Getting Your Laptop On-Line
at Home

Getting Your Laptop On-Line at Home

In order for any Trevor Day School laptop to connect to the Internet and other on-line resources when students are at home, the machine will need to be configured for use with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) of your choice. When students are in Trevor Day School’s buildings, they take advantage of the school’s network infrastructure to access Internet, e-mail and other on-line resources through the wireless capabilities in their laptops.

There is no way to connect directly into the school’s network when students are at home, which is why a home-based ISP is also necessary. There are a number of different options for home Internet Service Providers, and while the available technologies and pricing changes rapidly, this document will give a general outline of the available options. Some additions or changes will need to be made to each laptop to access the Internet from home as well as from school. The changes that need to be made are dependent upon the choices your family makes about how the Internet is accessed from home.

Trevor Day School recommends that students use their laptops both at home and at school for all of their computing needs. This will streamline file organization for our students; avoiding file transfer problems that arise when more than one computer is used.

Traditional dial-up Internet Services such as AOL, Earthlink and MSN use your existing home phone line to dial into the Internet. These services can generally be set up quickly and easily with a CD or instructions provided by the desired ISP. Connection speeds are relatively slow, given the other options now available, and your phone line is tied up while the Internet Service is in use. Costs range from about $10 a month for limited access to about $25 a month for unlimited access.  View additional details on Dial Up Services

Broadband Services: Cable Modem or DSL

Broadband Internet Services are becoming increasingly popular since they provide a high-speed Internet connection without tying up your existing phone line. Cable Modem Service is generally available through your cable company and DSL is generally available through your phone company. Roadrunner (from Time Warner) is a popular Cable Modem service and Verizon DSL is a popular DSL service. Broadband services are generally more time-consuming and complicated to set up than dial up but can be achieved by most people with the instructions provided by the ISP. Broadband services use an Ethernet cable that plugs into the laptop to provide your connection. These services generally cost around $40-$50 per month.  View additional details on Broadband Services

Broadband service is limited to one computer per household unless you add some type of networking device to connect more than one computer. Usually a router is used to provide access to more than one computer. Routers have different features, the most important of which is wireless or wired access. Since all TDS computers have wireless capabilities, for most families who choose to share their broadband service with more than one computer wireless capability is an important feature. Setting up a wired or wireless network at home can be extremely complicated for users without networking experience and may require outside assistance to set-up properly.  View additional details on Home Networks or Wireless Networks

Depending upon what type of dial-up access you have at home, there are a few settings that may need to be switched back & forth between home and school to take advantage of both systems. For example, some students turn on the WSP Client or Firewall Client in the Control Panel at school to use AIM, RealAudio and other resources. These clients generally need to be disabled when students are at home. Here at school we also use a Proxy Server to connect to the Internet. This setting sometimes needs to be turned off in the Internet Options depending on what type of home service you are using. If you are using wireless networking at home, the name of the wireless connection may need to be switched back & forth – our wireless system here at Trevor is called "mansfield". These are the most common settings that need to be switched back & forth, but others may be necessary depending on the configuration of your home system.  View additional details for West Campus students on Switching Settings Back and Forth

Once you have successfully set up your home Internet access, many Trevor resources will become available. Much of the information that students will need for school can be found on the TrevorNet website. Students in the Upper School will also be able to access their school email accounts on their laptops by first logging onto their home ISP and then opening Microsoft Outlook, just as they do at school.