Projects of Interest

The Bluegrass Sportsmen's League

When the Bluegrass Sportsmen's League needed broadband Internet access, we first contacted the phone and cable companies. When told that broadband was unavailable that far out in the country, the Sportsmen's League even requested pricing to evaluate extending the lines. When the phone and cable companys' laughter died down, our brainstorming sessions began. Our final solution was to open up a branch office at the nearest point where we could install broadband, which ended up being a wall-hung cabinet in the garage of a friendly neighbor. There we installed a phone line with DSL Internet service and then used wireless technology to bridge the three and a half mile distance to bring that Internet access to the main office of the Sportsmen's League, crossing numerous farms, the river (twice), power lines, and woodlands. Once the broadband access reached the main office, we then needed to extend the access to multiple points across the 1500 acre facility. This is an ongoing project utilizing a wireless mesh network comprised of multiple routers talking to each other to cover larger areas. We have created this network using consumer-grade wireless routing equipment with custom open-source firmware (software for the routers) which allows them to act like high-end business-grade routing equipment. We extend this network as needs and finances arise by adding new routers into the mesh using this advanced technology.

Johnson Early Architects

Although we have clients running mixed UNIX, Windows and Novell servers, Johnson Early Architects were our first clients to use only UNIX as a server operating system. Johnson Early had a peer-to-peer network of Windows workstations and needed a server for file access and backup. We installed a FreeBSD UNIX server running Samba and Bacula. With Samba, we were able to set up a Windows domain, enabling the architects to log in to the server and obtain network drives in a manner familiar to them. The domain allows roaming profiles, login scripts, and centralized access to user accounts. To the computers which log in to the domain, the UNIX server looks just like an expensive Windows server. Using Bacula, we are able to back up not only the files stored on the server — the users' My Documents directories, desktops, and settings which are all saved on the server through Samba as well as the project files saved on the network drives — but the workstations as well.