Advice Requested

[Wayne Wengert]

I am working with two "public" computers in a senior citizen center. The
systems use "Deep Freeze" (Faronics) to load a clean environment each time
they are booted (it appears to be something like a disk image restore?) and
that works well but I am wondering if anyone has experience with that
product and can offer any insights and/or usage tips?

Also, most of the seniors use the system to get their email - most use
hotmail. Since it is a public system and it is restored each time it is
booted there is no way to save contact lists and such. Is it possible to use
some external device (jump drive or floppy) to save things like the contact
list so they would have it available the next time they open hotmail?

Thanks for any input.

Wayne

 

[Guest]

What a waist of time, just have them login with individual sigons. And the
answer to your question is yes, how are they using e-mail, Outlook express?
MS outlook? Web Mail?

 

[Wayne Wengert]

If you've worked much with public PCs I think you'll find all sorts of
problems introduced by users doing something they shouldn't - at least that
has been my experience. Also, there can be over 75 different users.

The email is hotmail via hotmail.com - web based.

 

[Guest]

YES I have, this is why I lock them down, they cannot install a thing or
change any settings, and I have no problems, Web mail follows the users to no
matter where they login to. the contact list is on the MSN website.

 

[Malke]

I am working with two "public" computers in a senior citizen center.
The systems use "Deep Freeze" (Faronics) to load a clean environment
each time they are booted (it appears to be something like a disk
image restore?) and that works well but I am wondering if anyone has
experience with that product and can offer any insights and/or usage
tips?

Also, most of the seniors use the system to get their email - most use
hotmail. Since it is a public system and it is restored each time it
is booted there is no way to save contact lists and such. Is it
possible to use some external device (jump drive or floppy) to save
things like the contact list so they would have it available the next
time they open hotmail?

Deep Freeze is excellent for situations like yours. You should contact
Faronics for usage questions and tips. To quote what is at the
following link: "The Faronics Content Library contains PDF files in the
form of user guides, whitepapers, brochures, etc., video tutorials,
downloadable files in the form of supplementary utilities and
configuration files, and links to our FAQ sites."

http://www.faronics.com/html/library.asp

I don't use HotMail, but I'm surprised that addresses and emails aren't
kept at the server. Most web-based email services do this. If HotMail
truly doesn't, switch your users to Yahoo or GMail. Having the
addresses and email kept at the server solves the Deep Freeze issue you
are having. Don't allow your users anything but webmail - no local
email clients.

Malke

 

[Wayne Wengert]

Thanks for the feedback. It appears that hotmail does keep the contacts at
the server (I've never used hotmail so I didn't know). I did look at several
of the Faronics papers and it looks like we'll stay with Deep Freeze unless
I hear a compelling reason to use a different approach.

Wayne

 

[Steve N.]

I am working with two "public" computers in a senior citizen center. The
systems use "Deep Freeze" (Faronics) to load a clean environment each time
they are booted (it appears to be something like a disk image restore?) and
that works well but I am wondering if anyone has experience with that
product and can offer any insights and/or usage tips?

Also, most of the seniors use the system to get their email - most use
hotmail. Since it is a public system and it is restored each time it is
booted there is no way to save contact lists and such. Is it possible to use
some external device (jump drive or floppy) to save things like the contact
list so they would have it available the next time they open hotmail?

Thanks for any input.

Wayne

You can configure DF to use a thaw space on the drive to retain some
things. Consult the documentation.

Steve N.

 

[Wayne Wengert]

Thanks for that - I'll do some reading.

You can configure DF to use a thaw space on the drive to retain some
things. Consult the documentation.

Steve N.

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

It is *waste* of time. Waist is where your belt is.

The rest of your answer makes no sense at all.

Bobby