Where to begin?

A tiny (less than 10 employee) not for profit, with a small budget, is
looking to develop a plan to upgrade its internet connectivity.

Hardware is all 3+ years old. There are 5 machines - 4 are physically
located within 20 yards or so of one another - the 5th is about
50 yards from the cluster of 4. Current connectivity is phone modems
and an AOL account.

The two newest of the machines are a couple of 3 yr old HP home/small office
all in one machines running Windows/Me. The rest are running various
other versions of Win 98/95.

The wish is to bring in one broadband line and share it between the
machines, hopefully keeping the costs relatively close or even lower,
while improving connectivity.

They have no real technical support - 2 or 3 of the employees think they
have some level of technical expertice, but they are from sales and
philosophy and about the most they do is plug in cables, wiggle cables,
etc. - no real background in networking, firewalls, etc.

My first suggestion, when I heard what they were considering, was to
tell them they needed to invest in some sort of firewall software or
hardware. I also suggested they see if Windows XP Home edition would
run on their assortment of ancient computers, and if so, see if they
could afford the $500-$800 to upgrade.

Are there some online guides to which I could point them to help them
develop some sort of reasonable plan that would result in something
reasonably suitable for them?
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(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> A tiny (less than 10 employee) not for profit, with a small budget, is
> looking to develop a plan to upgrade its internet connectivity.
>
> Hardware is all 3+ years old. There are 5 machines - 4 are physically
> located within 20 yards or so of one another - the 5th is about
> 50 yards from the cluster of 4. Current connectivity is phone modems
> and an AOL account.
>
> The two newest of the machines are a couple of 3 yr old HP home/small office
> all in one machines running Windows/Me. The rest are running various
> other versions of Win 98/95.
>
> The wish is to bring in one broadband line and share it between the
> machines, hopefully keeping the costs relatively close or even lower,
> while improving connectivity.
>
> They have no real technical support - 2 or 3 of the employees think they
> have some level of technical expertice, but they are from sales and
> philosophy and about the most they do is plug in cables, wiggle cables,
> etc. - no real background in networking, firewalls, etc.
>
> My first suggestion, when I heard what they were considering, was to
> tell them they needed to invest in some sort of firewall software or
> hardware. I also suggested they see if Windows XP Home edition would
> run on their assortment of ancient computers, and if so, see if they
> could afford the $500-$800 to upgrade.

I certainly would not send more money to Redmond.

Get a router ($50 +/-) and a cheap switch ($15 +/-), hook them up,
and be happy. If you want protection beyond what the router's NAT
will provide, get a slightly more expensive router that includes a
more substantial firewall.

Some ISP's are happy to provide firewall software to broadband
customers; they don't want their network clogged with the results
of security breaches.

>
> Are there some online guides to which I could point them to help them
> develop some sort of reasonable plan that would result in something
> reasonably suitable for them?

If you read some of the other posts on the group to which you posted
this, or do a simple Google search, you will encounter many good
suggestions.