Community centre network

[IA76]

Hi All

 

I help out at an inner city community centre and we have been raising money towards getting some pc equipment.

 

Getting a network person/company in is way out of our budget so I would be grateful for any tips/help you can give me.

 

We have managed to source approx 20 complete second user compaq machines (p4 2.2) which have all been placed in one room. Each machine is connnected to a 24 port switch via cat5 cable. We also have 2 wireless ap's (one is a d-link & the other is linksys)

 

The main users will be 12-30 year olds so the chances of 'dodgy' sites being looked at is VERY high!

 

We are looking at placing a dedicated pc between the switch and adsl router that will run the http://www.untangle.com web filtering/monitoring software. As this software is free it is ideal for us.

 

We have also had a HP neworkable printer donated to us. Is there any free/cheap software we can use that when someone prints soemthing it will get sent to one pc and that person can choose whether to allow the job to print or not?

 

With regards the wireless ap's which are at each end of the building and connected to the switch via cat5 cable, how do I set these up so that they both work as one ie. you are connected to one ap and if you walk to the other side of the building your laptop will automatically connect using the same wep key. Is it just a case of setting the same ssis/channel/wep key?

 

Any other tips or ideas you can give mw would be appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[sharkster]

We have also had a HP neworkable printer donated to us. Is there any free/cheap software we can use that when someone prints soemthing it will get sent to one pc and that person can choose whether to allow the job to print or not?

 

 

you could install the printer on 1 computer and then share it accross the network. on the machine it is installed on pause all print jobs and then you can manualy selet the prints you want to allow.

[IA76]

Thanks for the idea but ideally we need something where we can actually preview what is about to be printed and then decide whether to allow or disallow the print job.

[kmount]

For your wireless question, yes, just use the same SSID, & Encryption Strength/Key and it should be fine.

 

As for the printing ... hmm, I'm not really sure...

[Domino]

Check out the wiki for setting up a pykota/cups linux print server (should only need an old desktop for hardware).

 

Don't know if it'll do exactly what you're after, but a close approximation should be possible.

[K.C.Leblanc]

Is it just a case of setting the same ssis/channel/wep key?

 

Any other tips or ideas you can give mw would be appreciated.

 

Thanks.

 

Channels should be set to auto or they should be different.

 

Do you know someone at Reyland?

[powdarrmonkey]

Channels should be set to auto or they should be different.

 

...and at least five channels apart from each other, since a device occupies the channel you specify and two either side of it.

 

eg. for three devices use channels 1,6,11. For two, use 1&6, 2&7, 3&8 etc.

[User3204]

A "simple" way to preview all print jobs is to install a PDF creator on each client, as the only printer, make them put the files into one shared folder, and then to print you have to open the PDFs, and then you can click print (or not) from within the PDF reader.

 

We use PrimoPDF to make PDF docs, but it's not ideal, as the default folder is c:\program files\primopdf...

 

I saw this link before http://maximillianx.blogspot.com/2008/02/network-admin-tip-create-shared-pdf.html

 

somewhere on this site...

[dhicks]

Thanks for the idea but ideally we need something where we can actually preview what is about to be printed and then decide whether to allow or disallow the print job.

 

You could set up a PDF document printer (i.e. a "printer" where all output goes to a PDF document instead of a physcial printer) on your print server machine, then view each PDF document that gets "printed" and decide whether to send it to the real printer or not. You could also have the actual printing done automatically, just keep a copy of everything printed as a PDF document and check over them once a day.

 

--

David Hicks

[IA76]

The PDF printer method seems ideal. Thanks for the wireless advice as well.

 

KCL, yes I do. I'm assuming you are the one who gave me the link to this forum?

 

Ok, next question. At the moment people use the Guest account one ach pc which also stops them installing heir own stuff on the pc. Is this ok or should I be doing it another way?

[plock]

You may wish to look into the 'Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit' or now known as 'Windows SteadyState'.

 

This program will allow you to set restrictions, auto logins and so forth, as well as having the ability to reset the computer to a predefined state at every boot!

 

Best of all – it’s FREE!

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx