brief Saturday update:
- fixed the two spare Debian machines with recurring odd problems. We
now have three "pre-ready" machines for the next set of classes.
- repairs: there were a few adult students with email problems. One
person had a machine that would not even start up at all. One machine
had been left from a week ago on the triage/repair table, no notes, no
explanations as to whether it's a repair, a donation, or what, that
machine got moved to the front room.
- sales: one of yesterday's graduates paid to have a CD-RW put into
their computer. Jacob installed k3b burning software (it required one
additional library, cdrdao, to be installed as well), first CD-burner
tried the BIOS wouldn't recognize, but the second worked just fine.
Jess sold (I think?) a laptop, and Dan worked on getting PCMCIA network
cards working on it. Someone came in looking for a graphics card.
There were probably more, but it was a bit chaotic, and those were all I
noticed.
- donations: got the 20 computers plus peripherals donated from NOVA
Marketing unloaded from my truck. They are on the triage/repair table
until next weekend (unless Dan has some time during the week). The
machines are mainly to be parted out for hard drives and RAM. The boxes
of peripherals are already downstairs.
- graduates: John House taught the final class. Dan saved the day by
going and getting his digital camera so we could take photos. It seemed
there was a bit of confusion regarding their gmail accounts, and also in
explaining how to use the dial-out software kppp and a modem to go
online. One student actually returned his computer later in the day,
because it wouldn't let him get on the internet. He knew to start
Firefox -- but did not know that he first had to connect using kppp. I
demonstrated for him and his father, then had the child do it himself,
until he was sure he knew both how to connect, and how to disconnect
afterward. Note: I am going to make a simple slideshow presentation to
use the last week, with screen shots showing each step of the way, how
to use kppp. It is difficult, because in the classroom the children are
all on a network, and there is no real way to show them how dial-out
software works. The printed parents handout/FAQ sheets explain it, but
as yesterday proved, not everyone reads the documentation.
- shop order: I noticed a few Windows modems (how did I know? Because I
had tested all the modems, and labeled them all with what drivers they
had) were put in the Linux Modems boxes. Please! -- I spent a lot of
hours testing these, labeling and sorting them into their separate bins,
so please take the time to put them back where they belong.
There's probably more, but that's what I recall off the top of my head.
t.
--
*** Propositions arrived at purely by logical
means are completely empty as regards
reality. - Albert Einstein ***
