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for want of an answer
Monday, May 12 2008
When I was last in a prison, I'd found myself talking to an enormous prisoner about how I normally solve vexing computer conundrums when I'm not in prison and have access to the internet. I'd mentioned that I'm rarely for want of an answer because whenever I have a question I'm in the habit of "googling." "Is that what they call it?" he'd asked. "Oh yes," I'd replied, "when I needed to know how far a toilet [waste pipe hole] is supposed to be from the wall behind it, I googled and found out. Nineteen inches, it turns out." The prisoner had been amazed and had observed that a lot of companies who charge for advice must be hurting. "Not really," I'd said, "I'm way ahead of the curve on this. Most people are not in the habit of googling."
Not that googling always provides answers to the questions I have, particularly when they're a little complicated.
Today I've been searching for a solution to a problem that had cropped up on those isolated prison computer networks. I'm moving the prisoners' work to Windows XP-based file servers, with hopes of eventually giving each student his own password-protected directory. The problem I'm having relates to the clunky way Windows handles authentication between a machine hosting shared directories and a client machine trying to access them. Under some circumstances (for example, when a client does not require a login to load a user profile), the client doesn't even give the user a chance to type a username and a password when that user attempts to access a share. If that user's credentials aren't correct (and, under any sort of basic security scheme, they usually aren't), the access fails, and that failure blocks attempts to do such things as mount the share as a drive (a mechanism that does provide a way for a user to specify a username and a password). Only today did I discover that one can access all the stored access information for network drives by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting "Disconnect Network Drive..." This allows you to clear out failed access attempts and begin anew, something that can only be done, it seems, by mounting the share as a drive.
But I'm wondering if perhaps there is a simpler way. Is there a way for me to create a shortcut on the desktop pointing to a network share, a shortcut that always demands a username and a password? The tedious, non-intuitive process of mounting shares as drives just seems too complicated to teach to people who are not computer experts. I don't particularly mind if a prisoner-student has to right click on My Computer and select "Disconnect Network Drive..." (they're incredibly bright and master such things much faster than most of the computer non-experts I deal with), but it would be nice if I could have a double-clickable icon on the desktop that would have the same effect.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?080512 feedback
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