I currently attend College America and was given a project. In which I have to set up 5 college campuses one being the central headqaurters. The boss has a reputation for being extremely cheap.He also was screwed on a business deal and don't want any Cisco products. Each campus will have 20 staff 200 students and 50 of them are IT students and 25 others use WebCT from home. What or were would I find a good product source? Pluss what software would I use to cover the students needs?

Mike, have you consider perhaps try getting network products from places such as

www.linksys.com

www.netgear.com or

www.hawkingtech.com

They have all work really well for me for the last few years. Never had a single problem with them. For the budget-minded like your boss ;D, products from these sites may be just what your boss be looking for. They are low-cost compared to CISCO's, very reliable and popular, because even the pros buy from these 3 places when they are tight on cash, too.

Now as far as softwares, there are a myriad of softwares you may need for the kind of network you are going to set up, depending on what your network needs are. Anything from SSL to hardware-software combo firewall, proxy servers, account/password management, WINDOWS 2000 or WINDOWS XP, databases, and backup softwares.

I use www.pricewatch.com a lot for all my computer parts. They don't actually sell them, ts just a directory of pries and suppliers, but you can find a lot of good deals.