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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."
not too mature to claim first post if given the opportunity!
So they got some noob who wasted money instead of using free tools.
Get him some books or training courses. Not in CS, but in Economics. He is already good enough at buying stuff at compusa. Now it is time to learn how to save stuff.
I spent plenty of time burning my hands on soldering irons, but I was more of an art geek overall. Besides, I was smart enough to beat the shit out of anyone who thought of bullying me. No sympathy should be rewarded to those that are stuffed into lockers, even if they do block access to something as horrid as MySpace.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Finally some lucid post. As usually, all the losers here at /. are trying to bash the kid. He is a winner, he runs MS instead of some loser Linux thing... He will probably be sleeping with the cheerleaders in High School, and his first car will be a Ferrari F1. Meanwhile, you losers will still be driving your corollas with your pathetic penguins on the back and still stay on some underpaid people's traffic jam mumbling with envy against the real winners in IT: Mr. Bill Gates and our genius MS kid right here!
Don't be confused, adults have made all the decisions. The whole set up is cruel for the 11 year old, who's being used for marketing "Fresh Start" and it's bad for the school. This poor kid has been pushed down the M$ road and it's not going to end well for the school.
Simply moving the rest of their computers to W2K will cost a lot of money, work and control but dooms them to the same problems they have now. A competent institution would think about terminal service that would be better use their existing equipment. M$ forbids the use of all other software for years with their typical "charity" school deals, so this school is going to get locked into disaster for the sake of eight year old software that has long since been surpassed by the free software world. The school could do better by asking the parents for real help.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
To be honest I think they fucking deserve to "struggle to make ends meet".
It's absolutely disgusting that private schools are allowed to exist and sap support for public education, helping to put it in the state it's in.
(I live in the South. Public schools are the black kids and the poor white kids (thank you, white flight), and they suck.)
I was going to say the same damn thing. Seriously he "buys" software, says the computers are "too old" (are they Apple ]['s or something) and then signs them up for "Fresh Start". Not only does he lack experience but his strategy reads like a Microsoft shill's play book. If the kid had downloaded some open source tools, used a couple free spam/virus scanners and then setup a Samba domain controller, well then I would have been impressed. I mean my 3 year old knows how to use Windows.......