As you probably know, I just recently moved my daughter into college. And, since I’m a geek at heart and work in the tech industry, I knew I had to set up her dorm computer environment the “right” way.

Plus, she had no interest in doing it herself as she doesn’t like computers like that. I should feel ashamed, but I don’t.

Anyway, since you are awesome enough to visit this page, I figure I might as well give you the hookup of what I did for her. It’s a simple implementation yet establishes key features that I believe are must haves in a college environment.

Well, all except a remote surveillance system…hmmm, version 2.0?

Ok, let’s get started…

Start with a Design

The first thing you need to do is put together a plan. I originally sketched the plan out on paper and posted it on Facebook to show people what I was doing.

I received some awesome feedback and even better, learned about a tool from my friend Kevin Sterling – draw.io.

You know I’m always game for a new tool so I pulled it up.

If you’ve used Microsoft Visio in the past (which I use all the time in my day job), this is a nice alternative to use online. It obviously isn’t as powerful as a client side tool like Visio, but it provides the key functions you need for most of your basic diagramming needs.

The interface is intuitive, easy to use, and again very similar to Visio and other graphics programs.

So, I started to create my plan using my new tool. I started in the middle with the key component – the laptop. It seems every college kid has a laptop these days, so put that in the center of your diagram.

From there I started to throw down various components, putting it all together functionally and somewhat physically.

Here is the end-state drawing of what I planned to implement for her.

It’s basic, nothing fancy, and not even the full picture. But, it provides a baseline and a starting point. Now, let’s dig into the individual components.

Backups

This is perhaps the most important aspect to any college dorm computer environment setup. You don’t want to receive that call from your kid in the middle of the night that their computer crashed and they lost all of their work. Not good.

Given today’s technology, making sure a solid backup strategy is in place is pretty damn easy.

There is also a common rule when it comes to backups, the 3-2-1 Rule.

• Have at least 3 copies of the data – (the original and 2 backups)
• in 2 different formats – (laptop and external hard drive, or a DVD if you want to go that route)
• with 1 being offsite – (it’s the cloud baby)

The third bullet was the biggest piece I wanted to implement. One thing you have to worry about in a college environment is devices walking. You don’t want to imagine someone stealing your kid’s stuff, but unfortunately, it happens. If they steal the laptop, they just might steal the external drive too. Then you are screwed.

I did quite a bit of research on which cloud based backup solution was the best and settled on iDrive (affiliate link). One particular resource that really helped me was the PCMag review of the Best Online Backup Services for 2015.

Key features important to me (which iDrive provided) were:

• Cheap
• Sufficient storage (1TB)
• Unlimited Number of Computers – I wanted to get the whole family backing up their data. This made it easy.
• iOS client
• Continuous backups – you really think my daughter would actively back up data?
• Security

I also bought her an external drive so she could do Apple Time Machine backups to it as well. This would provide her yet another copy and format of her data in the event she lost something.

Printer

Of course kids need to print in college, and of course there are on-campus print services offered. But, my kid is lazy. She doesn’t want to walk all the way across campus to pick up a print off. I don’t blame her either.

I made a mistake on this one though. I wanted to get a printer that allowed wireless printing via Apple AirPrint. So, that is exactly what her Aunt bought her as a gift.

The problem became apparent as I was setting it up.

In the standard installation, you would join both the printer and your laptop to your home network. You could then use that network connection as the bridge between devices allowing you to print over the air…even from your phone!

The problem was the only bridge network between the two devices was the school’s network. Uh oh. I couldn’t join the printer to the school network so that wasn’t going to work.

I did do a direct Wi-Fi connection between the printer and the laptop, but it was less than ideal and required her to switch her wireless connection whenever she wanted to print. Not going to work.

What was my solution? You guessed it…buy a USB cable!

Cloud Based Apps

Most schools rely heavily on cloud based apps for their students these days, from elementary school to college. She has all she needs with the combination of the Google Drive and associated tools and Office365 which is provided by the school.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Before you go buying software, check the school’s website to see if they offer it for free. Most schools have relationships with vendors that allow them to offer the software free, or at a significantly reduced price. This is true even in high school. Check your school district’s website and see if you can find the free software they offer.

Given all of these wonderful cloud based tools, all I had to do here was make sure she knew how to use them.

Of note, I did go to Office365 and install a local copy of Office so she would be able to function in the event she didn’t have internet connectivity.

Other Apps

Productivity

I wanted to get my daughter used to using various productivity apps prior to going to college but unfortunately she was only interested in the anti-productivity app – texting.

But, I’m going to continue to hammer the importance of planning and collecting thoughts in an organized and efficient manner.

Enter two of my favorite tools – Google Calendar and Evernote.

She has a lot of experience with Google Calendar as our family swears by it in our daily lives. Evernote, however, will be a new one for her.

I didn’t get a chance to go over it with her and get it all set up, but that is the plan. She needs to have something that allows her to collect her notes, important information, to-do lists, etc in one spot that can be accessed from any device.

Evernote can serve as the central repository for all of her school related information. She can create notebooks for each subject and keep her notes there. She could clip websites and drop them in there as well. She can take pictures of documents, such as the syllabus, and import directly into Evernote. The tool is incredibly powerful and something that she needs to grow accustomed to.

We will get there.

Anti-Virus and Computer Protection

Of course I downloaded the college provided anti-virus suite from Symantec. I spent some time and went over the concept of virus definition files and how she will need to make sure she constantly checks for new virus definitions and periodically runs scans.

She’s going to need to get used to managing her computer. A lot of kids take this part for granted. It’s important you get in the habit of taking care of your environment to make sure you are running as fast, and as safe, as possible.

Remote Control

I also looked at a tool for remote access to her laptop. I checked out the Apple Remote Desktop app but didn’t want to pay $79.99 at the time. I figured if it comes to it and we HAVE to go to that level of debugging, then I’ll open up the wallet. In the meantime, I can research other tools and simply do Facetime with her or do a quick tutorial via Screenflow and send it to her.

Don’t you just love today’s technology?!

Lastly

The final piece to the puzzle was her phone. It had to be a major hub of this network. So, having apps and other features accessible via her mobile phone was crucial.

This is another reason why cloud based apps are so important. Access from any device at any time is critical for success.

Overall I think she has a solid setup. What do you think? What might you add to the mix?