[hblug] recycling older PCs

[Michael Adams]

On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:38:13 +1300
Daniel Faulknor wrote:

> OK.
> Ive gone through all the posts, and come out with this
> http://wiki.dannz.net.nz/wiki/Hblug/recycling
> Have I missed anything important?
> 

You forget Daniel, i deal with seniors. They won't want them. 80% of
computing seniors, although they may start with a hand me down box, will
upgrade to the latest regularly after that. Less than 5% of seniornet
are still on Windows 98. Around 50% that use their computers
regularly (even for emails) will look at adopting Vista in the first
year if it is reccomended by the powers that be in SeniorNet. I made
all these numbers up, but they are good ballpark values. They don't want
just a computer, they are generally prepared to pay for tuition.
SeniorNet Napier has around 400 active members at any one time.
SeniorNet Hawkes Bay is just as active in Havelock North. 80% of these
members get through the two beginner word processing courses and
the email course then drop out within a year. That is prolly a better
turnover than EIT computer courses.

They want what everyone else has and they will pay for it, not top of
the line but new. They also cannot believe that anything free is up to
the task. Experience teaches them to be very suspicious of such claims,
rightly so.

What i am saying is that they should not be our target demographic
unless we are prepared to give them full ongoing support and prepared to
handle dumbass questions. "Do i really need the window open? It is
freezing outside". 

Thats why i see the low decile primary schools as our first stop. It is
seen as a worthier cause. We would then be coming at the whole thing
from two angles of altruism, recycling and donating to a worthy cause.

Re the OS, how about setting the old boxes up as thin clients with a
good server. We could then set them up as a suite in schools. The Ingots
scheme is designed to work and work well in this environment. I could
talk to the NZ Ingots Certifier about his thoughts.

The more i think about this, the more i like it. Thin clients do not
need to be high spec, only the server. We could supply two or three
spare boxes that could be swapped into the network if any issues arrise.
Hard disk drives are not needed in a thin client environment so we
could focus on getting "Boot from network" working. Higher spec boxes
could be offered at under $100 for families to take home.

There is a thin client project already in place for schools.
http://k12ltsp.org/

We could build the servers to ministry of Education spec if they would
come to the party. This system already exists in New Zealand Schools so
we wouldn't need to be running a pilot.

We could build the servers under Chris's direction. I feel it would give
us credibility to have someone in the industry in charge of this aspect.
For the servers we could charge the education department. I have no
doubt we could also get the parts (NetBoot LAN cards) cheaper because
they are for education.

> I will have that with me when meeting with the council rep whenever it
> happens.
> 

Good idea.

-- 
Michael
 Those that can, do; those that can't, teach.