A computer lab or community technology center is a big investment. It is important to do a lot of research before investing time, effort, and dollars creating your own lab. You may want to determine if you can use someone else’s lab. Find other local nonprofits that may run a lab and ask if you can use the lab in their downtime. Consider who will be responsible for the maintenance of the lab.
Information about setting up computer labs and CTCs (Community Technology Centers) can be found online:
Sample Lab Management Software Vendors:
- Nonprofits often need to prevent youth and other clients from accessing certain types of information from their labs. Information about Internet security, privacy, and safety- as well as a software selection tool can be found at www.getnetwise.org
- Microsoft offers a product for shared computer labs called SteadyState (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sharedaccess/ ). This toolkit limits what software can be installed or re-configured, while at the same time enabling automated system updates. Each time the computer is rebooted, it returns to its original state. This helps prevent unwanted changes by users and mitigates virus and spyware threats. The toolkit is free.
- Deep Freeze (http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp ) can help lock lab computers down. When the computers restart, you can have them go back to how they were before people used and abused them.
- Norton Ghost (http://www.symantec.com/norton/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost12 ) simplifies setting up several computers with the same software and settings, by enabling the distribution of a master drive “image” to multiple machines over a network.
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