Managing Student Netbooks

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By: Maryam Mahjoub

Students on ComputersHaywood Engineering College‘s had had to figure out how to manage their new student computers. They had just purchased 190 new netbooks.  They were so excited about the excellent learning opportunity for their students but they needed to solve this new problem.

The college had an e-learning portal for students to use outside of the classroom.  The point of the program was to offer students more flexibility and mobility with their learning.  The problem with the mobility and large user base of the netbooks was that they quickly lost their original configurations.

Mr. Tudor Nash told us that diagnosing and repairing a fault on a netbook can take up to two hours. He also commented that the logistics of scheduling repairs are difficult since the machines are constantly on the go. To solve these problems, Andy wanted a solution to help in managing the student laptops without restricting user access.

A school network is an extremely challenging and dynamic environment,” says Andy Tudor Nash, Network Manager for HEC. “Laptops, Netbooks, PCs, and thin client machines are used by different users on a day-to-day basis and these users can make critical changes to the system—both intentionally and unintentionally.”

Haywood Engineering College’ invested in Faronics Deep Freeze to ensure the netbooks were completely safe from user changes, software damage, and system slowdowns. Once HEC installed Deep Freeze on a netbook, any changes that a student made to

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https://www.faronics.com/news/blog/managing-student-netbooks

Keeping Public Access Computers Secure

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By: Maryam Mahjoub

San Juan unified K-12 school district has over 45,000 students and over 74 sites.  They were constantly busy with support calls and troubleshooting errors on their 4000 windows machines. Public access computer security was a top priority for San Juan Unified’ IT team.  They wanted to make sure that their students were able to use the computers without worry.

“Our biggest problems occurred in minimally supervised areas,” said Chuck Taylor, a Microcomputer Specialist at San Juan Unified. “For example, students were often left unsupervised on library computers and kids would purposely trash the operating systems. Other kids, who meant no harm, caused damage by going to their favorite web sites and unintentionally inviting spyware, malware, worms, and other harmful programs into the system.

It was at a CETPA tradeshow that Mr. Taylor first heard about a product from Faronics Technologies called Deep Freeze. Deep Freeze for those who don’t know, is a reboot to restore software. It is the perfect solution to increase public access computer security. With a simple restart computers are brought to their original state, free of malware, spyware, and configuration drift.

We noticed the difference overnight,” said Mr. Taylor. “Nothing—not the Google Toolbar, Spybot, Pest Patrol, or even Norton AntiVirus—made a faster difference than Deep Freeze. The compliments from these once frustrated sites and users still come in all the time.” Best of

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https://www.faronics.com/news/blog/keeping-public-access-computers-secure

Deep Freeze Remover Or Hidden Infection?

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Fake Deep Freeze Password RemoverI recently happened upon an interesting blog post. The blog went on to explain how to remove the password from Deep Freeze.

Seemed simple so I thought I’d see if this actually worked on one of our test machines. The first sign of trouble is this “review blog” had some interesting grammar.

Things like “Deepfreeze is a software that is a software for us if we want to be protected from computer viruse”. The second sign of trouble should have been the download site, which gives a fake download. The page has fake “download now” buttons to trick you into clicking them giving the owner money for paid traffic.

Finally getting to the actual download page and downloading the small 108KB  .exe takes no time at all. So far so good. Upon trying to install the .exe file I’m presented with an interesting message from my anti-virus and application whitelisting program.

Turns out the password remover doesn’t actually remove anything but rather adds something. It adds a nice little trojan.Win32.Generic!BT virus to your computer. We have seen these “removers” in the past but this was the first one with a virus in it. These removers are often tried by students in labs or employee’s at workstations that want

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https://www.faronics.com/news/blog/deep-freeze-remover-or-hidden-infection

Peace of Mind at Mint Hotel

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By Ryan Majeau

Man Doing Yoga in Front of ComputerDo you ever get that sinking feeling that you’ve forgot something after checking out of a hotel? It could be something as innocent as a shirt in the closet, or your toothbrush in the washroom. But what if it was something on the room’s computer? Maybe a spreadsheet or some important documents, perhaps some photos? Yes, that sinking feeling. Well if you stayed at Mint Hotel (formally City Inn), you can kiss that feeling goodbye thanks to an endpoint security solution that has your privacy in mind.

Always known for elite service, the UK based hotel chain also prides itself in offering its guests only the latest in IT innovations. Mint Hotel recently raised the bar on industry standards with the introduction of iMacs into every room in all of their hotels. With this move they knew they needed an endpoint security solution that not only protected their assets but protected yours.

“Our guests’ privacy and personal file security is paramount,” said Richard Pemberton, Head of Information Technology. With clientele often including high profile guests such as politicians the need for security and confidentiality couldn’t be more important.

Faronics Deep Freeze’s reboot-to-restore technology ensures that any changes made during a user session are erased with each restart. Your personal info, your documents, your history of use—everything erased.

“Faronics Deep Freeze was

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https://www.faronics.com/news/blog/peace-of-mind-at-mint-hotel