Lab Notes, 02/10/04
Present: Mike Cook, Tom Brown; 6:00 - 10:30 PM
:: Bethel College Donation
Bethel's IT services decommissioned seven more NT boxes and donated them to
FGM. I picked up the boxes and peripherals this afternoon with the '87
Astro beater, er, the FGM delivery van. Mike and I schlepped the boxes,
mice and monitors upstairs to storage.
:: FreeBox Classes
This week I will be calling prospective students and referral agencies for
the Feb. classes. If you know of a potential student or referral source,
let me know. Jody Montgomery normally does the phone recruiting, but she is
out of town this week.
:: NetVista Update
The NetVista boots DOS. The bootup time is down to 30 seconds, tolerable
but unavoidable due to the Token Ring failover routines.
The plan is to flash a LTSP 3C905 bootrom file into a compact flash card
next week, install a 3C906 pci ethernet card and boot off the lab server.
Once we can netboot using an ethernet card, the question becomes: "Which is
cheaper? Compact flash cards + plain nic or nic with custom bootrom
installed?"
I found name brand (Viking) 16 mb flash cards for $12 + shipping on the
Internet. If purchased in enough quantity to beat the shipping minimum,
flash is less expensive than nic with bootrom. Mike has found several tiny
Linux distros which will fit on a compact flash card. If netbooting a LTSP
thin client is problematic, we might try booting from the compact flash and
running a sort-of-thin client rather than a thin client. In other words, do
not netboot at all.
:: Drupal
As you know, MLUG's web site is running Drupal. Mike is the root admin. He
added Olin and me to the admin list. Mike and I spent several hours
exploring Drupal docs and the MLUG site admin interface. Not having shell
access to the Drupal/html directories on the host box slowed us down. In
the end we have a better understanding of how the Drupal admin interface
works, but we weren't able to change much on the site.
:: IRS Forms and Status
Our paid accountant, Gil Michel, filled out the IRS quarterly reporting
form for nonprofits. I signed it and cut a check for his first quarter fee.
Interestingly Gil recommends that FGM apply for 501(c)(3) status
immediately. He says the IRS grants temporary exemptions pro forma. If we
wait for a year or two to apply, it will actually become more difficult to
get our own exemption. I will work with Gil on this issue right away.
Tom
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