Following the ongoing discussion about Netscape kiosks, I asked our
Manager of Exhibit Engineering, Davin Ing, for some info on what we have
been doing. His description follows. I hope it is useful. Please direct
any questions directly to Davin - mailto:[log in to unmask]
Susan Wageman
Grants Manager [log in to unmask]
The Tech Museum of Innovation (408) 279-7178
145 West San Carlos Street fax (408) 279-7149
San Jose, CA 95113 USA http://www.thetech.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 97 13:50 PST
From: Davin Ing <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: The Tech Museum & Netscape for Visitors
This (long) message is to share some of our experience and
solutions here at the Tech Museum of Innovation with public
Web browsing stations for museum and kiosk use. There seems
to be a lot of interest.
We have had over 25+ Web browsing stations on the exhibit floor
for over a year now, and have had relatively little trouble.
They are all PC-based, but there have been a few Mac ones from
time to time (we get mostly PCs donated, so that's what we use).
They operate unattended by staff/volunteers, and we have even
had several located offsite, running unattended for weeks.
In solving the usual problems with a public Web browser station,
we decided the following conditions needed to be met:
1) Usable with any version of Netscape (I forget why we settled
on Netscape...probably because it was first and free). And, if
possible, usable with any other browser. We don't want to write
our own browser.
2) No direct hacks or modifications to Netscape. We wanted to
be able to upgrade to newer versions of Netscape at any time,
without committing more programming time, each time.
3) Fully compatible with existing software standards -- in this case,
Windows. Compatible with future software upgrades.
4) Cheap (i.e. free).
5) Must be able to run unattended, and without need
for technician support for great lengths of time.
6) Must allow flexibility to quickly and easily change what
features of Netscape are disabled, or removed. Example: sometimes we want
visitors to enter a URL of their choosing, sometimes not.
7) Must allow our technical staff to lock/unlock a station at will,
and be able to quickly restore a station to fully unprotected mode
for demonstrations, classes, etc.
8) Perform other misc. functions, such as lock out access to the
rest of the PC, return to a predefined home page after a period of
no use, restart automatically if crashed (without rebooting system),
disable quitting Netscape, keep Netscape full screen, etc.
Back when we started all this, nothing existed as far as we could
tell, to do all that. So, we wrote our own. Now we have
a suite of programs which handle all of the above. As a bonus, they
also work with more than Netscape, so we've been using them in various
combinations to turn commercial applications (like CD-ROMs) into locked
down kiosks. The programs are technically still "Alpha", but they've
been working so well for us as is we haven't updated them in almost a year,
or bothered to really polish them.
Since then, we have discovered this URL:
http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~oliver/faq/okm.htm
which describes some hacks to Netscape. It didn't meet all our specs.,
especially the one about not modifying Netscape.
We have also heard of the Netscape Admin. Kit, and have been trying to
get a copy for evaluation for months now. The only response we have been
able to get is silence. We have also not heard of anyone who actually has
such a kit. Given those clues, and the lack of solid technical specs. on
the kit, we suspect it may be "vaporware" right now. In any case, it
doesn't meet our idea of cheap...unless they want to donate a copy.
There may be other solutions out there by now, so we'd be interested in
comparing to see if there's something better. The whole philosophy behind
our programs is not to be 100% bulletproof, but to make it difficult
for a hacker to do damage (basically, the idea of diminishing
returns), and to correct some problems automatically, whether or not they
were caused by a hacker or accidentally. It's the auto-correction that
minimizes the need for our staff to watch over stations. Plus, it annoys
hackers.
Our stations operate as either general surfing stations, or web site
specific locked. The web site specific stations are locked to a particular
home page so that visitors cannot enter their own URLs. The easiest
way to accomplish this is to take away the keyboard, and we do that in
some cases.
The stations with keyboard access, however, are protected by a more
robust set of our software. Usually, we operate Netscape in kiosk mode
(minus all button and menu bars), then put back only the buttons we
want (usually BACK and HOME) using our software.
The kiosk mode (-k), as far as we can tell, applies to version 3.0 and
later, but my techs tell me they have gotten it to work in older versions,
but under unusual circumstances.
We don't lock out the porn sites...it hasn't been much of a frequent
problem here. This may be due to our software, or other circumstances.
In any case, Surf Watch, Net Nanny, etc. have solutions. We have toyed
with our own solution using our own proxy server, and think that would
be the way to go if we ever needed it. It had certain features that
would be useful, such as the ability to display our own "Sorry...nice try"
page, or to automatically redirect porn attempts to another site, like
AIDS awareness or something.
The proxy method is one way we have been able to create "virtual Internet"
exhibits offsite, in places where there is no Net connection. The stations
look and operate as if they were connected to the Internet, and even use
the same software, but they aren't plugged in at all. This has been great
for our outreach program, when we take our web site on the road.
Our staff locks/unlocks and reconfigures stations at will, by entering
a non-alphanumeric (it's based on color codes) passcode using the mouse.
Our mice are programmed so that all buttons are the same (left click).
We use Logitech LogiMouse software to do this, but there are several
other similar mouse drivers around. This will eliminate the right button
"features" of Netscape.
For those of you with your own programming staff, you can write your own
solution the way we did by using the Microsoft Windows API library and MS
Windows SDK. We also used Visual Basic, but it can be done with Visual
C, C++, etc. The programmer will need to be versed in program-to-program
communication, OLE, and the Windows messaging and event system. A subscription
to the Microsoft Developers Network CD-ROM would be very helpful. Not to
mention a friend in Microsoft's application programming dept...
We are curious as to how much interest there might be in purchasing our
software.Would it be worthwhile for us to market it? The Tech has done
a couple software swap deals in the past, but we have not officially
tried to turn our software into a product.
If you have any questions, or want more details, please feel free to
contact me.
--->
Davin Ing
Manager of Engineering
The Tech Museum of Innovation
145 West San Carlos
San Jose, CA 95113
Internet: [log in to unmask]
WWW URL: http://www.thetech.org
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