> Terry Collins wrote:
>
> Latex
I must have got the wrong impression about this thread - I didn't think it
involved torture. ;) Markup is well and good for precise techies, but I
don't think Latex is an appropriate tool to drop on someone's desktop
(stories of Latex-friendly secretaries aside... umm, not that Latex).
> Another "solutions" my local school librarian had was a lookup system
> to enable teachers to find out who had what resources (big books,
> kits, etc). A terminal in each room going back to a server in the
> library.
>
> However, I think the biggest market is "home" users, who want a
> machine that can do dialup, email, WWW cruising and homework. (woops,
> games, scribble drawing, etc)
The sorts of things non-profits (and similarly, small businesses) need are
simple information processing machines. Most information processing is
suited to text/console interfaces - I grew up with a GUI, but I've yet to
see a well designed data-entry style application running under... well, any
GUI come to think of it (I'd love to be proved wrong by the way - please
tell me of any software you know that achieves this). I work with bookshops,
and their software is either DOS-based, or Frankensteinian in it's
conversion to GUIness.
Other posters are correct in saying the hardware is easily found. I have a
few boxes in my cupboard, a couple at work, and I can sit and wait until a
certain PHB I know gets sick of trying to make money on some old 486es!
It *would* be easier to organise than an Installfest - walk in, make the
hardware work, install the software, connect the dots. The trouble is the
software. What's needed is a reasonably well-featured console word
processor, a data-storage application (phonebooks and the like), those sorts
of things. We have the email and browser software.
> If you think you can easily get hardware, then you advertise for
> clients and get the hardware as needed. Otherwise, you do it the other
> way around. I just tend to think that clients are easier to find.
"An example must be made." If a team of techies can find an appropriate
institution, give them a good kit of hardware and software to fill their
needs, and be fairly noisy about it, more will come forward.
You can't satisfy a bilnd man with a six million dollar painting. Similarly,
you can't drop a computer on someone's lap without thinking through a
solution. I'm interested to see where these discussions lead.
- Jeff
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