:

You must have at least three copies of your corporate data.
Those copies must be stored on at least two different types of media.
At least one must remain offsite.

Veeam Cloud Connect is an easy, efficient way to get additional backups offsite and into the cloud. With Veeam Cloud Connect, you get:

Cost-efficient virtual machine or agent cloud backup, utilising data de-duplication and compression
Reduce management and operating costs with a single management interface
Complete security with end-to-end encryption using a secure SSL connection, at source, in transit and at rest
Utilising built-in WAN acceleration, compression, forever incremental backups and all the industry-leading Veeam features
Fully scalable, on a pay-as-you-grow basis, responding to your changing needs
No hidden costs

NEWSLETTERS.

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Design an E-Safety Poster and Win a Tablet for your School!

GDPR Preparation for May 2018

Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Plan - Do you have one in place?

Veeam Cloud Connect Backup.

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