[frgeek-michiana] Lab Notes, 1/18/04
- From: Tom Brown <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: FreeGeek Michiana <frgeek-michiana@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:29:29 -0500
Lab Notes, 1/18/04
:: The Blasters
Al, Ed and Terry installed VL on 12 hard drives. Karen is training as a
Blaster. Terry took several drives home last Tuesday and used a dual boot
1.2 GHz box to install VL. He said the fastest install was 15 minutes
including fdisk.
We are running low on hard drives because of the new regimen. I'll inquire
at Free Geek Portland about another box of drives. I might also ask
Chesapeake Recycling if they would make a donation or sell some drives.
:: The X-Men
I didn't assign anyone to set up FreeBoxes -- we have enough for two
classes now. Instead, the X-Men and Blasters (during lulls in VL installs)
tested boxes. Goose organized the inventory into tested, untested and
demanufacture groupings. The storage room is neater as a result, and X-Men
know exactly which boxes to grab for the next FreeBox build-o-rama.
:: The Cold Storage Sit-Rep
This is unbelievable!
John Mansfield stopped by the lab to report that General Sheet Metal Works
(GSMW) is donating 6 months of lease at South Bend Warehouse and
Distributing (SBWD) to FGM. The company is also putting a truck and driver
on call to pick up stock at the church on Tuesday evenings and move it to
cold storage for us on Wednesday mornings. While at the warehouse the
driver will pick up inventory if we provide him with a manifest. The truck
is dock height and has a retractable ramp for ground level on- and off-loading.
But wait! That's not all.
River Bend Hose Specialty (RBHS) is willing to donate rent-free space in
their leased warehouse facility on Chippewa Av. RBHS has only ground level
on- and off-loading. But, RBHS has an 8000 lb. fork lift and a manual
pallet jack. They also have pallet racks so we can go 2-3 rows up to
maximize storage. The area offered is 20' x 40', lit and cool but not cold.
The downside view at the Chippewa location is: (1) The fork lift is too
large to fit in a truck or trailer, and there is no dock anyway; (2) When
quality control people are visiting the facility, we cannot have access;
and, (3) RBHS will probably move to another area of the building in late
spring or early summer so we would move with them.
We (John, Al and I) need to inspect the RBHS facility and decide which
offer to accept. If we accept RBHS' offer, then we should brazenly ask GSMW
to donate the cash they would have spent on leasing space at SBWD.
:: TCU Asset Disposal
For those who may have missed my post last week, the IT department at TCU
favors donating a dozen laptops, a half dozen servers, 400 desktops, an
indeterminate number of broken monitors at $15 each and a few boxes of
parts to us. I was instructed to call the TCU rep at the end of the month
to follow up. Suits higher up make the final call.
:: FreeBox Class Recruiting
I have 6 students and 1 alternate lined up for class on Saturday, Jan. 22.
I have a seat booked on Jan. 29 and one on Feb. 5. Although the waiting
list is 100 names, I am burning through it quickly. Some phones are
temporarily out of service or disconnected. I've left messages on recorders
and not received return calls. A surprising number of the phone numbers are
simply incorrect. Finally some folks are no longer interested in getting a
FreeBox. My conclusion is: the two month lay off from teaching classes was
enough to lose prospective students and momentum.
:: Light at the End of the Lab
As we draw down the inventory in the storage room at the church, I can see
the space opening soon to install the LTSP lab. It is time to seriously
discuss what our hardware needs are for a functioning teaching lab. We need
to plan for purchasing an adequate server for a 12+ workstation LTSP lab. I
think we should also consider purchasing a digital projector and screen or
finding a donor.
We have enough NetVista thin clients to populate the lab. They are small
and quiet -- perfect for a lab. Do we sell them? Do we use them?
:: The Peripatetic FGM Web Site
Our DNS provider is DynDNS.org. The DNS has resolved to them. Goose has a
functional firewall ready and is port forwarding port 25 to a higher port
for email (Comcast blocks port 25 or disables the port in the modem). Goose
is moving config files from the Indy box and recreating user accounts.
Goose and I are nearly finished converting the web docs from Aolserver/ADP
to Apache/Rivet. We could have the whole thing ready in a few more days,
maybe even hours.
Once the move to Goose's intranet is done and tested, I'll contact the
Sally tech in Grand Rapids re opening and forwarding ports in the church's
router. Then we'll replicate the set up on the Turbine server at the Sally
and switch the dynamic DNS to point to the Sally's router.
A geek's work is never done.
Tom
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