Due to popular demand; pics from the most recent Holland trip…

Two posts in one day, I know it’s crazy…

Just transferred a couple pictures from last night at the folks off the camera so here ya go:

Only a little while left til the kitchen is complete.

Arguably the most prevalent ‘special’ day that is talked about on blogs would be birthdays. Mine is no exception. My birthday is on the 27th.

I figured out what I’d like…

Like I really need to spend $740 on a new monitor.

Alright, so really I’ve asked a couple people if I could have a dart board, like, a real dart board. I also asked my dad for some fluorescent lights for my garage. Other than that, I can’t really think of anything I want, so don’t worry about it (unless you want to contribute to the “Nate’s new 27inch monitor fund.”)

Anyway, ya’ll have a nice day, I’ve got some work to do.

Current status: MOSTLY DONE

The doors of the cabinets still need a bit of paint, that middle section needs some more support and the counter-top needs to be cut down by like 3/16 of an inch. It’s functional though, so that’s good.

I generally spend my time on the computer to the left there, and the servers are at the back under the cabinets. The computer on the right is the one that my techs use and where we hook up machines that need to be worked on. The red tool chests hold parts, assorted equipment, cables and the like.

I think I need to clean up.

I have reached an impass.

A couple things you should know to understand my predicament…
I am the Technology Director or Network Administrator or whatever at Lansing Christian School. It’s a K-12 school with a little under 700 students.

Current distribution of computers:
119 Windows 98 PCs
10 Windows 2000 PCs
20+ Windows XP PCs
4 Windows 2000 Servers

I aim to knock out everything older than XP.

There is enough money to make some small positive changes and to keep things running relatively smoothly.

For $60,000 we could replace our 75 lab computers with 85 “thinclients” and 4 brand new servers. This is planned for three or four stages, about $20,000 for each lab.

What this all boils down to…
Replacing our existing labs with thinclient labs means only having to upgrade our servers in the future, not the computer terminals themselves. This means annual cost of total lab upkeep after the transition cost could be as low as $5,000.

It’s not my job to find donors for technology at LCS, but right now the focus here is on debt retirement and I’m really beating my head on the wall trying to figure out how to meet our technology needs.

We need to find someone, a group of people or a company that is able to help us meet our goals as fast as possible.