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Capital Outlay Planning: Pricing Macintosh Ethernet
Cards
Last updated 11-9-2000
The info below is a bit dated. Try:
- This list of Macintosh ethernet card solutions from Schoolvision: http://iso.schoolvision.com/reference/ethernet.html
- Searching Schoolvision's site for the card you want by part number (located above):
Last updated 1-26-99
It's time to be thinking of capital outlay requests for next year, and if you have not already, you should be asking to network all Macintosh computers in your room and/or building together with ethernet cabling. To connect a computer to an ethernet network, each computer must have an ethernet card or "network card." The pricing info below is provided to assist you in purchasing the correct ethernet cards for your Macs. Additionally, you can download a spreadsheet that already contains this data, and use it as a worksheet. Download it in ClarisWorks 4 format (for Macintosh, will work with versions 4.0 and 5.0) - file size: 34 K.
One additional thing to consider: if it is available, it is to your school's long term advantage that you buy "10/100" ethernet cards. That means they can run at either 10 megabits or 100 megabits. Your school network will probably start out as a 10 megabit (10BaseT) network, but eventually it will probably grow to 100 megabits. By purchasing cards that already support 100 MB ethernet, you (or whoever uses that computer in the future) will be ready to take advantage of faster network speeds in the future without needing a hardware upgrade.
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Quotes from Schoolvision Inc in 6/98 and 9/98 |
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Also obtain quotes from MicroWarehouse |
You will probably want to "bid out" your building to have it completely wired, but if you are just doing a computer lab or several classrooms the process is really not very complicated. Excellent information and a step-by-step guide to wiring yourself is available at http://www.netday.org/btw/.
Advice on Configuring Macs on a School Network
Here is a copy of info I emailed out to elementary technologists in our district regarding ethernet cabling and configuring Macs for T1 internet access:
I want to share with you the configuration steps we've gone through our school to make this connection to the T1 (for Macs) as simple and painless as possible. Here are the steps I recommend. We did them ourselves without much trouble, and you can too.
1) Order ethernet network cards for all your macs if you have not already done so. I would order cards for all Macs that are LC IIIs or newer. We have older computers on our network (LCs and a IISI), but you probably don't want to mess with networking computers older than LC IIIs unless you plan to use the machine JUST for AR and/or word processing. Cavazos JHS presently has two full labs of LC III's with ethernet cards and upgraded memory (to 12 MB) which have been directly connected to the internet via a T1 line all semester w/o problems. LC III's can multitask (run a word processor and a web browser), but I haven't seen a Mac older than an LC III do this. It is a memory issue. I have heard rumors of a district policy on this (what computers they will allow us to connect to an ethernet network), but don't know of anything official yet. The facts are that you can install an ethernet card on a Mac as old as a IISI (that's older than a LC) and use it as a client workstation for AR (on a Novell server), and use Clarisworks 5.0 to create and save documents to the Novell file server. Whether you want to actually buy network cards for computers that old will depend on how much YOU want to mess with configuring them, because in all likelihood info systems won't want to mess with them.
You can find the order numbers and ethernet card types you will need to order for for your Macs at the top of this webpage.
Bottom line here: call Schoolvision and order network cards, and put them on capital outlay for next year even if you don't have a school network in place or even a plan to build one. Prepare for your network now-- this will be money well spent in the future once all the other "pieces" of your network (classroom wiring, hubs, file server, etc) are in place.
2) Upgrade all your Macs that have some version of Mac OS (operating system) 7.5 to OS 7.5.3 revision 2 (or a newer version of the Mac OS), and upgrade your networking software from "MacTCP" to "Open Transport." This is a free upgrade, and you can download the OS upgrade free from Apple (http://til.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n10557) as well as Open Transport (http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n10739). You can also use the CD I sell at workshops for $10 to install these upgrades (http://www.wtvi.com/toolscd/), as I obtained permission from Apple to redistribute them.
The reason for this upgrade is that Open Transport is required to support "DHCP" on your school network. DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Control Protocol, and in English it means that if you run it, you DON'T have to assign an IP address (a number like 10.10.10.1) to that computer. It basically makes setup and management of your school network much easier.
If you have older machines like LCs or LCIIIs with little memory (like 4 Megs of RAM) then you might not want to upgrade to OS 7.5.3. Upgrade to OS 7.1 (using disk installers) and then install OT 1.1.1. It will run on OS 7.1 computers. You can download OT 1.1.1 from ftp://ftp.apple.com/devworld/Technical_Documentation/Open_Transport/download/OT1.1.1/.
3) Once your campus T1 line is activated, info systems will provide you with an IP address for your "proxy server." The proxy server holds temporary copies of webpages when someone on your network downloads something, so that if someone wants to view the same webpage their computer can quickly fetch the copy in the proxy server. This avoids a time delay and reduces network traffic created when a computer requests a webpage from somewhere out on the internet.
On each Mac that has an ethernet card and the software upgrades described above, follow these steps:
- Open the TCP/IP control panel.
- Choose to "connect via ethernet" and "configure using DHCP server."
- Leave "search domains" in the lower right corner blank.
- Close the TCP/IP control panel and choose to save the settings. A restart is NOT needed.
- Change your settings on Netscape or Internet Explorer to use the proxy server as described below, depending on what browser(s) is installed on the computer
Netscape 2.0 - 3.0 (Mac)
- -go to OPTIONS and choose NETWORK PREFERENCES
- -click on the tab for PROXIES
- -beside "manual proxy configuration," click "VIEW"
- -enter your proxy server's IP address and port number (probably "80") beside HTTP and FTP
- -click OK to save your settings
Netscape 4.0 - 4.5 (Mac)
- -go to EDIT and select PREFERENCES
- -under the ADVANCED settings tab on the left, select PROXIES
- -click the radio button beside "manual configuration" and choose "CONFIGURE"
- -enter your proxy server's IP address and port number (probably "80") beside HTTP and FTP
- -click OK to save your settings
Internet Explorer 4.5 (Mac)
- -go to EDIT and select PREFERENCES
- -under the NETWORK submenu on the left, click on PROXIES
- -click the radio button beside ENABLED and enter the address/port for your proxy server beside "Address"
- -click OK to save your settings
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To start, you can plan for a local area network (LAN) within your computer lab. You can buy two 16 port hubs for around $150 each, and 1000' of ethernet cabling with connectors from Greybar Electric for about $100. Once you have hubs and network wiring for all your computers, all you need are network cards for your machines and you've created a LAN!
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© Copyright 1998 by Wesley A. Fryer. Please utilize these materials under academic fair use guidelines and drop me a line at wes@wtvi.com if appropriate. :)
Why should I buy a Macintosh when most folks use Windows95?
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