It's been over two months since the first article of this series
(see Switching the Small Office from Windows to
Macs). Let me apologize for the delays and say thanks for your
patience!
Meanwhile, I've had a couple of months to see how the new office
setup - a 17" G5
iMac, an Intel Core Duo Mac
mini, my iBook, and the headmaster's Dell Inspiron - works out. For
the most part, it's been great, but we've had some snags. I'll finish
the roundup of how we got things established, then talk through the
difficulties we've had.
Air Traffic Control
Our previous setup was a very low-end wired network. Two desktop PCs
and the headmaster's Dell laptop were the essential components, with
shared printers (a laser and an inkjet) attached to each desktop and a
5-port switch connecting it all. Not bad - but also a relatively closed
environment, and teachers regularly had to employ "sneakernet" tactics
to simply print documents (never mind checking email or using the
Web).
Thus, it wasn't too hard to decide to go with a wireless network.
While printers shared through our new Macs would work, I wanted to at
least have the laser printer on a print server. Also, the size of our
school's campus required that we have one range extender.
I set out for CompUSA to see if I could find a great deal: I wanted
to find the best prices on brand-name equipment. I ended up with a
Linksys wireless router, a Belkin range extender, and a D-Link print
server, all for around $200.
Back at the office, after time spent setting everything up, I
couldn't get the different pieces to talk to each other correctly. Now
I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Network Administrator, so you
can write off a substantial amount of my problems to "operator error".
But after about three hours of trying different configurations, I had
only gotten as far as a router that recognized two of the three
available machines and a working range extender for the one laptop in
the mix. Frustrated, I packed it back up and returned it all.
After returning it, I decided to go with the same equipment under
the same brand. I chose Belkin, mainly because I have a Belkin wireless
router at home and was more familiar with the setup interface for it.
As you might have guessed, I paid the price for unifying my brands -
this move added another $75 to the bottom line.
At least I stood a better chance of getting it all to work.
Or so I thought. However, after another few hours of setup and
troubleshooting, I was little closer to having a solid, working system
in place. Now I was about eight hours into the whole project (counting
time spent shopping) with nothing to show for it.
Back to CompUSA to return everything, again.
The Apple Solution
Not wanting to waste any more time on it, my next stop was the Apple
Store. I didn't want to pay full retail for AirPort equipment, but I
would if I had to. It turns out I didn't: Asking for "refreshed"
merchandise (that's Apple code for an open-box return) scored me
discounted equipment for both an AirPort Extreme base station and an
AirPort Express. Because of this, I only spent $25 more than the last
attempt at CompUSA.
Since both the AirPort Extreme and the AirPort Express have print
servers built in, there was no need for further additional
hardware.
With the Apple gear, setup was a piece of cake. I'm not joking when
I say that the AirPort Extreme base station took 10 minutes to set up,
from opening the box to running test prints from all three Macs. (I
timed it for curiosity's sake.) I count this as a major victory for
Apple's gear.
Getting AirPort Express set up was another matter, however - but
still an Apple victory. The "refreshed" Express had apparently not been
refreshed enough; it was password-protected, and while it showed up on
the network, it could not be changed or set up in the way I wanted it
to be.
Another stop at the Apple Store solved this quickly. I was told by
the clerk, "go ahead and grab one off the display over there." When I
asked if they had noticed that the one I returned was discounted, I was
told, "You expected to have a working AirPort Express when you bought
that one; I want to make sure that you have what you need this time."
No extra charge - I got a new (not refreshed) Express for $50 off
retail. And Apple further cemented their relationship with me.
Another 10 minutes had the AirPort Express set up and working
exactly as I wanted it to. Counting two trips to the Apple Store, it
took me less than two hours to set up a network that eight hours of
prior work left unfulfilled.
Student/Teacher Workstation
A bit later in the summer, we were given a Blue and White Power Mac G3/400
with OS X 10.3 "Panther" onboard. While this machine wasn't quite
robust enough to serve as one of our office machines, it would work
fine as a workstation for students and teachers. I found some RAM for
it (through the Low End Mac Swap List),
and found that Panther is actually pretty snappy with 700+MB of
RAM.
A keyboard, mouse, and CRT monitor installed on a new computer cart
(the cart was the most expensive part of this proposition) resulted in
a good setup to live in the school library. And low and behold,we had
leftover licenses for MS Office Student & Teacher edition and
FileMaker
Pro
to install on it.
Everyone's happy.
Troubleshooting Network Connections
Now that all of the systems are up and running, and the network
connections are solid, it's time for problems to start showing up,
right?
Well, we did have problems. For starters, I learned quickly how
accurate the reports are about Rosetta being a RAM hog. The 512 MB in
our Mac mini quickly bogged down when running FileMaker
Server and FileMaker Pro - both of which
were, until recently, PPC builds.
FileMaker has released Universal builds of both of these, but the
upgraded builds cost a fair amount, even though we only purchased our
licenses a few months ago. I'll be upgrading FileMaker Server later
this month, but we'll wait to upgrade any of our FileMaker Pro licenses
until next year.
Meanwhile, a more affordable option was to drop another gigabyte of
RAM in the mini, so now it's cooking with 1.5 GB. That solved a lot of
our problems.
We have also had trouble with the headmaster's Dell Inspiron. This
problem, I'm convinced, is with his equipment. I'm not saying that just
because he uses a Dell, but because of the way his problems have
manifested.
When he first set up his connection to the new wireless network,
everything worked fine - file sharing, database server connection,
Internet, and printing. Over time, it has degraded, and he has had to
set up his connection more than a few times. Usually we are able to get
him Internet and printing capability - but obviously this alone isn't
satisfactory.
We're planning to troubleshoot the hardware he's using to determine
if he has a bad network card next. Honestly, though, I think he should
ditch the Dell and get a MacBook.
Shared Calendars
Another issue to troubleshoot: How about shared calendars? While the
next version of iCal, coming in Spring '07 with the release of Leopard
(OS X 10.5), promises to offer shared calendars for groups, we
need something sooner than that. My administrative assistant will be
keeping my calendar for me (at least for work-related appointments),
and we need to sync my laptop's iCal with hers.
While I'm actually a fan of .mac (one of the shrinking minority, it
seems), that option doesn't present the best solution in this case. For
one, because I already use .mac at home and don't prefer to stop doing
so - and you can only have one .mac account active for a given user
account.
For another, our Internet access at the school is currently dialup,
and that makes for a lot slower synchronization with the .mac
servers.
Finally, we'll eventually need to share calendars for more than one
administrator and/or headmaster, and .mac doesn't support this sort of
robust division.
On the other hand, if these limitations were not present, .mac would
be a great option - particularly because it can be configured to always
keep calendars synched (not just daily or weekly), and because I could
sync from any Internet connection.
Since midsummer, however, we've been using iSynCal, a shareware utility
designed for situations like this. iSynCal lives on my laptop, and at
the intervals I've specified it connects to my Admin's mini and synchs
only those calendars I've told it to.
I have a lot of calendars set up in iCal for specific purposes, but
I use three primary calendars for scheduling - personal, home and
family, and work-related. Only these three sync with their counterparts
on my Admin's mini. (If we should add another sync to the mix, we
would only have to name their calendars something different in the
Admin's computer to keep them separate - or we could have a group
calendar that we all reference, etc.)
What the Future Holds
iSynCal is a great solution and works well, after a bit of
configuration. However, we're probably going to move up to Chronos's SOHO
Organizer in the next few weeks.
We desperately need something in the lines of a CRM (Customer
Relations Management) system to keep track of our donor and public
relations. SOHO Organizer's integration with existing iCal, Address
Book, and Mail systems is quite appealing in this way, particularly
since we won't be relying only on SOHO as our interface with these
tools (a look at the demo - and the complaints on Chronos's forums -
suggests that this would leave us disappointed).
The integration of notes and contact management, along with
something closer to an enterprise/groupware solution, makes the SOHO
Organizer a compelling switch. This will likely take care of our iCal
synching as well - though, if it doesn't, it's nice to know that
iSynCal is an available solution.
We're getting high-speed Internet access, which means that the .mac
account set up at the school will become a more utilized backup option.
For now, we have a Newer
Technology miniStack external drive with Backup handling daily
archives from both desktop Macs. (I back up regularly at home, and thus
I don't need to be included in the school's backup rubric.)
High-speed Internet access will also allow our teachers to use the
Web in their classes, if they wish. We're unsure about granting
Internet access to students, though we are thinking about allowing it
as long as students have an account established with Covenant Eyes (though this would
require us to upgrade our workstation to OS X 10.4.x Tiger).
I'm also looking forward to Leopard, mainly because I've heard great
things about how older systems optimize well under system upgrades. I'm
interested to see how well our G5 iMac does, and the B&W G3 Power
Mac, if it qualifies for the upgrade (and maybe if it doesn't - either
through XPostFacto or
through an additional processor upgrade: Other World Computing lists an
upgrade to a 1 GHz G4 for only $200).
Finally, I'm looking forward to when our headmaster's Dell gives
out! He's suggested that he may get a Mac the next time around, and
that would obviously make "IT" a bit easier around our school. Two of
the faculty already use Macs, and three others have indicated that they
may be getting Macs this semester.
It would be great if nearly all of our folks were using Macs.
In a future article, I'll talk about navigating the waters of living
on two wireless networks regularly.
Next time, look for my take on efficiency in the face of laptop
theft (this one is actually based on real-life experience).
