[Casper] time bomb accounts - exchange program

Fri Feb 20 10:34:21 PST 2009

Good heavens!  I thought we were undermanned.

We do have asset tags on our computers.  I really like the idea of  
having "stolen" written underneath them.  I also love the idea of  
students keeping the same laptop and reaping the rewards of how well  
they care for it.  Our 1:1 project has the laptops staying with the  
grade and being handed on to a new student each year.

When one of our one-to-one units has a failure, and it is not a  
harddrive failure, we will swap the harddrive from one MacBook to an  
exchange unit, be certain the new unit is properly reconned and in the  
right work group in WGM, and get it back to the student.  If the HDD  
is toast, we'll give them a new unit and have them sync to their  
mobile account.  [We only have 175 one-to-one students, and thus face  
two-magnitudes of order few problems.]

In Workgroup manager, on the basic tab, it has an option called:   
"User can  [ ] access account".  I would find out how to replicate  
that change from the command line (via a local node if necessary), and  
use that as the basis of disabling the account.

I'd also consider seeing if there is something you can do to automate  
or speed up the work you do updating information in your inventory  
database.  And yet, I feel all too keenly the plight of the farmer,  
who, when going for wood was asked, "Why don't you sharpen your saw?   
It'll make it easier" and who replied "I don't have time to sharpen  
the saw!  I've got all these trees to cut!"

Cheers,
Clinton

On 20-Feb-09, at 10:10 AM, Thomas Larkin wrote:

> I have over 6,000 of the same macbooks.  We label them with names of  
> the student and assign them the laptop in our inventory system.  I  
> see so many failed HDs on these models it is insane.  I sometimes  
> send over 50 machines out for repair per a week, from just one  
> building.  The building I work out of has over 1400 laptops in it.   
> I am not sure how you do it at your school, but each machines has a  
> tattoo metal sticker on it with a unique Asset tag number.  If the  
> sticker is ripped off there is a tattoo under it that says STOLEN in  
> huge red letters.  I have to scan each machine in and do about 3 to  
> 4 minutes of clerical work on the inventory database to un-assign  
> and reassign a laptop, which I do on some circumstances.
>
> I have probably over 100 spare laptops in my building that are used  
> for repairs or they can be checked out for certain events by staff  
> and then brought back to me.  So I have to manage 100+ spares plus  
> my 1400 in my building, plus the 6,000+ district wide.  My  
> department is like 6 people, that is an average of 1 person per  
> 1,000 laptops.  We are just too under staffed to be dealing with  
> paper work stuff all day.  With the budget cuts we aren't getting  
> any more staff any time soon.
>
> We have things in place where they can save their school work, both  
> from home folder sync and school loop.  Plus I am thinking about  
> putting drop box on the image for next year which will give them  
> 2gigs of free space to sync whatever they want over the Internet.
>
> I do kind of wish I had a stock of spare parts and a HD cloner, then  
> i would just clone 20 HDs and when one comes in with a bad HD, swap  
> out the drives then just order the part through GSX, but we don't  
> have that in place.
>
> How do you guys that work in 1:1 handle your spare machines?
>
>
>
> ___________________________
> Thomas Larkin
> TIS Department
> KCKPS USD500
> tlarki at kckps.org
> blackberry:  913-449-7589
> office:  913-627-0351
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> Clinton Blackmore <clinton.blackmore at westwind.ab.ca> 02/20/09  
> 10:59 AM >>>
> Greetings.
>
> This only peripherally addresses your question, and goes against  
> what you said about re-assigning computers, but I thought you'd find  
> it interesting as a different approach.
>
> The idea was synthesized from two facts: 1) the techs didn't like  
> wasting time transferring a users data to a loaner and then back to  
> their original machine when it returned from repair, and 2) someone  
> said, "we are big enough that we could insure ourselves."  [We  
> purchased around 800 new computers to replace/supplement older ones  
> last summer.]
>
> We still billed an insurance fee on each computer, but instead of  
> purchasing Apple Care for our computers, we decided to put the money  
> into buying additional units (and attempted to standardize on just a  
> couple of models)*, and have instituted what we call the exchange  
> program.  When a unit comes in that is malfunctioning, the user is  
> given an identical unit.  We transfer data when we can (or use  
> mobile/network accounts), but have told users that they are  
> responsible for backing up their own data.
>
> Then, the original unit can go for repair (or warranty work if it  
> qualifies.)  When it comes back, it is re-imaged and placed onto the  
> exchange pile.  We do not have to hunt down the user and get a  
> loaner back.
>
>
> We really need to formalize a policy for removing computers from  
> workgroup manager and marking them as in for repairs in Casper, and,  
> if you do an exchange program yourself, you need to keep the  
> exchange units out or sight and out of mind, or risk politicians  
> sabotaging your program by saying, "Why do we have twenty MacBooks  
> just sitting here, when they could form a new lab?"
>
>
> We are only six or seven months into our exchange program, but it  
> seems to be working fairly well.
>
> Cheers,
> Clinton Blackmore
>
>
> * We also took back the older computers we were replacing, and  
> redistributed some while keeping spares ready for exchange  
> purposes.  [Well, except for the oldest ones, which we discarded.]
>
>
> On 20-Feb-09, at 9:00 AM, Thomas Larkin wrote:
>
>> So, the last two years of our 1:1 has been fun.  There is one  
>> problem that I have though that takes up a lot of my time and there  
>> is no good solution.  That is when I give out a spare laptop to a  
>> user while theirs is in for repair.  These laptops are inventoried  
>> for the purpose of being loaners.  So, to rather constantly be  
>> updating my inventory and constantly reassigning users to specific  
>> machines we give out spares.
>>
>> Next school year I plan on naming every spare with a unique naming  
>> convention and then making a smart group of these spare machines.   
>> I want to make it so that every 30 days a policy runs that disables  
>> all local user accounts, thus forcing the user to come see me for  
>> support thus allowing me to get their spare back form them and into  
>> my inventory.
>>
>> I have had students refuse to give me back spares because they  
>> don't want to give up their 5 gigs of songs they ripped to them.  I  
>> also am going to have active search and destroy policies that limit  
>> the files being saved on spares.
>>
>> Basically, I want spare machines to not be as fun as their actual  
>> machine so they have lots of incentive to bring me back the spare.   
>> I figure I could just loop all user accounts and change their  
>> passwords to something ridiculous (random 30 character string) and  
>> then force a reboot.  They won't be able to log in and they will  
>> come see me immediately if they can't log in.
>>
>> I think this is pretty simple to do, but I would like any feed back  
>> from anyone on the list who has done something like this before.
>>
>> Thanks in advance, and have a good weekend.
>>
>> ___________________________
>> Thomas Larkin
>> TIS Department
>> KCKPS USD500
>> tlarki at kckps.org
>> blackberry:  913-449-7589
>> office:  913-627-0351
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>

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