Digital Arts Service Corps - computers

End-of-year update

Nathan Alden — Tue, 15 May 2007 16:00:45 +0000

I’ve been swamped of late, as Wilderness was scrambling to test and refurbish all kinds of machines over these past couple months. We just completed a huge rollout of 110 or so Pentium 4 computers to 11 new WildTech member schools. Held the big seminar this past Friday. Absolute chaos all ‘round, but somehow, we came through for the better. This in spite of very low donor input for the quarter resulting in a severe shortage of essential parts like RAM and hard drives.

And we couldn’t have done it this week without support of volunteers old and new all year long. An old friend dropped in last month looking to check in on things since he left for a job a year ago; while a new part-timer signed on from an all-too-familiar place. The former, younger man is merely a geek-at-large. The latter gentleman is a software developer who worked with Mac computers. Both are eager to help when and where they can.

Not to be outdone by these two, the quarterlies from Bellevue have also done well. They come to receive credit from the man I call “sensei,” Mr. Rudolph Helm. My former instructor sent a profoundly deaf young man unto us. You might be wondering if, in a business with a lot of beeps and blips, such a man can do the work expected. He can, and more. This young man also has an uncanny sense of humor (and some very animated interpreters) to carry him through. Everybody has potential, but it takes a very special person to recognize that potential and set it into motion; so as Rudy had done for me, he did the same for the deaf man. This humanism, I think, is what makes him a powerful teacher and mentor, and one whose style I would like to draw upon someday.

As always, Wilderness has been a great organization to work with. I’ve been through a lot with them in these three years I have served. Students and volunteers come and go, but I have remained. From 2004 to present day, I’ve been watching over the Wilderness without fail, rising with the sun and never fading; I work until nightfall to ensure that the company’s customers are served well and with the very best equipment and education that it can give them. But in the process, I wonder, is three years enough? Or perhaps too much? Either way, I will not be renewing my Vista commitment, so that another man may take this opportunity to serve. As I see it, there are a number of things I’ve learned while serving, and as many paths now open to me—many more than before I signed on. I could go back to school and become a teacher, or test the open job market, or even start my own business with the skills I’ve refined here. I’d love to stay for another year, but my feelings tell me I must move on; that I have accomplished my mission here; and that continuing further with WTA would do more harm than good. Though I face an uncertain future, I am not one to shy away from it.

Computers, Kids, and CLANK!!!

Raymond Varona — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:05:33 +0000

*The following would have been posted last month if I didn't constantly close Firefox in mid-blog*

I have no idea what the heck they're working on next door but they're certainly doing a great job of constructing it as loudly as possible. It would be one thing if it was a steady-state din, but instead there will be a long stretch of quiet, followed by an ear-splitting CLANG! as someone (I'm guessing) starts taking a sledgehammer to a very massive, VERY resonant object. There's also the deafening buzz of a chopsaw gnawing through metal the very moment you start to get your concentration back, as well as the desk-rattling jackhammer to add insult to injury. To make matters worse, when they have a radio playing its top-40 stuff. Not like I have anything against popular music, I just don't want Ashlee Simpson as the musical backdrop to this chaotic production. Call me a purist, if you will.

Anyway, the big news of the past couple of weeks has been the arrival of 14 new computers. I say a couple of weeks instead of a week because Dell certainly did their part in making sure I had plenty of work to do. It didn't start off too bad. I did get bounced to 3 different sales reps (due to the quantity), none of whom could cut us much of a break (so much for a karma discount) and had some annoyances putting together a quote, but nothing I wouldn't normally expect. When the systems finally arrived (no hitches yet), I pulled them out and noticed the CPU sticker only denoted an AMD64, and not the 64X2 dual core that I had specified. Fired it up noticed the BIOS listed the CPU as the 64. Not cool.

After looking over the invoice, it turns out that we did, in fact, get the correct systems. However, the systems magically changed from 64X2s on the quote to plain-old-64s on the order. Blarg. About an hour and a dozen phone transfers later we finally arranged to the dual-core systems sent. They arrived without incident, and also without return labels for the old systems. Cripes. Another hour and a few more phone transfers later, we finally arranged for another pickup the next day. Fast forward 24 hours, and the Fedex man is here with 8 shipping slips in hand. Wait a sec...8 slips...14 computers...KHAAAAAN!!!

A couple of days later, everything resolved itself and we all lived happily ever after, until it came time to order mounting systems. We wanted to mount the computers under the tables and elevated from the ground. While not unheard of, this wasn't particularly common so of course nobody locally had anything. Most online sources had units starting at $60-80ish, with the most simple units consisting of mounting plates for the table and straps to suspend the computers from the table. Not exactly kid-proof, but the alternative were designs that featured drawer slides and swivels, so the strapping method won by default.

When it came time to order the mounts though, the lead time was pretty long and we already had volunteers lined up to help install the computers, so rather than arrange for rush shipping when we probably wouldn't get the units in time anyway, I cobbled together a knock-off from tie-plates, tiedown straps, and drywall screws. It used 3x7" tie-plates to hold the straps against the bottom of the table. Then, an old mouse pad was taped over the plate with some double-sided carpet tape. After cinching the straps as tightly as possible, the excess looped around the end on both sides and tied onto the other side of the strap as a safety measure. The remaining ends were cut and fused. To make the catches tamper resistant, wedges were cut from shim stock, sprayed black to match, then put into place and secured with cable ties. Not exactly foolproof, but good enough.

Between the smaller footprint of the LCDs, the under-table mounting, and some cable organization, the lab looks much cleaner all-in-all. Wish I could say all the kids loved it. A few really were wide-eyed and overjoyed, but most others just kinda shrugged, said 'meh' and went back to their regularly scheduled YouTube viewing. *sigh*

Installation was smooth and easy thanks to the imaging process, although our inital attempt at imaging a dual-boot XP/Vista install didn't go over particularly well. Alright, so it didn't work at all. That plus the lack of support for Deep Freeze and we're looking at a purely XP setup on most of the computers. 4 computers were manually set up with a dual-boot just for kicks. While it'll leave a big, gaping Deep-Freeze exploit, I'd be tickled to death if our kids were savvy enough to take advantage of it.

Anyway, enough blabber, here's some pictures:

A shot of our old lab setup

Our new lab setup

Mounted computers

So whats happening in BGCEV now days?

Tony ORourke — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 01:11:46 +0000

Last weekend I took 3 members from the club to a different club in the East Valley conglomerate. The program that they were running was called St.R.U.T. or Students Recycling Used Technology. The members had a chance to learn about the internal workings of a computer. How they go together and how they work. Then they had the opportunity to take an operating computer apart and examine all the parts and then to put it back together. Once together they were given a monitor, keyboard, and a mouse. The kids then had to see if the computer would start up and if not then with the help of the Tech Team leaders they trouble shoot the problems. The best part of all is when they were done they got to take the computers home with them when they were done. I was also allows to take apart a computer and take it with me. I am going to give it away to one of the members who could really use the computer.

I have been working on getting some donations to get some more equipment for our lab. We have 14 computers but we need to update the RAM on the computers so that they do not crash every time we try to load a program. I really would like to get a set up to allow for us to play movies, music, presentation in the room as well. Something like a multimedia center. Some of the things in the room need to be moved around. I have a lot of work to do.