My dad bought a solo 2100 laptop back in the 2000 era. We went through 3 boards in the first couple months owning it. He ended up filing against them in small claims. He settled with them, but had to sign a NDA as part of the agreement. The bummer is the end result of having to file in small claims to get them to be willing to work on solving the issue. Good to see things have changed. I've worked with dell and IBM on similar issues with acceptable results once the issue was escalated.
15A? I'd get 3 dedicated 20A, which is code in most of the US for commercial buildings. I'd also see about getting isolated ground circiuts to help cut out some possible ground loop interference, but those are hard to come by. One if you need any cooling, and two for equipment redundancy.
We have some server rooms at some of our facilites that are similiar size. The problem rooms have one server, a small pbx, 2200VA UPS, 4 switches, router, and a few other misc items. The biggest issue we've faced is heat from having so much equipment in a dense area that the air can't dissapate the heat fast enough and it ends up being a sauna in there. Sure the facilities guys will pipe in AC from the building, but unless they are putting in a separate zone with your own thermostat you are going to be out of luck, because with the door shut that room will heat up until outside where the thermostat is located calls for AC no matter what the temperature is there. We've even tried removing ceiling tiles so it can vent hot air up, putting in exhaust fans in the ceiling to pull the hot air off the top and louvres in the door suck cool air from outside. None of these cut it.
The fix we've found is to install a portable AC unit in the rooms. We exhaust the heat up into the deck (plenum area) and close the dampers from the building AC. We've been using units from the local big box stores wich are pretty in-expensive ($300-400). Make sure it has a thermostat. The biggest issue is getting the condensate out of there. we either mount them up a couple feet off the ground gravity feed a drain that is nearby or else use a condensate pump to get it up and further out. Usually there is a bathroom or janitor's closet with a slop sink nearby in our buildings. Another issue we've had is that they use soft power so if there is an outage someone has to turn on the unit again, (see monitoring paragraph below).
Now being dependent on the AC to keep the room from boiling over I'd also look into remote monitoring of envirmental variables and power notifications and control. We have temperature monitors that emails the infrastructure people when the temp or humidity crosses certain thresholds. The UPSs will email us to when they are on batt, doing a shutdown, etc. You also have notification so someone can go turn on the AC unit again too.
The best advice I can give is DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT. Document any change you make including date and time. This becomes essential for troubleshooting later on.
An excellent book is "The Practice of System and Network Administration" by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christine Hogan. (ISBN: 0201702711) It is theory not necessarily platform specific. It is focused at unix, but can be applied in a windoze environment. I wish I had read that book years ago. It really does a good job of summarizing all the best practices. It's all the things they don't teach in school.
http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/aboutbook.html There are links to reviews there. The average customer review on amazon is 4.5/5.
As far as pulling cable and doing the physical grunt work..make sure you do structured wiring otherwise you end up with a rats nest of wire. Over plan everything. Don't forget the simple stuff, have a dedicated circuit or two for the server(s) and network equipment with adequate UPS protection. Make sure the room is adequately ventialated and physically secure. Make sure you have room to grow, so when you need more equipment you have room for it or can easily make room for it.
I have done exactly this. My fiance and I know someone by word of mouth and experience. They have shot two of our friends weddings (we were in one)and both were very happy with the results. They do exacly as you said, they want a few for samples, that is it. They have sample after sample too. They do really nice work, and are saving us a ton of money. Also, we get the negatives and the rights. They are funny becuase they love doing it (it is a couple), you can just see it in their eyes when you talk to them. They just light up!
I think this highlights a large issue. What has happened is that more shops can't work on any car, they have to create a niche that they will work on because of the cost to have the diagnostic tools. I would be willing to bet that my Dad's shop could not fix this problem and would refer him to the dealer. I think that the mechanic should know the technology limits they have at their shop and not take a job that they are incapable of repairing. The cost of the scanner to get codes is exorbitant, and you would need one for each manufactuerer (Ford, Chrysler, GM, and all the imports). Most will settle for a more generic Snap-On or equivalent that can do multiple things but not all.
Judging by the number of Audi's I see on the road, there is no way for my dad to justify the cost. ODBII solves some of the issues but you still have ABS and airbag systems that are proprietary and that the dealer is the onlyone who can pull the codes.
Where I am, and where my dad's business is I would consider an audi the PC equavilent of a Packard Bell: Not many around and good luck getting parts.
I would NOT reccomend the 1500/2500 series. I don't know what he means by a "small" company, but my marketing department (6 people) have a 2500N. I am not impressed with the speed or quality. If you have a larger print job(5 or more pages) to send it needs to be sent in pieces. Also, the imaging drum is expensive, along with toner. Overall I am not impressed, I was not here when it was putchased, but would not have bought this model.
To sum up, the company was in the same position, we were using inkjet printers for large documents. It was decided by the inkjet volume that the 2500 would be suffieient. Well, turns out our volume has doubled in 12 months. Now the 2500 can't keep up and we are stuck, good luck selling managment that we need to replace our 11mo. old printer.
At a previous job we leased a color copier/printer/scanner. Also, the higer end HP's(8500) have had high references from a friend that works at a drafting company. That was much nicer and more effecient. I would reccomend looking into that route.
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My dad bought a solo 2100 laptop back in the 2000 era. We went through 3 boards in the first couple months owning it. He ended up filing against them in small claims. He settled with them, but had to sign a NDA as part of the agreement. The bummer is the end result of having to file in small claims to get them to be willing to work on solving the issue. Good to see things have changed. I've worked with dell and IBM on similar issues with acceptable results once the issue was escalated.
15A? I'd get 3 dedicated 20A, which is code in most of the US for commercial buildings. I'd also see about getting isolated ground circiuts to help cut out some possible ground loop interference, but those are hard to come by. One if you need any cooling, and two for equipment redundancy.
We have some server rooms at some of our facilites that are similiar size. The problem rooms have one server, a small pbx, 2200VA UPS, 4 switches, router, and a few other misc items. The biggest issue we've faced is heat from having so much equipment in a dense area that the air can't dissapate the heat fast enough and it ends up being a sauna in there. Sure the facilities guys will pipe in AC from the building, but unless they are putting in a separate zone with your own thermostat you are going to be out of luck, because with the door shut that room will heat up until outside where the thermostat is located calls for AC no matter what the temperature is there. We've even tried removing ceiling tiles so it can vent hot air up, putting in exhaust fans in the ceiling to pull the hot air off the top and louvres in the door suck cool air from outside. None of these cut it.
The fix we've found is to install a portable AC unit in the rooms. We exhaust the heat up into the deck (plenum area) and close the dampers from the building AC. We've been using units from the local big box stores wich are pretty in-expensive ($300-400). Make sure it has a thermostat. The biggest issue is getting the condensate out of there. we either mount them up a couple feet off the ground gravity feed a drain that is nearby or else use a condensate pump to get it up and further out. Usually there is a bathroom or janitor's closet with a slop sink nearby in our buildings. Another issue we've had is that they use soft power so if there is an outage someone has to turn on the unit again, (see monitoring paragraph below).
Now being dependent on the AC to keep the room from boiling over I'd also look into remote monitoring of envirmental variables and power notifications and control. We have temperature monitors that emails the infrastructure people when the temp or humidity crosses certain thresholds. The UPSs will email us to when they are on batt, doing a shutdown, etc. You also have notification so someone can go turn on the AC unit again too.
An excellent book is "The Practice of System and Network Administration" by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christine Hogan. (ISBN: 0201702711) It is theory not necessarily platform specific. It is focused at unix, but can be applied in a windoze environment. I wish I had read that book years ago. It really does a good job of summarizing all the best practices. It's all the things they don't teach in school. http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/aboutbook.html There are links to reviews there. The average customer review on amazon is 4.5/5.
As far as pulling cable and doing the physical grunt work..make sure you do structured wiring otherwise you end up with a rats nest of wire. Over plan everything. Don't forget the simple stuff, have a dedicated circuit or two for the server(s) and network equipment with adequate UPS protection. Make sure the room is adequately ventialated and physically secure. Make sure you have room to grow, so when you need more equipment you have room for it or can easily make room for it.
I have done exactly this. My fiance and I know someone by word of mouth and experience. They have shot two of our friends weddings (we were in one)and both were very happy with the results. They do exacly as you said, they want a few for samples, that is it. They have sample after sample too. They do really nice work, and are saving us a ton of money. Also, we get the negatives and the rights. They are funny becuase they love doing it (it is a couple), you can just see it in their eyes when you talk to them. They just light up!
I think this highlights a large issue. What has happened is that more shops can't work on any car, they have to create a niche that they will work on because of the cost to have the diagnostic tools. I would be willing to bet that my Dad's shop could not fix this problem and would refer him to the dealer. I think that the mechanic should know the technology limits they have at their shop and not take a job that they are incapable of repairing. The cost of the scanner to get codes is exorbitant, and you would need one for each manufactuerer (Ford, Chrysler, GM, and all the imports). Most will settle for a more generic Snap-On or equivalent that can do multiple things but not all.
Judging by the number of Audi's I see on the road, there is no way for my dad to justify the cost. ODBII solves some of the issues but you still have ABS and airbag systems that are proprietary and that the dealer is the onlyone who can pull the codes.
Where I am, and where my dad's business is I would consider an audi the PC equavilent of a Packard Bell: Not many around and good luck getting parts.
To sum up, the company was in the same position, we were using inkjet printers for large documents. It was decided by the inkjet volume that the 2500 would be suffieient. Well, turns out our volume has doubled in 12 months. Now the 2500 can't keep up and we are stuck, good luck selling managment that we need to replace our 11mo. old printer.
At a previous job we leased a color copier/printer/scanner. Also, the higer end HP's(8500) have had high references from a friend that works at a drafting company. That was much nicer and more effecient. I would reccomend looking into that route.
I think you need to pay more attention to /.
VNC appears to violate XP's EULA
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