First IT Room Reboot

This past few months I have been extremely busy volunteering, rebooting an IT suite at Reading Resource which is managed by "Together". The IT Suite now provides open source and commercial solutions so the members have a choice of which way to learn. They had to cut back on various areas due to the recession particularly in the IT area. So they are extremely thankful and chuffed with me at the moment. Also gives me a chance to craft some of dream into play :)

Servers
Originally the members logged into Windows2000pro server and took an awful long time to log in.

Now the members are now split from the server and now all the members now log into an Ubuntu server. Which has boosted security and increased speed of logging into machines.

Malware and Bad Sites
Each machine had "Cyber Patrol" installed to prevent users from going to bad sites. Also They utilized Symantec Anti-virus.

All machines web browser software are configured to point to a proxy server (powered by squid). They are also locked so cannot change them. Speed increased by removing "Cyber Patrol" from each of the machines. And a Freeware anti-virus solution is playing a part to help combat virus for free.

Web Portal
Each machine points to a simple web portal show simply what is happening at Resource.

The Learn section shows off free learning material to various "open source" solutions :) This is what the portal looks like so far, still a work in progress yet it is a start. It also serves the purpose of keeping all the members updated more quickly.


Future Plans
After I have finished with making the web portal easily maintainable and the user friendly documentation for maintaining the IT suite has been finalized. I will hand over my responsibilities to them.

I will move on to some part-time work that I so dearly need to get back into. Yet Ideally I am hoping to set up some sort of job solution for myself here with all this new experience...Here's hoping :)