Digital Arts Service Corps - computer refurbishing

Spring

Wilson Bull — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:41:39 +0000

Hello VISTAs,
How goes? Things are good here. Our office is moving from Bothell, WA to Lynnwood, WA. As you can see, it’s not terribly far away: https://www.psctlt.org/About_PSCTLT/maps_directions.html. It most certainly will affect my commute, although from what I’ve gathered it’ll still be fairly easy to get to the bike path from Lynnwood. Work is going well. There are TWO computer distributions scheduled for next week and I’m in the process of updating some slides in a powerpoint and gathering some information about ISPs and CTCs in the areas where we’re distributing. After these two distributions it looks like there will only be 4 more to go! Pretty exciting.
I also had another chance to go to Olympia to talk about broadband and put my support behind a couple of bills in the legislature now: HB 1698 regarding broadband adoption and deployment, and SB 5916 authorizing the department of information services to engage in high-speed internet adoption, deployment, and digital inclusion activities. It was just as cool the second time and it has definitely made me follow the news around the broadband stimulus much more closely.
Expect more details about distributions and moving in the next field report. Until then...

PSCTLT??

Wilson Bull — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:46:52 +0000

Hello VISTAs,
It’s been a while. Apologies to the automated emailer that emails me every so often. I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. Very busy week last week and I’d like to tell you all about it. On Wednesday we had our largest computer distribution to date. We distributed 18 (!!!) computers to 18 families in Lynnwood. Just like the other distribution it was a definitely a learning experience. I was impressed with how the club leader had coordinated with the Department of Social and Health Services to find the families that needed computers. It seems to me like that is the best way to get computers to those who need them. I lead the mini-trainings for the families and helped them get acquainted with their new machines. Compared to the first distribution, it seemed like many of them were excited to use their new computers and hopefully get them connected to the internet.
The next day I attended a dinner at Ruth’s Chris in downtown Seattle with Bernard Harris Jr., the first African-American in space. He’s currently on his Dream Tour and I was there to participate in an “exchange of ideas about the future of math and science education”. While at dinner I met some other people involved in science education: a few teachers from the area, the director of outreach at the Pacific Science Center, and the founder of Moontown Foundation. It was neat to hear how important science education is to everyone there and what sort of things other organizations and people are doing to keep this issue on people’s minds. I felt pretty honored to contribute my two cents about the importance of technology education. All-in-all a good discussion and cool to hear from all sorts of people involved in science education.
Last Saturday we held a computer training in Manson, WA. It was our first training with the Bridges Project of Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Although we didn’t have the turnout of trainees we were hoping for, there’s still a great potential for future trainings. I also learned that even though my Spanish is decent, there is no substitute for a native speaker. Hopefully we’ll get a better turnout next time.
March is looking to be pretty busy as well. The Puget Sound Center has scheduled a staff retreat next week, which should be fun. We’re in the process of changing our name and I think the focus of the retreat may be just that: the name change. Any brilliant ideas? Send them my way. We really need a better acronym...PSCTLT is pretty terrible. I’ll also be scheduling computer distributions, looking for training opportunities, and GSD. Thanks for reading.

Er...its been a while

Emilio Flores — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 21:52:00 +0000

So, I have completely let this blog go by the wayside. For shame. But I'm back, baby, although I still refuse to like blogs.

So, whats been happening with your friendly neighborhood wireless guy? Well, its been so ridiculously busy lately, that I was able to completely ignore something like an online web log without a second thought. Woohoo!

Yes, we have a working wireless mesh network now. For the past month and a half we've been frantically trying to setup all of the residents who signed up initially, back in January of this year. So you can understand why they might be in a hurry to get their internet access. In the past couple months we've installed routers in about 70 or so homes, which is only half of our expected number of users, but believe me, the other 70 people have been banging down our door asking for internet. Except that when we try to call them and setup an appointment, they don't pick up the phone. They do show up at the tech center, upset that we haven't called them, though. Ah well. At least we've made a good amount of progress in a short time, and I can no longer claim that my job description is a liar. This is what I signed up for. Oh, by the way, its the best job ever.

And in the midst of all this wifi installation and subsequent tech support, which pretty much consumes all of my time, we're trying to dole out money to other housing developments in the Boston area that are interested in Wifi - part of Castle Square's grant was 15000 dollars to support other housing developments in their wifi implementation. We are holding an open house on the 8th of November to show interested groups around our site and explain the grant process to them. I'm also going to be the chair of the committee that decideds who gets the money, and how much money they should get - we're hoping to have some pretty smart people on the committee though, so I won't be the one who actually has to decide anything. What do I know?

One last thing - we're starting our computer refurbishing program with big goals. At least, I have big goals, but we'll have to see how it goes. We want to supply residents of Castle Square, and the South End, with computers, on a basis of need. Currently we only have some 30 computers that have been donated from Boston Latin Academy, but we're always looking for more so if you know anything, get at me. I'm hoping that Castle Square can actually turn this into a business and become a low cost computer reseller for the neighborhood.

Thats whats been happening. Ok, I gotta run, I have a user who can't access his email waiting for me at his apartment, and 3 other computers that are full to the brim with malware sitting behind me, sadly watching the shiny new lab computers with envy in their eyes.

Check2