[frgeek-michiana] Warehouse Report - 7/27/2008
- From: Tom Brown <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: FreeGeek Michiana <frgeek-michiana@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:52:04 -0400
TUESDAY - 7/22/2008
:: Snowbird
Dale and his wife plan to tour warmer states this November, but that is
months away. Still, we will miss Dale and look forward to seeing him in
the spring when he returns with the robins.
:: New Volunteer
A new volunteer, Amy, made her first visit Tuesday. Amy is studying
computer science at the university level and enjoys hardware
troubleshooting and computer programming. Amy has worked tech support in
banks and was in the Army for one round of enlistment.
I encouraged Amy to work with Goose and me on virtualizing our colo box
and programming web apps. She is eager to work on a production database
system and learn about virtualization techniques. Amy is taking a C++
course right now. Amy is familiar with Red Hat and Slackware, having
used them in the past. Vector Linux was a pleasant surprise because of
the progress made since the last time she used Slackware. She has
programmed with Visual Basic, Access and MS SQL.
Amy looks forward to earning a computer for herself and one for her
sister. She helped Joe and Eleana deman computers and looked up CDROM
drive speeds on the Internet. She also refurbed a box with a bad CDROM
drive and loaded Vector Linux on it.
:: Joe and Elena
Joe is shooting for enough hours to earn 5 computers. He wants to give
one to each of his grown children and their families. Elena hasn't
volunteered for over a month in order to take job training. She was
concerned her computer might have been given away so I showed it to her.
Elena and Joe left a little early to complete errands. It is good to
have them back.
:: Bad Day
Kevin called to say he was having a very bad day and would miss Tuesday
to unwind. The transmission in his car began to slip in reverse, and
Ford is acting like they won't offer warranty repair.
:: Air Conditioning Optional
The outside air was so cool we turned off the AC, opened the doors and
turned on one fan.
:: Laptop Down
The Compaq Evo N600 laptop I took home to test with Vector Linux
developed a serious problem -- the display subsystem failed. At first it
had an odd pink cast. Then it went so dim I can barely discern a ghostly
image. I am not sure whether the LCD or the graphic card is bad, or it
is a power issue. The same thing happened to my Asus eeePC, and support
forum posts hinted at a bad power regulator.
I grabbed a similar laptop and loaded VL at the warehouse. The display
on the replacement is scratched badly and a little dim but otherwise
sharp. This laptop has 128 MB instead of 256 MB like the previous unit,
and the hard drive seems slower too. All in all, the system is slower
than the first one.
I did not install MadWifi this time because I discovered VL already has
it and wpa_supplicant. The wifi bash script I wrote on the last laptop
worked perfectly on the new one.
Something bothers me about the two laptops I've tested. The fans never
come on. Both laptops have P3 1.2 GHz processors and should require fan
cooling. I thought ACPI might be defective in VL so I turned it off and
turned on APM. The fan still doesn't spin up. Hmm...
:: VL 5.9 SOHO Review
http://news.oreilly.com/2008/07/vector-linux-soho-59-deluxe-no-1.html
THURSDAY
Dale and I loaded recycling for Elkhart into his van. He, Kevin and I
cleaned and straightened the office for awhile, sorted and tested memory
sticks. I called an HP reseller in Texas who we thought might be
interested in HP server RAM. He was not. But he asked if we had old HP
servers or workstations.
Forest had some bad news regarding recycling. Men of Scars only wants
working monitors from now on. Forest also contacted Dlubak in Ohio.
Dlubak expects payment of 9 cents per pound for bare CRTs and 10 cents
per pound if the CRT has not been separated from the case and chassis.
The four of us calculated the cost of delivering CRTs to Dlubak in Upper
Sandusky, OH, for recycling. Our current fee of $15 is not enough to
cover our costs, and we will lose considerable money if we recycle with
Dlubak. The only alternative is to take monitors to the local Solid
Waste Management District; we at least break even there.
As our recycling options narrow, Free Geek may need to increase our
monitor acceptance fee to $20 per unit, and we may need to charge a fee
for each computer we accept and each computer we refurbish and distribute.
SATURDAY
Kevin and I recycled two gaylords of steel in the morning. Our first
choice vendor was closed and so was the second. Thankfully, our third
choice vendor was open. This last vendor was so busy it took us 2 1/2
hours on a hot day to recycle one pickup truck load of steel. The vendor
didn't ask for photo ID or fingerprints which seems unusual. On the
upside, we met interesting people standing in the pay-out line and
passed the time in conversation.
####
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