City of Bellevue

The North Bellevue Community & Senior Center and Komputer Enthusiasts of Greater Seattle: Teaming Up to Provide Service to the Community

KEGS Logo

In 1999 KEGS recognized the opportunity to further assist our community by enhancing a computer training lab at the North Bellevue Community / Senior Center. Using totally donated equipment and volunteer time, KEGS designed, built and installed a state-of-art computer training lab valued at $95,000.00.

KEGS continues to administer and update the lab and the Community Center provides KEGS with access to the lab and their meeting facilities for sixteen (16) Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings every month.

We're very proud of what we've done and we thought we'd give you a look at the Computer Lab. But before you look at the pictures, here's a basic listing of lab's current facilities:

What's in the Lab

Student computers: There are 14 student computers, two at each table. Also, on every student table is a third monitor that displays an image of the instructor's monitor.

The instructor's computer is identical to the student computers and sits on its own table at the front of the room where the instructor can face the students.

At the back of the room is a computer used as a student Scanning station. This computer also has a CD burner.

The Server for the lab's network is also located at the back of the room. Adjacent to the server is a relay rack that holds the network switch and battery back-up for the server. Attached to the server are three printers that can be accessed by any of the lab computers: one laser printer, one inkjet printer and one dot-matrix (impact) printer.

There is also one old 486 computer at the back of the room. This computer is exclusively used by KEGS for attendance records of its SIG meetings.

There is a Portable/Demonstration computer on a roll-around cart that can be used outside the lab. There are two locations in the center that have been wired to provide interconnection by this computer to the lab's network. This is the only computer equipped with a DVD and a sound system.

OK, take a look around. Just click on a picture to get a close-up look. If you want in-depth info on the lab, see the information below.

Current Lab Hardware Configuration Information

The Server was built by KEGS and consists of:

  • AT Server Case with 550 watt power supply and 7 fans.
  • Asus P5A Motherboard
  • AMD 500Mh processor
  • 393 Meg of RAM
  • Two 60 Gig Hard drives in removable mountings (2nd drive is back-up)
  • One CD ROM
  • Two external US Robotics Courier Modems. One for shared Internet access & one for shared FAX & Modem. (FAX / Modem is currently not in service.)
  • One 3Com EtherLink III (3C509b) network card
  • A Parallel interface card that adds two additional printer ports. The server supports three (3) network printers.
    • HP DeskJet (The default printer for all lab computers)
    • HP LaserJet
    • Okidata Microline dot-matrix impact printer

The non-portable Instructor PC and all 14 Student PCs are all:

Dell OptiPlex G1 Pentium II, 350Mh computers with:

  • 288 Meg of RAM
  • 40 Gig Hard drives (Formatted to provide a C: drive of 20 Gig. The rest of the drive space (Drive D:) is used to hold a maintenance image of the primary drive.)
  • CD ROM
  • NO sound

The Scanning Station PC is identical to the Instructor computer except that it also has:

  • HP ScanJet 5100C scanner
  • PlexWriter CD burner
  • Soundblaster Sound Card

The Portable Demo/Instruction PC is a Seattle built, ACI computer with:

  • Intel Pentium II, 667Mh processor
  • 393 Meg of RAM
  • Two (2) 20 Gig hard drives. (Only one is used by the user. The second drive holds a maintenance image of the primary drive.)
  • DVD drive and associated software.
  • Soundblaster Sound Card and speakers

The KEGS PC (to the left of the Scanning Station PC) is an old 486 running Windows 98se. It is used by KEGS SIG leaders for attendance administration of their groups.

  • This is NOT a normal lab terminal.

Current Lab Software Information

The Server's software:

  • Microsoft Small Business Server 2000
  • PowerQuest's DeployCenter, licensed for 20 users (Drive image and image distribution software)
  • That's it. No programs are provided from the server. All user software is individually loaded on each lab PC

The 14 Student PCs:

  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
  • Microsoft Office XP Professional with Front Page
  • Microsoft Publisher 2002 with full Media Content
  • Microsoft Works Suite 2002 offers Works & Word and adds:
    • Encarta 2002
    • Money 2002
    • Picture It! Photo 2002
    • Streets & Trips 2002
  • Quicken Home & Small Business 2002
  • Norton Anti-Virus
  • Deep Freeze (Prevents any drive deletions or unauthorized installations.)
  • We've also added things like WinZip 8.1, Adobe Acrobat reader 5.0, Microsoft Power Toys for Windows XP, and several Genealogy programs that were requested by users of the lab.

The non-portable Teachers PC has everything a Student PC has plus:

  • When logged on as the Visiting Instructor, you can also find and run PeachTree accounting software Ver. 2002.

The Scanning Station PC has everything a Student PC has plus:

  • Microsoft's Windows XP Scanning software
  • Roxio's CD burning software
  • A sound system and associated software

The Portable Demo/Instruction PC has everything a Student PC has plus:

  • A copy of QuickBooks used for SIG training
  • A joystick and associated software. (Sorry, still not working properly.)
  • A DVD drive using Microsoft's Windows XP software
  • A sound system and associated software