Hope For All Gets A True Classroom Setup!

Thanks to the support and donations we've received, Caring Compy was able to really come through for Hope For All Learning Center in Orlando, FL. They now have an easy to manage classroom computer setup that makes great use of older hardware, and is loaded with educational software.

As described in this previous post, they have been given an LTSP server and 3 thin clients. The other two computers given to them previously will be converted to thin clients as well.

Thanks again to everyone involved for all the support. As can be seen below, the kids love it.




See more photos!

Special Delivery

Today at 10 AM, Caring Compy donated a single computer to Jim Shadgette and Jewels Reffner of Lake Mary, FL. Due to health issues Jewels is unable to leave the house. It will be very freeing for her as she will be able to keep in contact with friends and family and have a social experience she would otherwise be secluded from. It was quite a rewarding experience as it is also their first computer. We sat with them from 10 AM until 3 PM teaching them how to use it. It made for a great Saturday!

The computer is a Dell Optiplex GX 150 with a Pentium 3 processor running at 900 MHz. We were also able to include a 21 inch CRT monitor from Robert Jones of Summerfield, FL. It also has 512 MB of RAM and a 10 GB hard drive. Thank you, Robert for your contribution.

While this may not sound like much it actually performs very well running the lightweight Xubunu Linux desktop environment. The programs we preinstalled were Mozilla Firefox for web browsing, Mozilla Thunderbird for email, the Last.fm desktop client for listening to online radio, VLC for playing Videos, OpenOffice.org 3 for word processing, and the Tuxtype typing tutor to teach them basic keyboard skills. We even set them up with Gmail accounts and integrated their mail and calendars with Thunderbird. We also showed them how to add new programs through Xubuntu's easy to use installer menu. Of course, running on Linux their computer will be virus and spyware free, and virtually maintenance free. It suites all of their needs and runs impressively fast.

Yet another perfectly useful machine has been put back into service and kept out of a landfill. Jim and Jewels, it was a pleasure meeting you and we look forward to working more you both in the future. Thank you for the chance to let Caring Compy do what it does best.

Hope For All Learning Center Update

Caring Compy installed two computer at Hope For All Learning Center. We later found out that the teachers and students love the software that comes bundled with Edubuntu Linux! Here is a list of applications that were bundled. We also included an addon that accommodates younger children.

When we are able, with the help of more donations, we will be setting them up with a terminal/thin-client environment using the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP). This will enable us to keep even the oldest of computers in use because a server will be running the central desktop whereas the other computers will be simply clients to display graphics and play sound that comes from the server's desktop environment.

We'd like to thank Eric Marden for his help with this. One of the two computers donated were was his and we really appreciate his support.