Marcus Garvey School of Leadership/UIUC Public Engagement

Yesterday Abbie and Sierra primed all of our lovely workstations so they could be ready to go for the technology install.

That’s some prime priming!

Today we finished updating the documentation and built cables before moving all of the computers and equipment into the school!

Cable-building can be fun!

Set-up time!

We set up all of the workstations and made sure that everything had power and ethernet connections. The computers, printer, router, external hard drive, and switch are all connected and set up.

Can’t believe this is the end!

We then went to meet with Tracy and gave him the documentation for the site.

Here is what the Marcus Garvey Group got accomplished on a bright and sunny Sunday:

• All printers were successfully added to the network
• The file server has been connected and mapped to all computers
• Educational bookmarks have been added
• The desktop, start menu, and taskbar have been customized with users in mind.

Mission complete.  Whew!

Rachelle spent last night setting up our external hard drive, because she is amazing.

Today we came in (despite the call of gorgeous weather) and accomplished the following:

• Set up bookmarks on Firefox for educational games, information resources, and multimedia editing services on all computers.
• Dusted/cleaned all 7 computers and the printer (which had certainly seen cleaner days).
• Installed audio driver on all computers (sound works; yay!).
• Created backup CDs for bookmarks, programs, and drivers.
• Worked extensively on our documentation efforts, including our inventory, OpenDNS instructions, and maintenance checklist.
• Worked more on setting up the router (let’s all take a moment of silent gratitude for people who post tech problems/solutions on the internet).

Today we accomplished the following:

• Scanned all computers with AVG and Adaware and set up automatic scans
• Configured AVG, Adaware, and Windows Update to do automatic updates on all computers
• Set up network connections between all computers
• Uninstalled unnecessary programs (e.g. Windows Messenger) on all computers
• Installed Flash, Real Player, Quicktime, and AdBlock on all computers

Yesterday, while Rachelle was busy as a bee in the lab working on our computers, Sierra, Abbie, and I spent the day at Martin’s workshop. We built 6 wooden workstations and Martin, Sierra, and Abbie transported them to the site (along with the 3 stools for the standing workstations) and assembled them. Thus, they are ready to be primed, at which point they will be ready to use!

Furniture building!

Lots of protective gear; no one was harmed during the construction of these workstations!

While three teammates were building some cool modular desks for our computers to sit on, some progress was also made on prepping the computers.

Today the following was accomplished:

• managed to finish installing all the software onto the machines.  Yea!
• finally figured out what was making the display funky, i.e. a missing driver.  The driver is now installed on all machines and the display looks great!
• there is now a printer!  It’s pretty old, but it works, and they still sell toner for it!
• began setting up the router and the OpenDNS account.

Today we accomplished the following:

• Completed installation of Windows security updates on all computers.
• Installed Firefox, Skype, OpenOffice, Adobe Reader, Scribus.
• Ran into some trouble with Scribus, as it prompted us to also install a Ghostscript, which we eventually did.
• Attempted to start Netgear router setup. Experienced disheartening difficulties. Possibly going to ask Adam for assistance on Tuesday.

Documentation is all kinds of fun!

We accomplished the following today:

• We replaced the broken seventh computer and installed Windows XP, the service packs, and the internet driver on it.
• We achieved internet access for the original 6 computers and installed Firefox.
• We downloaded and installed 110 Windows security updates on 2 computers so far.
• We loaded install files for the main programs (OpenOffice, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Skype, AVG Free, Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Steady State, Scribus) onto a CD for easy installation on all computers during our next workday.
• We continued with documentation efforts.
• We made plans to pre-cut and transfer furniture to our site for next week.

Today we successfully installed Windows XP on 6 of our 7 computers. We also installed all of the service pack updates and set up the appropriate user accounts.

We found out that one of our computers probably has a video card problem, as it would start but would not provide a display (we tried multiple monitors and connection cables).

We’ve decided that, minimally, the training and documentation we will leave with the school will need to include: technology inventory; maintenance checklist; master list of logins, passwords; instructions for internet filtering setup.