I am willing to bet that your local Public Library would be most welcoming to the concept of pro-bono tech support for their most likely ageing/not updated/not virus protected public computer terminals as well as some TLC for their network infrastructure. Many Public Libraries have been forced drastically scale back their services to the public. Offering up your time to help them keep their systems running/patched/protected and their network functional would be a huge help to them.
I have, over the past ten years, helped the Public Library in my home town, set up 10 new publically accessible internet/work (office and other productivity programs) terminals (Mix of Dells), a youth computing room (Apple Mac Minis), new staff computers (Dells), as well as help educate them on how to maintain, patch, update, and create regular ghost images of the systems to allow for restores. Not only are they grateful, but the people of my home town are happy because they have one of the most technologically sound libraries in the surrounding area. It didn't take a lot of work, but has been immensely rewarding.
I don't see any of the goof-balls who got dressed up, waited in line in NYC for the opening, and subsequently got savaged by Triumph the Insult Comedy Dog http://www.starterupsteve.com/video/Conan-Triumph- Star-Wars.html suing anyone. Look... I feel bad for the kid that he had to drop out of school and all, but suing for over 300k?! That's insane. If I sued every bully that pushed me around in high school, I'd be a rich man. Grow some thinker skin and move on.
Fan-boys of the world... SUE!!!
I have basically done the same thing with 4 iMacs (233Mhz 320mb RAM)I donated to my local public library. They are used as internet/office/iTunes/AIM stations in a young adults room (grades 4-9). They are currently running 10.3.4 with shadow killer (a MUST for older machines running 10.x. Found at http://www.haxies.com ).
I set mine up with an Admin account (named staff) and a simple finder account (named student). Just go into the UserAccount section of system preferences, set the account you want limited to "simple finder" and limit what else you don't want them to have access to. It is also handy to give them a little bit of space to use for autosave in office and such (or scratch disks in Photoshop).
I have attempted to do similar limitations for the Windows XP computers in the adult section of the library (Using XP Security Console plug-in by Doug Knox), but have had nowhere near the success as I have had with the Macs. They have been running for a year now with ZERO down time.
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I am willing to bet that your local Public Library would be most welcoming to the concept of pro-bono tech support for their most likely ageing/not updated/not virus protected public computer terminals as well as some TLC for their network infrastructure. Many Public Libraries have been forced drastically scale back their services to the public. Offering up your time to help them keep their systems running/patched/protected and their network functional would be a huge help to them.
I have, over the past ten years, helped the Public Library in my home town, set up 10 new publically accessible internet/work (office and other productivity programs) terminals (Mix of Dells), a youth computing room (Apple Mac Minis), new staff computers (Dells), as well as help educate them on how to maintain, patch, update, and create regular ghost images of the systems to allow for restores. Not only are they grateful, but the people of my home town are happy because they have one of the most technologically sound libraries in the surrounding area. It didn't take a lot of work, but has been immensely rewarding.
I don't see any of the goof-balls who got dressed up, waited in line in NYC for the opening, and subsequently got savaged by Triumph the Insult Comedy Dog http://www.starterupsteve.com/video/Conan-Triumph- Star-Wars.html suing anyone. Look... I feel bad for the kid that he had to drop out of school and all, but suing for over 300k?! That's insane. If I sued every bully that pushed me around in high school, I'd be a rich man. Grow some thinker skin and move on.
Fan-boys of the world... SUE!!!
I have basically done the same thing with 4 iMacs (233Mhz 320mb RAM)I donated to my local public library. They are used as internet/office/iTunes/AIM stations in a young adults room (grades 4-9). They are currently running 10.3.4 with shadow killer (a MUST for older machines running 10.x. Found at http://www.haxies.com ).
I set mine up with an Admin account (named staff) and a simple finder account (named student). Just go into the UserAccount section of system preferences, set the account you want limited to "simple finder" and limit what else you don't want them to have access to. It is also handy to give them a little bit of space to use for autosave in office and such (or scratch disks in Photoshop).
I have attempted to do similar limitations for the Windows XP computers in the adult section of the library (Using XP Security Console plug-in by Doug Knox), but have had nowhere near the success as I have had with the Macs. They have been running for a year now with ZERO down time.
Good Luck!!
check out http://www.poppycockjewelry.com/ for some more neat recycled computer art.