11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School

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."

Comments

parents have to pay $3000/yr so kid can sysadmin

[aachrisg]

http://www.victorybaptistschool.net/15001.html So.. this kids parents have to pay $3000/yr, with lots of extra fees, so their kid can save the school the cost of a computer admin, and they only give him computers running win98 that are too old to run any software. And then on top of it, their obviously talented son is subjected to a 10th rate science and math curriculum (http://www.abeka.com/Distinctives.html).

Re:Why pay for the software?

[Virgil Tibbs]

I dont ever use windows now. whats the point when ubuntu gnu/linux survives having bricks thrown at it with no AV. In the past I have found clamAV is very effective for removing windows viruses, I even use it on liveCDs when the host system wont work. but seriously, give ubuntu another go guys.