On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 11:16, you wrote: > OK. Replying to my own message here. > > Carl Cerecke wrote: > > They donated some stuff to the toy libaray (a 486 running win 95A and > > 240MB hard drive. It was upgraded to win 95C and required a bigger > > hard drive - 540MB. They charge $120 (hundred twenty!) for the 540MB > > hard drive and took the smaller hard drive too. They should not have taken the smaller drive unless it was part of the prearranged deal. Otherwise that's theft pure and simple.
Depending when the transaction took place and whether the drive was new or not, $120 might not have been a _too_ outrageous price. What might appear to you and I to be profiteering is sometimes justifiable when you take into account the realities of the overheads of running a business. > > They sold the Avon > > Toy Library a no-name 1.2Ghz laptop, with no floppy drive for backups, > > for $2600! Was it brand new, or possibly just a month or two old? What licenced software came as part of the deal? > > They couldn't network the two properly together, and ended > > up using the Xircom 10Mbit ethernet card in the laptop (it "wouldn't > > work" with the built-in 100Mbit Lan) All this happend a few months ago. > > They finally got it working, but then it broke somewhow a few weeks > > ago. Molten Media are not networking gurus, If they were they would not be in the scrap computer business. > > Last night I went to the toy library and fixed it all. Got it working > > with the laptop in-built LAN, and got the toy library software (what > > a piece of &*!@ that is) going correctly. Just before I went home, the > > keyboard on the desktop died. Lucky I had a spare in the car. By the > > way, the toy library software states a minimum spec of P2 233. The Avon > > Toy Library is running it on a 486. If anybody would like to donate > > a p2 233 class machine I'm sure the Avon Toy Library would be most > > grateful. > > I also found out last night that the Win 95 on the 486 doesn't have > a license or CD-ROM. I rang the guy at Molten Media who said I was > lucky to have an operating system on it. I pushed, and he relented. If he's not aware that the BSA have a more-or-less permanent $5000 bounty out for dobbing in traffickers of illict copies of software, and have ears and eyes in the most unusual places, he is now. > I'm going to pick up a license at lunchtime. How do I tell if it > is Win 95C, not an earlier release? AFAIK, the Win95 licence includes the upgrades. It's having the bank-note like licence document that's important, not the distribution CD. > If there was any reasonable toy library software for Linux, they'd > be running that, I assure you. If I had free time, I'd code one. Have you thought of koha? http://www.koha.org Although it's intended for book libraries & probably more than you need, it might be a good place to start. It has been installed locally by a list member and is reported to work well. -- C. S.
