VPN. Yay. No…really…Yay.
With the arrival of the new VPN/Router in the mail the other day, I finally got the VPN working for my fire department. It’s exciting. No, not really. I managed to get the settings between the firewall/router and the client (my PC) set up, so I can at least access files. The VPN is necessary so I can link our other (Jedburg area) fire department to the main station down here in Summerville
My next present, the server, is on its way, supposed to be shipped on the 20th. I can’t wait. We’ve been using a decrepid old desktop for the server, and it’s a big POS. By big POS I mean it’s a P3 450MHz and some piddly amount of RAM. The only upgrade I did was replacing the tiny HDD with a 250GB HDD. The new server will have two SATA 80GB HDD, so I can do a RAID setup if I want, but to be honest I probably will not. I may install the old HDD and just use it for a place to store the backups. We’ve stopped printing SCFIRS fire reports…save the paper…since they’re backed up on the server’s HDD anyways from the console up front.
I also am about to order a shiny new copier/printer/fax/scanner. We currently spend $1800 a year on a maintenance contract for some POS. I’ve found that Lexmark (my favorite printer company) has some multiuse machines that should fit the bill, for about $1500. The dry ink cartidges run about $300 or so, a little less for the smaller yield, so I think that it should pay off. I guess we’ll see.