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11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School

Posted by Soulskill on from the hope-he's-salaried dept.

alphadogg points out a story about 11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old administrator suddenly left. Penn provides technical support, selects software, and teaches his classmates about computers. From NetworkWorld: "The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there was an ungodly amount of computer viruses and spam, so he pressed the school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection. 'These computers are so old they don't support all antivirus programs,' Penn says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000."

8 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. But does he post to Slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, he says he's too mature.

    1. Re:But does he post to Slashdot? by EvilNTUser · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bah. He has the whole school eating out of his hand and he didn't even TRY to install Linux. Corporate whore.

      He's probably had sex too. Bastard.

      --
      My Sig: SEGV
    2. Re:But does he post to Slashdot? by jonaskoelker · · Score: 5, Funny

      He's probably had sex too. Bastard. Well, if you controlled the whole network, wouldn't you go to redtu... Oooh, you mean with one of these females I keep hearing about.

      Yeah, he's a bastard!
    3. Re:But does he post to Slashdot? by amccaf1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      With apologies to the Marx Brothers...

      Salesman: This network is so easy to administer, an 11-year-old child could do it!

      Groucho: Great! [quietly, to his aides] Quick, someone run out and get me an 11-year-old child; I can't make heads or tails of this O'Reilly guide!

      --
      "Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
  2. The "old" administrator... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... was 12. He was ready for a career change after so long in IT.

    --
    I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
  3. Great...there goes my business. by qcs-rf.com · · Score: 5, Funny

    If any of our clients ever see this article, they're going to start hiring 11-year-olds and pay in comic books.

    --
    There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
  4. Re:Vista upgrade by Peet42 · · Score: 5, Funny

    If those computers were running Windows 98 they could have 64MB RAM or less.


    I'm currently running the Windows 98 SE upgrade on a Windows 95 laptop with 16MB of RAM. So far it's only been upgrading for 11 days, and has already reached 10% completion. (It's a Dell Latitude P133, fyi...)
  5. "11 year Old Network Gets Admin in Alabama School" by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think they got the title mixed up.