Hi Daniel, Is there a website where you could host the pictures? Then you can just send a URL to the list. Alternatively, I'd be happy to host the pictures for you on nelinux.net or softwarefreedomday.org. Regards, Matt Daniel Howard wrote: [Mon Apr 24 2006, 11:33:41PM EDT] > Since my last post with a single .jpg file pic of the cart didn't show > up on the list right away, I assume there's a limitation on attachment > file size, so I'm posting this response w/o pic. I'll forward the pic > to Bill and Bryant separately, and anyone else that wants a pic. Daniel > > > Bill Barowy wrote: > >Yes, as others have written, please share more. I teach a course in > >computer structures for k-12 teachers, introducing OSS, and examples like > >this can be very powerful and insightful. I'd like to prepare it as a > >case study for my students to investigate. Full kudos to you, of course! > > > Thanks to Bill and Bryant for the kind words. Pic attached, I'm the one > with the beard and William is the other guy. No, I haven't written > anything up other than what I posted. Here's a bit more data on it, let > me know what kinds of info you would all like on it. Perhaps I should > poll the teachers to have them comment on it's uses, plusses and > minuses? Send me your queries, I'll do my best to address them. Bill, > we have a conference phone at our school, would it be helpful if we set > up a call with some of our teachers and your students to talk to them > about how they use it? Best time for teachers is right after school > ends, 2:45 or so. I might learn something also, you never know. > > Cart size: 4 ft by 2.5 ft (without shelves installed, they store on top > of the cart when being transported. It has to fit easily in an > elevator, that was a primary design constraint. Wood construction, > except shelves are metal adjustable shelf brackets with metal wire > shelves (for lower weight) and to be able to adjust shelf height so > Kindergarteners can put the shelves lower for their chair height, and > 5th graders can raise the shelves for their height. I keep a rubber > mallet in the cart to make it easy to pop the shelf brackets off of the > bracket supports, which are screwed into the cart itself. Security > right now is a plastic coated cable that runs through metal hinges I > superglued to each laptop on the side, not fantastic, but the real > security in our school are the hallway ceiling cams. There's a single > shelf on which the server, printer, and power switch reside that is > about a foot up from the bottom of the cart. This shelf has four 3 > inch holes in it for cat5 and laptop power cables, is removable, and > underneath it is the 16 port switch with gigabit link to the server, the > laptop power bricks, power strips, and the UPS battery backup. The > latter is sized so that if the cart is packed up (laptops zip up and are > placed with net and power cables still attached), and the last thing > disconnected is the power to the cart, as long as you move it to the new > location and plug the power in within 30 minutes, the server stays up, > and when you open up the laptops after reinstalling the shelves, they > wake up from sleep mode instantly. > > The original intention was that it would be rolled from room to room, > but it turns out several rooms just don't have the space for it, hence > the request to set it up in a wide section of the hallway. I ran a Cat6 > wire through the ceiling and dropped it down to the cart along one wall > where there was a power outlet. > > Cost of cart (wood, shelves, network switch, power strips, cabling, > paint, etc.) is about $400, assuming you already have the laptops. It > took me and one of my family members a weekend to build and paint it. > Since the new idea is to leave it relatively fixed in the hallway, I > don't see why you couldn't do it with LCD monitors and diskless thin > clients, but then again, you can buy refurb Win98 laptops that would > make fine thin clients for $240, just a bit more than an LCD monitor; > this is how we plan to build more units after we use up all of our > current, unused laptops. By the way, the reason the laptops were so > useless is that someone decided to upgrade the OS on them from Win98 to > WinXP without upgrading the RAM in the laptops. You can imagine how > slow they became...Linux is the only OS that I know of where you can > upgrade to the most recent software and be able to run it on older > hardware w/o requiring a memory upgrade (at least on the clients, that is). > > Daniel -- Open Source Software Engineering Consultant http://majen.net/
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