New Equipment is Here

All the other computers arrived, the printers are waiting, and the software is still going through updates and refinements.

Next week, one of the computers and a printer will be demonstrated to the librarians this Monday. The rest of the week will be spent prepping the other sixteen computers, and finishing the first of the documentation.

During the second week of November, the equipment will be deployed to all eight branch libraries.

For those of you wondering why the East Tawas Library is retaining their Pentium 3s: it is because the City of East Tawas purchased those computers, not the District. The Librarian prefers to retain them as Chilren PCs, and will keep them until they likely die. Otherwise, all the remaining Pentium 2s and 3s will be phased out with no exceptions.

The Wiki has been updated to reflect current software and other pertinent information.

First New Computer Arrived

Yesterday, one of the seventeen computers was delivered by UPS (the other sixteen are being shipped freight). Setup of the monitor, CPU, keyboard and mouse went very quickly. The 17" LCD monitor is a new design, silver and black, is height adjustable, and has excellent image quality (resolution is the same as the current 17" LCDs). The PC itself does not require a stand, and can be set horizontally or vertically. The keyboard and mouse are standard fare, but are comfortable to use.

Initially, there were problems trying to deploy a Ghost Image. First, all my attempts to boot and copy an image via USB failed. It would freeze on booting into Ghost whether I booted from a USB flash drive or floppy. Thanks to some experimentation, I was finally able to deliver an image using the network. Then, I ran into another problem.

As you may or may not be aware, one of the anti-piracy features Microsoft has built into their OEM versions of Windows tracks changes in hardware. If you change major piece of hardware, such as a motherboard or hard drive, the system won't boot. I was building my Ghost images on older Pentium 4s with internal IDE drives, while the new computers are Pentium Ds with internal SATA drives. So, I kept getting the blue screen of Death and no boot. For a short while, I thought I'd have to start from scratch. However, there was a solution.

On the Windows installation disk, there is an option to a Windows Repair install. What this does is reinstall system and device files without touching any other user data. It forces Windows to re-detect all the hardware and boot as it should. It takes about forty minutes for all the files to be reinstalled, then another hour to download and install the security updates. In the end, it was up and running.

If you have an older computer running XP that you've upgraded, this procedure may work for you. You can thank M. Dowler at PCStats for his article "Beginners Guides: Upgrading A Motherboard Without Reinstalling."

Okay. So it's nice and it's working, but I'm sure there are those who'd ask this question: when do we, the public, get to use it? The rest of the computers will be delivered this week. This coming Monday is the Librarians meeting--I'm going to demonstrate the new computer and software, along with the new printer. During next week, a lot of pre-preparation will be completed. I want to setup the new computers as far in advance as possible. Ideally, I'd like to simply take them to a branch, unpack them, plug them in and turn them on.

So, deployment will happen during the week of November 6-10 for all branches. This will include re-imaging and redeploying the existing Pentium 4s, and installation of the new color laser printers.

New PCs Have Been Ordered

We finally have all our questions asked and confusion put to rest. An order for seventeen Dell Optiplex GX620 Small Form Factor PCs has been placed. They are due to arrive in about two weeks.

Deployment will take place within four weeks.

New Printers On The Way

The Board, on Monday, accepted the winning bid for eight new Ricoh Aficio CL3500N color laser printers and toner. They were ordered from the vendor yesterday afternoon and should arrive within a week. There were two bids for these printers, plus a third that was improperly submitted and could not be accepted.

These new printers will replace the monochrome HP LaserJet and DeskJet printers. This will allow an all-in-one printing solution that is fast, flexible, and simple. Deployment will take place within two weeks or less.

New Data Circuits

During Friday, we finally switched over to new data circuits that SBC and CenturyTel installed back in August. These new circuits are what we use to connect ourselves to the Internet at each branch. These circuits use the latest technology, with fewer jumps between our service provider, Merit Networks, and our branch libraries. The result is a much more reliable and faster connection.

We've already seen a dramatic improvement in speed at our headquarters. Earlier this week, a test of our upstream and downstream speeds were at around 550 kbps (kilo-bits per second), using a partial T1 rated at 768 kbps. Now our downstream speed is over 1100 kbps and about 700 upstream; that is a dramatic improvement, as well as an invaluable one.

Two branches had problems, so they're still using the existing circuits. But technicians will be dispatched this week to finish the switchover. But was an otherwise smooth transition for our district.

True Earth Ground

Today, we had a site visit from another contractor; it's policy in this case. During the visit, we determined that, indeed, we have a true earth ground and that our water meet was correctly grounded.

Another sealed bid on the printers will be coming in this week. I'm not going to say who or for how much (which is sealed), but it'll cover the printers and a set of toner for each library.

A minor change has been made to WifiDog. Using qos-scripts, the bandwidth using wireless is now capped at about 128kbps. This is to ensure that our bandwidth isn't bogged down and to help prevent abuse.

During one of my discussions with the Director, we agreed that if we were to even consider deploying wireless, it would not happen until after New Years. As you may know, we currently have four projects that need to be done, which include:

1. Rewiring and moving the router, switch and patch panel into network cabinet.
2. Purchasing, prepping and deploying the new computers and software.
3. Evaluating, testing, and deploying Time Management for our public computers
4. Deploying the new printers.

The good news about equipment for WifiDog is that there is a cheaper alternative to the Linksys WRT-54GL. It is the Buffalo WHR-G54S wireless broadband router, which retails at under $50. That is a significant savings over the 54L, which currently costs $70.

Another feature that can be easily added to the unit is POE (Power Over Ethernet), which allows us to power the unit and connect it to the network with only one network cable.

Using WifiDog

With a new user finally registering and using WifiDog, I thought now would be a good time to better explain what this service is all about. This isn't policy, but an explanation of what we're doing with WifiDog and guidelines for its use.

The purpose of WifiDog is to provide free Internet access for anyone with a laptop that has wireless connectivity. Since it utilizes our network resources, we use WifiDog, a captive portal suite, to track statistical use and spot any abusers.

This is not a guaranteed service. It could go down at any time, or we could choose to shut it down for any reason (especially if it's for legal or security reasons). There are still several things that need to be done before we even consider equipping the other branches. We have it up because we want to test it and see if it's a solution that will work at the other branches.

This is not a secure service. The wireless signal between your laptop or PDA and our router does not use any encryption of any kind. Like any other radio signal, data can be intercepted by anyone using the right hardware and software.

This connection is not recommended for online banking, PayPal, or other online transactions where confidential information is sent and received. The most secure way to conduct such work is through the use of a wired connection or one of our public PCs (which wipes its activity after every reboot). We are not responsible for any data theft or equipment failure caused by this service.

It is recommended that your equipment, if it's a laptop running Windows, should have anti-virus and spyware protection software, and that your operating system (be it Mac, Windows or Linux) is fully-patched with the latest updates. Please remember that it is your responsibility to maintain your equipment.

Wireless service is available only from 7:30 A.M. to 6:30 P.M. every day. This is one of the restrictions to help prevent and spot potential abuse while we're present. This could change at any time.

Statistical information is tracked, and this includes:

Mandatory (meaning that every account will have this information)
User name
E-mail address
Date of Registration
Account Status
Times online
Times connected
Amount of Data Used
Hotspot used
MAC address of network adapter
IP Address assigned at time of use

Optional (meaning that every account may or may not have this information)
Real Name
Website
Preferred Locale

We do not store any personal data, sites visited, or any other identifying information. The purpose of the above statistics is to (eventually) determine which hotspot gets the most traffic, identifying abusers, and troubleshooting any problems that could occur. This information is not publicly available, and will not be sold to anyone.

Finally, you probably noticed by now that I have not mentioned where this hotspot is located. That's because we don't officially provide wireless access to the Internet yet. There is no deployment date, no technical support, and no guarantees. Our current focus is on our public computers, the Software Overhaul (explained in our Wiki) and Time Management software. Wireless access is currently a low-priority project that, hopefully, will become a service at all our branches. We know that there are patrons that have requested this service and one day, we intend to provide it.

Use at your own risk.

We welcome any feedback (positive or negative) about this and any other services we provide.

Second Site Visit

We got a second network site visit Monday morning. At first, we were worried that, without access to the crawlspace, the job couldn't be done or would've been too labor-intensive (expensive). Otherwise, there were at least two alternatives that we had: going wireless (more on that below), or running the cables a different way. However, thanks to the librarian, we found that there is access; so we all breathed a sigh of relief.

During this visit, we finalized the exact locations of the drops (the network jacks) and a few other issues that we'd want addressed; one of the most important being true earth ground for the network cabinet.

In regard to wireless; if we were to connect parts of our network with wireless technology, this would've been more involved than buying Linksys wireless routers. We'd need to insure that no unauthorized users could get on, and that any traffic can't be intercepted and read. Which means using higher-end (and expensive) Cisco products, and using WPA encryption. WEP wouldn't work since you could figure out the encryption key if you intercepted enough traffic.

Bear in mind, WifiDog is not the same as what was just explained. Unlike connecting parts of our network together and keeping it secure, the WifiDog project would allow anyone with a laptop and an e-mail address to connect to the Internet (not necessarily our own network). Therefore, the need for WPA encryption and high-end equipment is unnecessary. We could accomplish what we needed with inexpensive Linksys WRT-54GL routers and opensource software.