Um . . . just a thought. Don’t include the monitors. While they may be completely deserving of being smashed, bad things happen when you smash monitors.
Invest in a Jaz, Sparq, Zip, etc. type drive or an external CD burner. Not only will it help you save the contents of the current CD drives, it’ll come in useful for data backups in the future.
I think most of these suggestions are really dumb.
Why?
If you have new computers & you simply copy the old HD’s to the new computers, the old system information is NOT NOT NOT NOT going to boot the new computers. Duh. What a mess it would create! duh.
{{{If you have new computers & you simply copy the old HD’s to the new computers, the old system information is NOT NOT NOT NOT going to boot the new computers. Duh. What a mess it would create!}}}—Handy
That issue has already been addressed, although not in the exact way that you have phrased it.
That’s exactly the rationale behind removing Win 95 from the old C:\ drives before installing them in the new chassis as D:\ drives.
If system files were copied from the old Win95 installation, there is the potential that the “OS” could be corrupted and the machine would then fail to boot without errors, if at all.
–Kalél
TheHungerSite.com
“If ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.”
“Well, there was that thing with the Cheese-Wiz…but I’m feeling much better now!” – John Astin, Night Court
Dr. Watson,
Although this doesn’t help your current situation, this will help you in the future.
Lex is correct, even though your users aren’t sharing files, having a central location where all your files are stored has many benefits.
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One back up every night of all your company’s files, very important!
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Stored off site, you have a fire, flood etc in your business, all your files are there to throw into another server and you are back up and running (for the most part) as if you never had a fire.
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You might find that having a central location to store files, your users will be more collaborative (sp). I witnessed this first hand. The client I currently work for is a construction company, after we installed a network server (in addition to the accounting server)and worked together to create a central location for most files, all those involved in the process actually work better.
If you’d like more information about how the shared files are organized, email me with SD in the subject line and I will do my best to help you.
As for security, this is where you may want to have someone in your company trained as an IT person or do what my client does and hire out. (I work for my brother so security of information isn’t as big a problem for them.)
NT (which is my specialty) allows me to set permissions for certain folders. I have one user that has very top secret information he doesn’t want anyone to view except for the president of the company. I set the folder permissions for him to do whatever he wants within that folder. As for the president all he can do is view the contents and can’t make changes. I don’t even have access to that folder (except that I know his password and can take ownership of that folder at any time – which is good because if he’s ever fired I can immediately lock that folder from anyone else to access.)
Anyhow, central administration, the safety of your data etc are good reasons behind investing in a server 
This has been quite a whirlwind education, but to be honest you’ve all mainly convinced me that I’m out of my depth here.
In the interest of salvaging the last few thin threads of my sanity, I placed a Help Wanted ad this afternoon under the ‘Geek Rental’ heading. From now on I’m going to stick to drawing pretty pictures of expensive pipe dreams and leave the acronym implementation to the folks who are wired for that sort of thing.
Thank you all for saving me from what was about to be a disasterous Do-It Yourself project. (On the other hand, now you’ll miss all of the galloping tales of woeful teeth-gnashing and hang-wringing that would have resulted.)
Dr. Watson
“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?” – Dogen
Well, you aren’t off the hook for advice, yet.
Getting competent geek help is almost as much of a crapshoot as installing your own system. If you know anyone who does this for a living, but who has previous commitments (full-time job they like, etc.), ask them if they’d give you a hand with the interviews. If your vendors or customers are going through this, ask for recommendations (or ask them to loan you a geek to help with the interviewing process). Demand references and check them. There are a lot of good people out here–and there are a lot of bullshitters. (There are also good people who want to branch into a new area who will tell you all about their successful implementations, but neglect to tell you that it was in an environment that looks nothing like yours or that they were the supergeek on a big project and they never got near managing the thing.)
If I’m scaring you, I’m not sorry. You don’t seem to be the sort who rattles easily, so I figure this will just add some caution to your approach. A lot of us are really good, but it is a fast-expanding field and there are both scam artists and people who haven’t realized just how much they don’t know out there.
Tom~
Dr. Watson wrote (bolding mine)
a.) Given that the lot of us are a bit busy, and that we consider our computers to be no better or worse tools than our hammers or drafting tables, do you think that adding yet another level of sophistication is something that normal folks can handle without adding a staff member? No, not anow. If you want it to run right and get all the benefits, you will need someone who knows what they’re aboot to maintain the thing. The cool thing is that you don’t have to add them as a permanent staff member, you can contract a firm to support it when needed. (See above posts re: this)
But, it will be worth it, so worth it, trust me on this.
And,
(b.) Appreciating, as I do, the advantages of all of this open information sharing vis-a-vis the Constitutional Rights of my employees, does this cool little mini-internet thing have a feature that allows me to prevent them from looking in on my internal bookkeeping? Yes. As the jefe of the place, you would control all information. You can grant different levels of access to different folks, as you would not want just any tom dick or harry poking aroung sensitive files. So, in short, no one can see anything without your say so. My recomendation is to have one level of access for everyone, and another for you/accountants. KISS, right?
So, that’s what I think. Good luck!
“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”
The quality of people you’re likely to find in a ‘Geek Help Wanted’ ad would scare me, especially if you don’t know what you look for. There are a lot of wannabe’s out there who have read a couple of books and managed to hook up two computers in their home network and subsequently offered themselves out as ‘consultants’.
The last four network installations I looked at were all done incorrectly by supposed professionals, and not by just a little bit. We’re talking about incorrect cable being used, improper termination of cables, bad software configurations, no security, etc.
Step by Step:
- Install operating system on each computer. You’re supposed to have a cd for each computer…
- Install the programs you use on each computer.You’re supposed to have a cd for each computer…
- Copy the data files you need from the old computers.
There, easy