So, whoa, whoa. If burning == "making", then does that now mean that anyone who downloads porn is now subject to the record-keeping requirements of 18 USC 2257, which basically states that anyone who makes porn after November, 1990, has to keep records of the ages and real names of all the people depicted in it? It's been held in the past that "distributors" and "resellers" are subject to this requirement, not just the people who held the cameras - now it seems to me like they're saying everyone is.
I've owned a 2004 Prius since February, and it got 53 MPG on the last tank - with about 1/3 city driving and 2/3 highway driving.
So since the EPA city rating is 60, and the highway rating is 51, 53-54mpg is exactly what I would expect to get.
I make a point of driving the lesser of 65 mph or the speed limit (yes, even if it's 35 mph), and I find it helps massively because of the reduced wind resistance. It also helps me avoid having to clean my upholstery when I see a cop on the side of the road and has made me a calmer and better driver overall.
Since I work with IBM POWER4-based dual-core systems, which have been available for over two years now, every day, this Intel announcement (and the Sun announcment about US-IV, in fact) is a big yawn for me.
But the POWER 970 chip is real - it will be in the IBM BladeCenter JS20 blades, and as I understand it, is the CPU in the Power Macintosh G5.
Yeah, not to mention the other 130-odd AIX clusters in the top 500 supercomputer systems in the world., some of which perform classified nuclear-explosion simulations and other fun things.
Not to mention also that JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Discover Card, and (IIRC) Bank of America all use AIX extensively for all sorts of financial applications.
Not to mention also that Nortel Networks uses Motorola FX fault-tolerant systems running AIX (licensed in turn from IBM) for their adjunct processors that collect information about phone calls...so a good portion of those telcos and large companies/ISPs who have a Nortel switch probably have at least one critical AIX system connected to it...
Talk about collapsing economy, try collapsing national infrastructure. Welcome to the slippery slope of professional risk management.
Where the heck do YOU work? My company's (desktop) computers are anything BUT sexy...a Dell beige-invasion Optiplex Pentium II-266MHz and a Sun Ultra 5 "adorn" my desk right now.
*sigh* If only they'd buy me a nice Sun Blade 2000 with 24" LCD display...THAT would be sexy.
How about an envelope containing conductive gel a la the laptops you mentioned above, with a very large surface area TEC beneath that, UNDER the motherboard, or under the core heat-generating components of the motherboard, and touching the opposite side of the case? Obviously you wouldn't get as good performance as you would if the TEC was directly touching the chips, but every little bit helps...send the heat "down" instead of "up."
Drawbacks that I see to this idea:
1) TEC material historically has been very, very expensive... deal-breaker for a lot of applications.
2) Motherboards that weren't specially designed with under-side heat-transfer pipes down through them might melt into toxic goo.
3) Said heat-transfer pipes push out other circuit traces, making them longer, increasing electrical latency.
4) Other electrical effects related to circuit-board manufacturing techniques which I don't have the background to do anything more than guess at.
5) Pins down through the motherboard might puncture the gel-bag, possibly making a leaky, hot, toxic mess. Bag must fit tightly to board to be effective...obviously must not conduct electricity, either. Using different contacts that don't stick out so much makes boards more expensive.
I am not a semiconductor engineer, or an EE...just a geek who likes to think about stuff, so all this may be completely wrong.
Not sure about your math re: thickness vs. efficiency...but I don't think your idea about replacing PV cells would work, because these require a fairly significant temperature GRADIENT between the two sides to do any real work. One side has to be significantly hotter than the other; which I would not expect to be the case for most PV array applications.
Having said that, PV cells operate more efficiently at cooler temperatures, so maybe your idea of sticking thermoelectric coolers (TECs) on the backs of PV arrays has more merit. Again, it's the gradient that's important for generating power, so you could either pump electricity into the TECs to cool the solar cells and make them more efficient, or use the waste heat off the solar cells to generate additional electricity..for this you have to have some other means of circulating the heated air off the hot side of the TECs.
Perhaps one panel in the array, or one cell in a panel can feed the TECs, thus making the others more efficient. Math is needed here to figure out if you actually make any net GAIN in efficiency doing this, and I don't have the relevant formulae handy or the necessary physics background. I thought of something like this using the older generation of Peltier-effect TECs, but it didn't seem efficient enough to bother. Seems like cooler climates might have a shot at making it worthwhile (average ambient air temp is lower..) Any Canuck physicists or EEs in the house?:)
...but Promise Technology makes a network-attached storage device that uses ATA drives instead of SCSI. They also make an interesting external storage subsystem which uses ATA drives, but is SCSI-attached. I may get one of those myself and fill it full of IBM Deskstar 60GXP goodness.
I know that at least one motherboard manufacturer (Iwill) has onboard ATA RAID on some of its more recent boards (according to Maximum PC magazine's August 2001 issue, the KK266-R for Athlons with PC100/133 SDRAM, last I heard it was selling for $110). Do not know anything about usability of this device in various operating systems though. You'd think it would be implemented in hardware, so the OS just sees one disk device that represents the mirrorset, but I wouldn't swear to anything...
No, I don't work for Promise or Iwill, or any of their suppliers or business partners.
The fact is that Christian groups are not treated as well as homosexual organizations.
Depends where you live...there are plenty of places left in the world (including a large part of the U.S.) where being "a faggot" means you can expect to get your ass kicked (or worse) on a regular basis by your schoolmates, whereas being Christian means you're normal, or at worst, considered a little bit uptight.
Elsewhere in the world, people feel the same way about Christians, or Jews, or people with black skin, or random social-or-ethnic-group X. We call this "discrimination" and "hate crime," and it is a plague on humanity in all its guises.
For the record, I agree with you that "people who prevent church groups from using public property by creating rules or laws against such use have clearly violated the constitution's spirit," but by that same spirit they should extend the same privileges to all groups. If some Chicagoland school group wants to use the gym for a "gay prom," then by all means, let them. If some other Chicagoland school group wants to hold a "Christian prom" or a "Muslim prom," then as long as there is the capability to do so, and one group is not favored over others who requested a piece of the available funding, then why not? Too often, people dodge these sorts of questions by saying, "Well, I can't be bothered with such things as being fair or making an informed decision, so let's just make it a policy to reject all requests from all religious groups." Saying this does not serve anyone except the person who says it...and a person who practices such intellectual laziness should be obliged to reconsider their chosen career.
The question you're probably asking now is, "Well and good, but why should I pay in tax dollars to support the activity of group X, who I don't like?" Is your school board composed of democratically elected officials? Why or why not? Have you asked the superintendent or principal why they decided the way they did? Did you listen when they told you? Did they allocate the available money for such activities fairly and evenly among all requesters? If they did, then what are you complaining about? You should be congratulating them; being fair is hard. If they didn't, why not? Do you attend school board meetings? Will you vote in the next election? Do you really believe in liberty and justice for all?
for example the commandments of the Satanists (or the equivalent - do they have commandments?)
As I understand Satanism (I know a few Satanists but I might have misunderstood them), they have exactly one commandment: "An it harm none, do as thou wilt."
That bit about harming none is very important and often "mistakenly" left off by dogmatic members of certain other religions, so they tell me.
Chances are the CAT5 is already in place and it would be cheaper all around to get some old ISA 10base-T cards from a bargain bin than to rewire with BNC.
Even if it isn't already run, if all you want is 10Base-T, you don't even need CAT5...CAT3 will work fine. Not OPTIMALLY, of course, but we're talking about "peanuts," and CAT3 is waaaaay cheaper than CAT5. (Or at least it used to be...I have to admit I haven't looked at CAT3 prices lately.) Not that I'd recommend wiring CAT3 anymore as it locks you out of anything higher than 10Mbit rates.
UTP wiring of any category is also much easier to run than coax. More flexibility and whatnot. Plus you can bundle it up into 25-pair trunks and get the phones done too. Ahh, the joy of structured wiring...
Having worked in a call center, and been through several others, I can safely say that most buildings are NOT "designed correctly" from this point of view. I had to switch from a single-ear headset to a both-ear one to filter out all the noise. I don't think you'll be able to find anyone who can honestly claim that any current voice recognition software is equal to the human brain's capability, so how can I expect my computer to filter out the noise when I cannot?
Most call centers' facilities are designed for one thing, and one thing only: low cost. Half-height cubicle walls, even several people sharing a cube, are all too common.
On a related note, how in the world could you use a voice-control/dictation function when your job involves talking on the phone? "Excuse me, sir, I realize your $5,000,000 system is belching fire, but I need to put you on mute while I tell my computer your customer ID." Hell, it's hard enough to type and talk on the phone at the same time for me.
Now, real time call transcription would be supremely useful in that sort of environment, particularly when fingers start being pointed at people after major meltdowns. But then we get into privacy considerations.
Are you advocating that they change their names to "GNU/FreeBSD", "GNU/OpenBSD", "GNU/NetBSD" and "GNU/Mac OSX"?
That's not such a bad idea, given that "Linux" or "NetBSD," sans GNU tools, are often included in things that are not full user-oriented distributions. Take, for example, embedded Linux devices, or the Ascend GRF router (which uses, so I'm told, a stripped-and-modified version of NetBSD as its OS). At the very least, I think the full distribution versions of Linux and *BSD ought to consider including "with GNU tools" as a sub-head on their shelf boxes.
Now, it seems to me that OS X is a different story, because the GNU stuff is part of the whole package...if the GNU tools were separated, OS X would simply be broken. One hopes that Apple credits the GNU project somewhere fairly prominently in its documentation, or (ideally) in whatever "About" screen or startup graphic or splash screen it has. (I've no Apple hardware on which to try OS X, so I can't speak to whether or not they actually do.)
Now, I don't think anyone intends this as "ego-inflation" for RMS or whoever, but I do think the GNU project deserves more prominent, up-front recognition, as the single organization which has contributed the largest amount of software that makes Linux/*BSD systems usable as Real Computers. The Free Software Foundation also does good work, both in the technical sense and the pseudo-religious sense. IMHO supporters of Freedom in all its incarnations ought to welcome and encourage the greater awareness of the FSF and its goals. I'm not advocating use of legal force to make anyone do this, I'm just saying that I think it's the Right Thing To Do.
As to the poster who asked, "Well, if we do this for GNU, then what about $RANDOM_OTHER_GROUP_OR_PERSON, who has also contributed $RANDOM_OTHER_KEEN_PIECE_OF_SOFTWARE? We can't set GNU above them," I would argue that there is no other organization or person that has contributed the sheer volume of stuff that GNU has given us, and this is one small way that the community can express its gratitude.
Right or wrong, this is what I believe.
Cheap racks for North Dallas residents, plus a ?
on
Rackmounting at Home?
·
· Score: 1
I managed to find a really NICE 5/6-enclosed HP 2m rack super-cheap from a company near me (in the north Dallas suburb Richardson)...includes a fan at the top, power strip, counterweights, little snap-in front filler plates, the works. They buy corporate-surplus hardware and resell it; from what my contact tells me, the racks usually end up on the scrapheap.
The company's name is Half-Price Computers...they ought to be in the greater Dallas phone book. I can't speak for them 'cause I don't work for them, but I imagine they'd ship FOB or deliver for more money...Luckily for me, my rack fit in the back of a friend's Dodge Ram.
The only problem I've had with the rack (aside from getting it in the door of my apartment) has been the power strip...it has one of those twist-locking 120VAC/20A connectors (I believe NEMA L5-20 is the designation), and my apartment doesn't. Landlords get peeved when you change out electrical outlets, so I'm stuck with trying to make/buy an adapter cable. Does anyone know of a place (online or otherwise) that sells those, or might sell those? Already checked Home Depot and Lowe's...they have the parts to make a cable but I'm not so good with a soldering iron that I want to risk burning down my apartment building by making my own. I know of several custom-cable places that could make one for me, but I'd rather buy off-the-shelf (or 'mass-customized' a la CafePress) if I can...I would expect such to be significantly cheaper.
At the risk of being labeled heretical, I suggest you make sure the school district can make use of these computers before arranging this whole shebang.
If the computers are too slow (these days anything below a Pentium 166 qualifies, IMHO), you're in danger of installing a whole lot of hardware which will be perceived as useless because it won't run the latest gee-whiz multimedia programs. Please notice I said "perceived."
And let's face it, these computers are going to have to run Windows and Office, unless you find one of those all-too-rare forward-thinking individuals at the recipient school who cares more about letting students use the machines to learn than making sure they know how to be good Word drones.
I suggest reading Cliff Stoll's excellent book, High Tech Heretic, the first half of which is all about computers in education, before making any formal arrangements with your donor company. I would also echo the point another poster made about arranging for the donor to pay disposal of the real duds. Computer equipment contains materials that are considered hazardous waste, and should be disposed of appropriately.
Note to moderators: This is not a troll or flamebait, just a gentle attempt at grey-matter stimulation.
Enlist your students! Student workers will usually work for comparatively little money if they're doing something directly related to their field of study. For example, as an undergrad, I managed 10 employees and 16 PCs & Macs plus the printers and a LAN, as part of a student-run computer lab sponsored by one of the colleges in my university and got paid $5.50 an hour for it, 10 hours a week. You'll be providing the students with valuable work experience and exposure to technologies they might not otherwise get access to until they hit the Real World.
If you're wanting to do something particularly cool & interesting (like, say, deploying an internal PKI), you may even be able to find people to do it for free, just because it's cool & interesting or because it's something they believe in.
Don't just limit your focus to the CS/EE geeks either. A university is also a business, and all projects need direction (i hesistate to use the word m**agement here). Some proto-suit in MIS or pre-biz could use that experience. Let the pre-law upperclassmen tackle your policies. Marketing/PR/journalism/English people can sell it and make it known and accessible to the masses. For the price of one or two paid employees to keep an eye on things, you could have dozens of student workers who are motivated not only by direct compensation, but the critical experience- and resume-building that will get them their first Real Job in a few years.
The transfer of knowledge between a educational institution and its students shouldn't be in just one direction. Suggest a need to the right people and you could be amazed at what they come up with.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
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To paraphrase P.T. Barnum, there's a Windows user born every minute.
So that's what's taking Duke Nukem Forever so long...all the developers are on a ship travelling at near-light-speed!
I didn't know Gloria was sick.
So, whoa, whoa. If burning == "making", then does that now mean that anyone who downloads porn is now subject to the record-keeping requirements of 18 USC 2257, which basically states that anyone who makes porn after November, 1990, has to keep records of the ages and real names of all the people depicted in it? It's been held in the past that "distributors" and "resellers" are subject to this requirement, not just the people who held the cameras - now it seems to me like they're saying everyone is.
I've owned a 2004 Prius since February, and it got 53 MPG on the last tank - with about 1/3 city driving and 2/3 highway driving.
:)
So since the EPA city rating is 60, and the highway rating is 51, 53-54mpg is exactly what I would expect to get.
I make a point of driving the lesser of 65 mph or the speed limit (yes, even if it's 35 mph), and I find it helps massively because of the reduced wind resistance. It also helps me avoid having to clean my upholstery when I see a cop on the side of the road and has made me a calmer and better driver overall.
Those in the know call it the "Prizac" effect.
Since I work with IBM POWER4-based dual-core systems, which have been available for over two years now, every day, this Intel announcement (and the Sun announcment about US-IV, in fact) is a big yawn for me. But the POWER 970 chip is real - it will be in the IBM BladeCenter JS20 blades, and as I understand it, is the CPU in the Power Macintosh G5.
Well...it would be hard to track that, but here is a list of the labels that ARE members:
RIAA Members
(Yeah, I know, I'm such a karma whore.)
Yeah, not to mention the other 130-odd AIX clusters in the top 500 supercomputer systems in the world., some of which perform classified nuclear-explosion simulations and other fun things.
Not to mention also that JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Discover Card, and (IIRC) Bank of America all use AIX extensively for all sorts of financial applications.
Not to mention also that Nortel Networks uses Motorola FX fault-tolerant systems running AIX (licensed in turn from IBM) for their adjunct processors that collect information about phone calls...so a good portion of those telcos and large companies/ISPs who have a Nortel switch probably have at least one critical AIX system connected to it...
Talk about collapsing economy, try collapsing national infrastructure. Welcome to the slippery slope of professional risk management.
Where the heck do YOU work? My company's (desktop) computers are anything BUT sexy...a Dell beige-invasion Optiplex Pentium II-266MHz and a Sun Ultra 5 "adorn" my desk right now.
*sigh* If only they'd buy me a nice Sun Blade 2000 with 24" LCD display...THAT would be sexy.
On the bright side, when there's a kernel panic, you are entertained by a rendition of "Daisy."
How about an envelope containing conductive gel a la the laptops you mentioned above, with a very large surface area TEC beneath that, UNDER the motherboard, or under the core heat-generating components of the motherboard, and touching the opposite side of the case? Obviously you wouldn't get as good performance as you would if the TEC was directly touching the chips, but every little bit helps...send the heat "down" instead of "up."
Drawbacks that I see to this idea:
1) TEC material historically has been very, very expensive... deal-breaker for a lot of applications.
2) Motherboards that weren't specially designed with under-side heat-transfer pipes down through them might melt into toxic goo.
3) Said heat-transfer pipes push out other circuit traces, making them longer, increasing electrical latency.
4) Other electrical effects related to circuit-board manufacturing techniques which I don't have the background to do anything more than guess at.
5) Pins down through the motherboard might puncture the gel-bag, possibly making a leaky, hot, toxic mess. Bag must fit tightly to board to be effective...obviously must not conduct electricity, either. Using different contacts that don't stick out so much makes boards more expensive.
I am not a semiconductor engineer, or an EE...just a geek who likes to think about stuff, so all this may be completely wrong.
Not sure about your math re: thickness vs. efficiency...but I don't think your idea about replacing PV cells would work, because these require a fairly significant temperature GRADIENT between the two sides to do any real work. One side has to be significantly hotter than the other; which I would not expect to be the case for most PV array applications.
:)
Having said that, PV cells operate more efficiently at cooler temperatures, so maybe your idea of sticking thermoelectric coolers (TECs) on the backs of PV arrays has more merit. Again, it's the gradient that's important for generating power, so you could either pump electricity into the TECs to cool the solar cells and make them more efficient, or use the waste heat off the solar cells to generate additional electricity..for this you have to have some other means of circulating the heated air off the hot side of the TECs.
Perhaps one panel in the array, or one cell in a panel can feed the TECs, thus making the others more efficient. Math is needed here to figure out if you actually make any net GAIN in efficiency doing this, and I don't have the relevant formulae handy or the necessary physics background. I thought of something like this using the older generation of Peltier-effect TECs, but it didn't seem efficient enough to bother. Seems like cooler climates might have a shot at making it worthwhile (average ambient air temp is lower..) Any Canuck physicists or EEs in the house?
...but Promise Technology makes a network-attached storage device that uses ATA drives instead of SCSI. They also make an interesting external storage subsystem which uses ATA drives, but is SCSI-attached. I may get one of those myself and fill it full of IBM Deskstar 60GXP goodness.
I know that at least one motherboard manufacturer (Iwill) has onboard ATA RAID on some of its more recent boards (according to Maximum PC magazine's August 2001 issue, the KK266-R for Athlons with PC100/133 SDRAM, last I heard it was selling for $110). Do not know anything about usability of this device in various operating systems though. You'd think it would be implemented in hardware, so the OS just sees one disk device that represents the mirrorset, but I wouldn't swear to anything...
No, I don't work for Promise or Iwill, or any of their suppliers or business partners.
Depends where you live...there are plenty of places left in the world (including a large part of the U.S.) where being "a faggot" means you can expect to get your ass kicked (or worse) on a regular basis by your schoolmates, whereas being Christian means you're normal, or at worst, considered a little bit uptight.
Elsewhere in the world, people feel the same way about Christians, or Jews, or people with black skin, or random social-or-ethnic-group X. We call this "discrimination" and "hate crime," and it is a plague on humanity in all its guises.
For the record, I agree with you that "people who prevent church groups from using public property by creating rules or laws against such use have clearly violated the constitution's spirit," but by that same spirit they should extend the same privileges to all groups. If some Chicagoland school group wants to use the gym for a "gay prom," then by all means, let them. If some other Chicagoland school group wants to hold a "Christian prom" or a "Muslim prom," then as long as there is the capability to do so, and one group is not favored over others who requested a piece of the available funding, then why not? Too often, people dodge these sorts of questions by saying, "Well, I can't be bothered with such things as being fair or making an informed decision, so let's just make it a policy to reject all requests from all religious groups." Saying this does not serve anyone except the person who says it...and a person who practices such intellectual laziness should be obliged to reconsider their chosen career.
The question you're probably asking now is, "Well and good, but why should I pay in tax dollars to support the activity of group X, who I don't like?" Is your school board composed of democratically elected officials? Why or why not? Have you asked the superintendent or principal why they decided the way they did? Did you listen when they told you? Did they allocate the available money for such activities fairly and evenly among all requesters? If they did, then what are you complaining about? You should be congratulating them; being fair is hard. If they didn't, why not? Do you attend school board meetings? Will you vote in the next election? Do you really believe in liberty and justice for all?
As I understand Satanism (I know a few Satanists but I might have misunderstood them), they have exactly one commandment: "An it harm none, do as thou wilt."
That bit about harming none is very important and often "mistakenly" left off by dogmatic members of certain other religions, so they tell me.
Actually, it's about avoiding amputations and wearing short-sleeve shirts. Boy, those Founding Fathers were a rowdy lot, weren't they?
For Pete's sake, don't give them any ideas.
Even if it isn't already run, if all you want is 10Base-T, you don't even need CAT5...CAT3 will work fine. Not OPTIMALLY, of course, but we're talking about "peanuts," and CAT3 is waaaaay cheaper than CAT5. (Or at least it used to be...I have to admit I haven't looked at CAT3 prices lately.) Not that I'd recommend wiring CAT3 anymore as it locks you out of anything higher than 10Mbit rates.
UTP wiring of any category is also much easier to run than coax. More flexibility and whatnot. Plus you can bundle it up into 25-pair trunks and get the phones done too. Ahh, the joy of structured wiring...
Having worked in a call center, and been through several others, I can safely say that most buildings are NOT "designed correctly" from this point of view. I had to switch from a single-ear headset to a both-ear one to filter out all the noise. I don't think you'll be able to find anyone who can honestly claim that any current voice recognition software is equal to the human brain's capability, so how can I expect my computer to filter out the noise when I cannot?
Most call centers' facilities are designed for one thing, and one thing only: low cost. Half-height cubicle walls, even several people sharing a cube, are all too common.
On a related note, how in the world could you use a voice-control/dictation function when your job involves talking on the phone? "Excuse me, sir, I realize your $5,000,000 system is belching fire, but I need to put you on mute while I tell my computer your customer ID." Hell, it's hard enough to type and talk on the phone at the same time for me.
Now, real time call transcription would be supremely useful in that sort of environment, particularly when fingers start being pointed at people after major meltdowns. But then we get into privacy considerations.
That's not such a bad idea, given that "Linux" or "NetBSD," sans GNU tools, are often included in things that are not full user-oriented distributions. Take, for example, embedded Linux devices, or the Ascend GRF router (which uses, so I'm told, a stripped-and-modified version of NetBSD as its OS). At the very least, I think the full distribution versions of Linux and *BSD ought to consider including "with GNU tools" as a sub-head on their shelf boxes.
Now, it seems to me that OS X is a different story, because the GNU stuff is part of the whole package...if the GNU tools were separated, OS X would simply be broken. One hopes that Apple credits the GNU project somewhere fairly prominently in its documentation, or (ideally) in whatever "About" screen or startup graphic or splash screen it has. (I've no Apple hardware on which to try OS X, so I can't speak to whether or not they actually do.)
Now, I don't think anyone intends this as "ego-inflation" for RMS or whoever, but I do think the GNU project deserves more prominent, up-front recognition, as the single organization which has contributed the largest amount of software that makes Linux/*BSD systems usable as Real Computers. The Free Software Foundation also does good work, both in the technical sense and the pseudo-religious sense. IMHO supporters of Freedom in all its incarnations ought to welcome and encourage the greater awareness of the FSF and its goals. I'm not advocating use of legal force to make anyone do this, I'm just saying that I think it's the Right Thing To Do.
As to the poster who asked, "Well, if we do this for GNU, then what about $RANDOM_OTHER_GROUP_OR_PERSON, who has also contributed $RANDOM_OTHER_KEEN_PIECE_OF_SOFTWARE? We can't set GNU above them," I would argue that there is no other organization or person that has contributed the sheer volume of stuff that GNU has given us, and this is one small way that the community can express its gratitude.
Right or wrong, this is what I believe.
I managed to find a really NICE 5/6-enclosed HP 2m rack super-cheap from a company near me (in the north Dallas suburb Richardson)...includes a fan at the top, power strip, counterweights, little snap-in front filler plates, the works. They buy corporate-surplus hardware and resell it; from what my contact tells me, the racks usually end up on the scrapheap.
The company's name is Half-Price Computers...they ought to be in the greater Dallas phone book. I can't speak for them 'cause I don't work for them, but I imagine they'd ship FOB or deliver for more money...Luckily for me, my rack fit in the back of a friend's Dodge Ram.
The only problem I've had with the rack (aside from getting it in the door of my apartment) has been the power strip...it has one of those twist-locking 120VAC/20A connectors (I believe NEMA L5-20 is the designation), and my apartment doesn't. Landlords get peeved when you change out electrical outlets, so I'm stuck with trying to make/buy an adapter cable. Does anyone know of a place (online or otherwise) that sells those, or might sell those? Already checked Home Depot and Lowe's...they have the parts to make a cable but I'm not so good with a soldering iron that I want to risk burning down my apartment building by making my own. I know of several custom-cable places that could make one for me, but I'd rather buy off-the-shelf (or 'mass-customized' a la CafePress) if I can...I would expect such to be significantly cheaper.
Anyone? Anyone?
At the risk of being labeled heretical, I suggest you make sure the school district can make use of these computers before arranging this whole shebang.
If the computers are too slow (these days anything below a Pentium 166 qualifies, IMHO), you're in danger of installing a whole lot of hardware which will be perceived as useless because it won't run the latest gee-whiz multimedia programs. Please notice I said "perceived."
And let's face it, these computers are going to have to run Windows and Office, unless you find one of those all-too-rare forward-thinking individuals at the recipient school who cares more about letting students use the machines to learn than making sure they know how to be good Word drones.
I suggest reading Cliff Stoll's excellent book, High Tech Heretic, the first half of which is all about computers in education, before making any formal arrangements with your donor company. I would also echo the point another poster made about arranging for the donor to pay disposal of the real duds. Computer equipment contains materials that are considered hazardous waste, and should be disposed of appropriately.
Note to moderators: This is not a troll or flamebait, just a gentle attempt at grey-matter stimulation.
...seems to be the best description of copyright.net's business operations.
:)
This phrase is hereby released into the public domain.
Enlist your students! Student workers will usually work for comparatively little money if they're doing something directly related to their field of study. For example, as an undergrad, I managed 10 employees and 16 PCs & Macs plus the printers and a LAN, as part of a student-run computer lab sponsored by one of the colleges in my university and got paid $5.50 an hour for it, 10 hours a week. You'll be providing the students with valuable work experience and exposure to technologies they might not otherwise get access to until they hit the Real World.
If you're wanting to do something particularly cool & interesting (like, say, deploying an internal PKI), you may even be able to find people to do it for free, just because it's cool & interesting or because it's something they believe in.
Don't just limit your focus to the CS/EE geeks either. A university is also a business, and all projects need direction (i hesistate to use the word m**agement here). Some proto-suit in MIS or pre-biz could use that experience. Let the pre-law upperclassmen tackle your policies. Marketing/PR/journalism/English people can sell it and make it known and accessible to the masses. For the price of one or two paid employees to keep an eye on things, you could have dozens of student workers who are motivated not only by direct compensation, but the critical experience- and resume-building that will get them their first Real Job in a few years.
The transfer of knowledge between a educational institution and its students shouldn't be in just one direction. Suggest a need to the right people and you could be amazed at what they come up with.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
Thanks to Google and http://www.cp-tel.net/miller/BilLee/quotes/Frankli n.html for the quote whose exact wording I can never remember.