Most of today has been spent helping Bob to set-up and configure a wireless network to demonstrate to a group of students next week. I've lent him a safecom 54g+ wireless router which he says will be ideal as the students will be able to relate to the sort of equipment available for home users.
We have one machine physically linked via the built-in 4-port switch and three other machines in the middle of the room connecting via USB-wifi dongles. I went through the basic set-up and helped Bob secure access via mac addresses. Bob is not sure if they will get past this stage and on to encryption using WPA but it is possible.
As with all of these tasks, once it's all up and running it makes sense and looks easy. The time consuming part is the intricacies like how to allow students to install drivers without giving them local admin access to the machine. Fortunately LC123 is dual-boot with a second less-restricted image for cisco use (which uses a second network card in each machine so students can change ip settings). Bob seemed happy with the collaboration and has been able to use some screen dumps to produce teaching materials. He has also asked Mick to buy a couple of the wi-fi routers so this can be included as part of the network computer systems module next year.
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Update:
4:00-4:40pm
Once again I've had to set-up the video conferencing equipment in LC101 for a video conferencing session with APIIT in malaysia at 10am tomorrow. I'll be on holiday and it sounds like Mick could be here on his own so I've spent the last half-hour here and in 101, walking back and forth to make sure the audio settings are right and there will be minimal drop-out due to the automatic silence detection in netmeeting. Hopefully it should go ok depending on network availability and traffic tomorrow.
