Naming Your Computers Why and how! By the KCS Network Team

Naming Your Computers

Why and how!

By the

KCS Network Team

What does it matter what we call our computers?

The Instructional Technology Department has developed standards for naming computers in order to:

1. Identify the school and location of the computer.

2. Standardize computer names across the school system

3. Provide a method for service technicians to troubleshoot issues.

Our Experience With Names

Big Mama

Ms. Jones computer

BR549

English

BLT4W238-01

Office

Anarchy

Just total anarchy.

You can prevent anarchy by just following our guidelines. Please.

The Naming Convention

A proper computer name would look like this:

POW5W131-02

What is this mess? What does it tell you?

POW5WS131-002

School

Type of School

Type of Device

Room Number

Device Number

What is in a name?

The first part of the computer name is the school.

It will be the first three letters of the school name or if your school has two names it is the first two letters of the first name and the first letter of the second name.

ALL CAPITAL LETTERS

What is in a name?

Examples:

Bearden=BEA Ball Camp=BAC

Inskip=INS Spring Hill-SPH

Norwood=NOR Northwest=NOW

What is in a name?

The numbers represent a type of school

1=Primary 4=Middle School

2=Intermediate 5=High School

3=Elementary 6=Special Schools

What is in a name?

The letters represent type of device

W or WS =Workstation

P=Printer

S=Server

M=Mobile (laptop)

AP=Wireless Access Point

USE CAPITAL LETTERS

What is in a name?

Next comes the location of the device.

Ordinarily one will use the room number here in a three digit form.

What about other places

LIB=Library GYM= Gymnasium

OFF=Office TECH=Technology

What is in a name?

Finally to identify the computers inside one room, just number them 001,002, 003, etc. See, this can even accommodate large labs like we all wish that we had.

So, that is how to name the computers in your

schoolAre we done yet?

You must be joking.

The Computer name will also become the first user name that you enter when setting up the computer on Macs.

The school initials plus the # identifier become the first user name that you enter when setting up the computer in Windows.

POW5WS131-002

What a cool idea!No, really.

If we use the computer name (Mac) and school initials plus identifier (Windows) as a user name along with a standard password, then when your computer needs service and there is no one around, then the service person can log on to your computer and do their work. Note: This should be an administrative user on the computer.

Just don’t give this special password to everyone.

Other user names

It will be OK to add other users for your computers as you want to.

The Macintosh Exception

Users on Macintosh computers have something called the “Short Name”. This takes the name of the computer and removes spaces capitals, etc and provides a second logon name. For Mac workstations, one should add the same short name to each computer. This will make it easy for the tech coordinator to have a common logon for each machine in the building.

Short Name Examples A Macintosh computer with a name of

BEM3W104-02

Should be given the short name

bem3

Again, don’t share this info with everyone.

Where to edit the short name

Short names are edited in System Preferences>>>Accounts

The password for the Computer Name Account

When one uses the same password for the Computer Name account on all of your computers then it will be easy for the tech coordinator and the service people will be able to log on and work on these computers.

Again, don’t share this password with other folks.

Password Anatomy

325BUM4z

Unique School Number

3 Letter School Name

School Type

Lower Case z for the fun of it.

Where do you get the 3 digit school number?

A fine member of the Instructional technology staff can find that number out for you if you need it.

Contact Us:

Network TeamOffice: 594-1726

Larry- brothersl@k12tn.netEd- dennisone@k12tn.netGary- bucci @k12tn.netDan- fosterd6 @k12tn.netDavid- fleischmannd@k12tn.netJoe- rayj7@k12tn.net