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What Advice For a Single Parent As Server Admin?
Dragon_Eater, with "lots of experience setting up PCs and a passable knowledge of Linux but severely lacking in the server/client department,"
writes with a situation that probably faces a lot of parents:
I want to set up three kids, 12, 14, and 15, with newer computers so they will stop fighting for time on the one ten-year-old Dell they share now. I can get the individual computers and a server put together without any problems, but the computer-handicapped single parent needs to be able to do the following via an simple application/web page: View client computer status, On/off, sleeping etc.; Deny Internet access, not LAN, just the web; Schedule time usage of computer, ex. 7 am to 10 pm on school nights etc.; Force log-out and/or shutdown of clients, for grounding purposes; and Apply some kind of firewall filter for blocking undesired web content. And as the administrator for this network I would like the following options: Remote virus scanning of client machines, or scheduled task; Some kind of hardware monitor, high temp / fan speed low etc.; and Email alerts for various log files / alarms.
Given the lists above I am thinking about a Linux-based router/server machine and running Windows on the clients for game compatibility. I also know that a server and network boot client is possible but not sure where to start on that one."
you got a whole deal of connectivity/administration project there. quit your day job.
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Amen. I'd know nothing about computers if it hadn't been for porn and video games!
It strikes me that making a child work to learn what they need to know in order to get what they want could be used for a variety of educational purposes. Want Facebook? Learn to hack the router. Want the car for the weekend? Learn to break the encryption on this cypher-locked safe. Want to avoid a grounding? Learn to blame it convincingly on your sister. Want to eat tonight? Learn to pick the lock on the refridgerator.
Sure, they may not pass standardised tests requiring them to know the average rainfall of the amazon rainforest (what a useless fact!) but it does give them valuable real-world skills.
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Either that or they'll tether their notebooks to their cellphones and cost the parent an ass-ton of data overages. Revenge is a dish best served by your wireless telco.
>> but it does give them valuable real-world skills.
Indeed! If we don't give them the nudge, they're never going to take it upon themselves to learn the fine art of refrigerator hacking.
When my kids are grounded, they go in the cage...
The faraday cage...
Can you construct some sort of rudimentary lathe?
"Children have no right to privacy."
You forgot to prefix that with "In the US"...
Ezekiel 23:20
Have you ever tried just turning off your TV and your computers, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them? - bender
I'd suggest that if you're only having the chat after your daughter starts googling birth control, you've probably left it a little late.
Balloon popping fetish? I'm SO there.
I could make my own Ethernet cable (with a screwdriver as the only tool no less) when i was 12.
...but to make up for that, your parents could sleep comfortably in the knowledge that you were unlikely to become a teenage parent :-)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Want to eat tonight? Learn to pick the lock on the refridgerator.
I'd also make them pass a spelling test, and starve them if they couldn't spell refrigerator.
(the shortened bastardization "fridge" only contains a 'd' only because the pronunciation of "frige" doesn't match the root word it comes from)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.