Jason's Blog

Computer Lab – Before Pics

jasonstarcher — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:40:23 +0000

Good news – the computer lab remodel was approved. Fresh paint, new A/C and new carpet are on the way. Bad news – it won’t be completed until early August, meaning I’ll have a very short time to get things in order. The first day of class is August 24th.

Here are some pictures of the lab before it was cleaned out:

The second and third pictures show a glimpse of the clutter above the storage room, as well as all of the old computers stashed under the table with the printers. Mark and Ronnie, the maintenance staff at the school, hauled all of those pc’s and old junk to Licking County Recycling for disposal. I think they probably took 20-25 desktop pc’s and at least that many 15″ CRT monitors, the majority of which had been stored above the storage room.

I’m hoping next year for a tech upgrade in the lab. The PC’s are Dell Optiplex systems that are a little long in the tooth, but serviceable for web, Office 2003 and educational software. The monitors are mainly 17″ Dell CRT monitors, with some 15″ that I’m trying to weed out. As I complete installing the new Vostro 220′s, I hope to scrounge up some more 17″ CRT’s to outfit all 16 pc’s in the lab.

Windows XP on Toshiba Satellite A305

jasonstarcher — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:01:19 +0000

I had a customer that found a great deal on two Toshiba Satellite A305-S6859, model number – PSAG0U-02703K laptops. These systems come preinstalled with Windows Vista, but after dealing with Vista for a while, he decided that he would rather have Windows XP on them. I took a quick glance at Toshiba’s site, and it appeared that drivers were available. I should have given the site more than a glance, because not all of the necessary drivers are there.

I spent a couple of late nights Googling the necessary drivers. In the end, the hardest thing to resolve was a couple of unknown devices that ended up being the integrated card reader. So if anyone else is trying to do the same thing, I uploaded all the driver files to my business website to save you a lot of hunting around. All the drivers are there – sound, network, wireless, bluetooth, etc. The files are located at www.starcherconsulting.com/toshiba/

You’re welcome!

First Computer Installed

jasonstarcher — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:43:10 +0000

Well, I got the first of the new teacher computers installed yesterday. I had planned on getting one more installed, but I got sidetracked and then hit a little snag. Firstly, I got sidetracked in organizing and cleaning the computer lab. One of the teachers informed me that the closet in the computer lab (which was full of castoff computers, old software, empty component boxes, etc.) was needed to store books at the end of the year.

This was the excuse I needed engage in a little old-fashioned purge. I ended filling the school dumpster with junk and cleaning out the closet. The working components, cables and devices were stored on a large rolling cart, which can be stored in the closet but moved if the teachers need access.

Once I had finished, I went about installing the first of the new computers. This was were my small snafu emerged. I had setup one computer, then cloned the image onto the remaining four using Easus Partition Manager. Confident (over-confident?), I hadn’t acutally tried to boot any of the cloned drives prior to heading to the school. When I plugged in the first computer, I got an error about “no boot device.” Uh-oh. I then realized that I had forgotten to mark the cloned partitions as active. So I had two of the five computers with me, and one wasn’t bootable. What are the odds that the original disk was the other comptuer I brought? Turns out pretty good – for once.

With the one bootable computer, I was able to mark the second disk as active as well. I then set aside the second active disk to take back home, so I could “activate” the other cloned machines. “IT’S ALIVE!” Sorry – I couldn’t resist.

The rest of the install went without a hitch – I joined the new computer to the network (using a more logical naming convention for the teacher computers) and installed all the peripherals. Worked without a hitch. The only thing I didn’t do was activate Windows Steady State. Because the school has Active Directory, I’m going to read up a little more on how to integrate Steady State with AD before I implement it.

One other smart thing that I did – I added a local administrative account, Teacher, for the teachers to use when they needed to install software (Flash updates, etc.). Their network logins prevent this, which has caused some issues this year when they need to download and install browser plug-ins and the like. Certainly not Department of Defense secure to do it this way, but it’s a happy medium between security and usability, IMHO.

Once I activate the other cloned disks, I should be able to install the remaining pc’s without much bother.

New School Computers – Dell Vostro 220

jasonstarcher — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:58:34 +0000

5 Dell Vostro 220 computers arrived last week at my house, along with 19″ LCD monitors. These computers are destined for 5 lucky teachers at the school, and will replace some rather aged machines currently in use.

The first task after unboxing was to load a clean install of Windows XP Pro (the systems came with Vista Home Basic, but the school has a volume license for XP Pro). Sure enough, this was the first hurdle, as upon booting with the XP CD in order to delete the Vista partition and install XP, a blue screen popped-up. So I booted from a Vista Recovery CD and deleted the parition and formated a new one from the command prompt. Booted from the XP CD and still a blue screen. So, it was off to Google.

Turns out it’s a common thing with the Vostro 220′s, as described here. Once I made the settings change in the BIOS, the install chugged along just fine. Once installed, I downloaded the XP drivers from Dell’s support website, and installed them. Finally, I installed Service Pack 3, all the XP critical updates, and Internet Explorer 8.

Next Steps: Install Antivirus/Security software, install browser plug ins, Add a local admin for teacher software installs, install SteadyState, and clone the image onto remaining 4 computers.