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Custom built systems...

Audio workstation

Josh McLean needed an affordable, professional quality audio workstation that he could use for multitrack recording, mixing and mastering. We custom built a system to meet his specifications, complete with the software tools and hardware he needed in order to produce professional-quality music.

Graphic arts workstation

David Stoupakis had an aging PC that just wasn't up to working with large images in Photoshop. We upgraded his entire workstation, installing a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, and case. We migrated the operating system and data from his existing, small 6 gb of drive space onto a spacious new 60 gb hard drive. We cleaned out a virus infection and resolved several system stability issues. We upgraded the operating system to Windows XP and installed Photoshop 7.0 -- all without any loss of the files and data David had already produced with his system.

College student workstation

A basic computer capable of utilizing the Internet and writing papers was needed. Our client had an older Pentium II-400 machine that was perfect for this purpose. We gave it a clean install of Windows XP and Office XP, Norton AntiVirus, and configured it to access the campus network.

Home networks...

Internet connection sharing

David's cable modem was great -- but only one of the three computer systems in his apartment was cabable of using it. We installed network interface cards in he and his roommate's systems, ran wires throughout his apartment and connected them all to a central hub. We configured all of his systems to share the cable connection. Now, everyone enjoys high speed Internet access, simultaneously.

File, Internet, Printer sharing in a multi-OS environment

Our lab at the Russell Street Consulting home base is an eclectic combination of systems, all designed for specific purposes. (picture forthcoming) We have:

- One Windows 98 graphics workstation, with an attached scanner and enormous 21" monitor
- An ancient Pentium-166, running FreeBSD 4.6, which functions as a router and allows all the systems to share DSL Internet access
- A triple-boot Windows XP, 98 and Red Hat Linux 7.2 system, which is our main site development platform. This also functions as an audio workstation (we make music in our spare time)
- A FreeBSD 4.5 file server running samba and Appletalk, which gives us a rock-solid, stable system to share files across the systems on the network
- A Power Macintosh 7500/100, great for those periodic things that you can only do on a Mac (Quicktime VR, for example)
- A Windows XP-based DVD entertainment system, which we use during our downtime to play music, watch movies, and go online periodically
- Two wireless Mac laptops for work anywhere in the house or on-site systems

All of these systems share the DSL line, a common printer, access to a central file server with 60 gb of space, and except for the wireless laptops are connected via Cat5 cables and a 24 port 100 mbps switch. If we set it up for ourselves -- we can set something like this up for you, too.

On-call IT services

Gilder Publishing

Gilder Publishing did not need to hire a full-time systems administrator, but they did need someone to perform periodic maintenance on their websites and in-house computer systems. Russell Street Consulting provides them with access to a qualified systems administrator, who can remotely maintain their Windows NT-based websites and e-mail server via PCAnywhere, and offers on-site and telephone technical assistance as needed for their Mac/PC Windows 2000-based office network.