[WEB4LIB] Gates Computers and Internet Access

[Tom Edelblute]

Once you put your new users into a group just go into System Policy
Editor, create your policy name, copy over the settings you want to use
into the new policy name so you don't have to rekey it all in.

For the proxy server setting, use the System Policy Editor to find an
item toward the bottom of the list called "Set the Values for your proxy
server."  Thus only the group that uses that particular policy will use
that proxy server setting.

I was asked if the Gates Foundation allowed this.  I have in my class
notes that the Gates Foundation considered the use of proxy servers and
filtering an internal library policy matter that they were not going to
get involved in one way or another.  When asked if any filters worked
with their model they said they had no plans of testing any.

Andrew Mutch wrote:
> 
> For those of you who have Gates computers, I have another question.  I was
> recently contacted by a library that wanted to do the following:
> 
> 1.  Use the proxy method in Internet Explorer to limit web access to their web
> catalog for one profile
> 
> 2.  Allow full Internet access in another profile
> 
> 3.  They would prefer a solution that is cheap (read: free)
> 
> Apparently, the library has their workstations set up to do all things.  When
> the workstation is in catalog-mode, they don't want general Internet surfing
> going on.  However, they also want the flexibility to be able to switch the
> workstation over to full Internet use.
> 
> This is where their problem starts.  As they explained it to me, the Gates
> computers come with preconfigured profiles.  They've found that they can't
> manipulate certain Internet Explorer settings in these profiles.  We discussed
> editing the registry but it turns out that you can only do this as the
> Administrator.  So, the only change you could make would affect all users on
> the machine.  If you restricted access to the Administrator, all profiles would
> have restricted access which is not what they want.
> 
> Knowing that many of you have Gates computers in your libraries and that some
> of you have already wrestled with this problem, I would like to know what route
> you took to solve this problem.  I'm most interested in easy answers but will
> take all approaches to this problem.
> :)
> 
> Thanks in advance for your input!
> 
> Andrew Mutch
> Library Systems Technician
> Waterford Township Public Library
> Waterford, MI

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Edelblute
Reference and Technology Librarian
Anaheim Public Library   phone: (714) 765-1759
500 West Broadway        fax:   (714) 765-1730
Anaheim CA 92805         e-mail: thomas at anaheim.lib.ca.us