[ale] Planned obsolescence / Computers for Schools

[Jeff Hubbs]

  Yeah, been there and done that 
(http://www.topix.com/forum/tech/TEAE7L1FJH39QA2OS - 
http://www.inmantechnologyfoundation.org/student/thinClient.html), along 
with Jim Kinney, Aaron Ruschetta, the fine folks from Brandon Elementary 
who pushed the issue in the first place and demonstrated how it could be 
done, and a particularly effective and great-to-work-with APS contractor 
employee.

The problem here is that whereas piles of diskless discarded PCs do seem 
like ready-made thin clients, they're also albatrosses in that each one 
still needs a free-standing monitor and the space they take up and the 
noise from CPU and PS fans make them a real classroom nuisance if you 
get more than about four in a room.  Of course, there's still the server 
back-end that has to be put up regardless and the tech expertise to lay 
in the software and the network configuration properly.  Furthermore, 
schools have to have the cabling available to make this work (we were 
lucky - thanks in part to PTA/PTO largesse, we were able to walk into 
schools that were fully and in some cases newly wired.)

When we tried to bid to finish the job throughout the school district, 
we were preparing to develop the industrial capacity to assemble and 
deploy on the order of 15,000-25,000 thin clients - diskless, fanless 
units screwed to the back of LCD monitors, with an app server for every 
200-250 thin clients and one file server per school.

On 7/24/10 9:48 AM, George Allen wrote:
> ALE:
>
> I remember some people list a couple of years ago were doing projects
> to put Linux Terminal Server based labs into several Georgia schools.
> I was just reading this article here:
> http://www.osnews.com/story/23451/Smart_Reuse_with_Open_Source_Linux_Goes_Green
>
> At work we are definitely subject to the Windows lockin - as each
> version of Windows is released, and then certified for our use, we
> have to lifecycle many computers in order to meet the new hardware
> requirements. The computers do get recycled, minus the hard drives via
> the Defense Reutilizaiton and Marketing Office (DRMO), after looking
> at the website a few seconds, they actually do have program for
> schools to sign up: Department of Defense (DOD) Computers for Learning
> (CFL) Program, https://www.drms.dla.mil/rtd03/cfl/index.shtml
>
> Depending on the bureaucratic threshold, it seems like that would give
> a school district a fairly reliable and bottomless supply of
> computers.
>
> Back to the first article though: In Austin, TX there was a "Goodwill
> Computer Store." It was somehow associated with Goodwill thrift
> stores, but was specifically setup to take donations as a non-profit,
> rebuild the computers for reuse, and sell or recycle the difference.
> Ie local corporation X donates 100 machines minus hard drives, GCS
> adds drives, swaps some parts, and kids get linux boxen. There was
> also a storefront with racks/bins of many parts, in case you needed
> something for an old Sun or DEC or a 300 baud modem for some reason,
> and a computer museum in the back of all the interesting boat-anchors
> they'd found.
>
> Anyway - I know the group has something in Athens the does much the
> same, but I thought it was all worth mention.
>
> -George
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