Hi Sean

I've been trying to address major system functionality like Firefly and Smart Notes that lack development and cost far too much of my budget.

Both can now be completely replaced with a combination of Microsoft Teams, OneNote and SharePoint.  Teams can be used on interactive whiteboards, calling up a class of students and generating content with the usual mix of pasted items and annotations.  The great thing about it is that you are creating the 'handouts' and revision notes at the same time.  Your class immediately acquires the content by being a part of that team.  You can give assignments and mark them online.  You can also do collaboration on the screen, asking students to add content or annotate live and watching it all appear as they do it.  Work scrutiny is easy, with no need to take anything home.

What's really the killer aspect is that there are Teams apps for Windows, MacOS, Android as well as being able to use it in a browser.  OneNote is already highly compatible.  I've made a Team for my staff and we are conversing and adding ideas, even using our phones when we think of something.

The publishing part of Firefly can be replaced with SharePoint.

I'm really not sure you can use them in China, but it's worth thinking about for the future.  The cost to educational establishments makes it a no-brainer compared with bespoke offerings like Firefly and Smart Notes.

I always think of PillockByte when I see PB.. nothing personal

Aren't "PBs" measures of Peter Belt-ness then? 9.5 Peter Belts of storage space would actually be infinite, and you'd probably be able to keep it in something like a tinfoil-covered egg-box too.

Martin, are you using either the Beta or the Dev version of Edge at the moment? I'm sort of messing around with them, but they're still a bit too "Microsofty" for me at the moment. I object to being force-fed Bing every time I open a new tab for starters.

As you may (or may not?) know, the new version of Edge is built on Chromium, so your days of returning to "Edge" may be numbered, you'll just be going back to Chrome that's wearing a Steve Ballmer mask. I never bothered with the original Edge, being a devoted Chrome user, but on the Beta/Dev versions you can certainly do away with the "gossip boxes" and even the "most popular" boxes if you so desire. Hopefully, there will, ultimately, be a simple method of changing the default search engine throughout the application.

This might interest you...

[but] one interesting change is Edge's new Collections feature, which lets you gather text, links and other information you might have sprawling across many browser tabs. Collections can be saved, shared and exported into formats like Excel spreadsheets. Microsoft debuted Edge Collections in May, but now it's available for testing in Edge Canary.

I could imagine teachers researching information for lessons, perhaps, and using the Collections feature to easily disseminate useful research sources to students if it works as I'm interpreting the article.

SOURCE

Windows 10 1909 appeared today. Installed in both my work and home machines without issue. Mostly bug fixes although the Explorer OneDrive search is a nice addition.

Hurry then, W7 falls out of support in January. I haven't seen a date for W8 but I doubt it'll last any longer.

I've just started downloading 1909.

This interests me... "Voice assistants also get an upgrade, or to be more precise, Cortana gets chucked back in her box, if you so wish, with Alexa able to replace her out-and-out soon."

I never use Cortana, but if there is some future tie-in with Alexa that might prove interesting to me as the whole house is full of Alexa-controlled devices.