December 07, 2008

We continue to upgrade our computing environment with two servers, three desk top clients, one Media Center PC  and two laptops.  We have upgraded our Internet access to fiber optics which operates at 20 megabits/sec and has allowed us to begin publishing Beti's web sites again.

Here is a picture of our two servers.

The main server, (on the left), known on the network as Bailey, runs Windows 2003 Server and has 1 terrabyte of hard disk storage. For printing we have an HP LaserJet 4300 for very fast high quality black and white printing, an Epson 1280 for photographic quality output and an Epson R280 for utility color output. This server is used for central file access and is used by Beti to publish web sites for her clients using IIS 5.  The second server is a similar machine also with 1 terrabyte of storage but is used primarily for video editing and storage and as a backup to Bailey. Ian has another quad core desktop machine with another 2 terrabytes of storage where we keep all of our entertainment content.

The Internet connection is provided by Verizon and uses fiber optics to raise the transfer rate to 20 megabits/sec. The internal network is gigabit Ethernet with a wireless access point for the laptops.

With the fast internal network we have moved to a centralized storage architecture for MP3s, photographs, home movies and we even use the Media Center PC as a DVD player.  The Windows Media Center computer is located next to our 61 inch DLP television in the living room and is connected to our main Hi-Fi system to play/display our digital content.  We have various speaker outlets including wireless speakers and with a remote connection from one of the laptops we can control the Media Center PC to play our music almost anywhere in the house.