So my sister is working at a school where the computers are in a shocking state.
All infected with viruses, spyware and malware. The machines either crawl along or are incredibly unstable. Some of them run some sort of virus protection program and I’ve seen one or two computers running two different anti-virus programs. On my travels I have seen countless infected Windows machines. It’s incredible!
And the worse thing about it, is that the Free Software geeks and outfits can’t seem to capitalise enough on it.
So what can I do? The Computer Scientist. Well, not a lot. For example all the Windows machines are in Korean. I can’t figure out how to change win32 language. Can you?
Plus, I don’t want to re-install Windows. I want to deploy some Linux based solution.
So what are the requirements? They need to :
* print timetables (via a crappy Epson inkjet) with something like Office
* be able to play macromedia based games
* use a browser
That’s it. It also can’t be more complex. No username or passwords please. We don’t want to have to train people to use a new system. Must be simple.
Oh diddums. Can Director macromedia kid games be played in Linux? I don’t think so. Oh I wish these kids’ software was on a N64 or something.
There is only like 10 PCs in this school and installing them with Linux would take quite a bit of my time. I need some sort of centralised control tower where I can control deployment of my own customized Ubuntu based distro.
I know very well about SkoleLinux but it is simply too complicated. No need for email. Outsource to Gmail and hosted service. Must be simple.
All I can think of will be complex and painful. Grrr…
I bought a (early Xmas present) Nintendo DS with Mario Kart for a 190AUD. Antoine and I have been playing wirelessly between floors in the hostel we’re staying in. I have never bought a Nintendo before and it is amazing to play such a slick game.
Though it is quite difficult to co-ordinate a LAN game in seperate rooms, as it is impossible to hop into or get instant messaged via PICTOCHAT whilst in another mode.
Paranoid: I am always thinking to myself, what happens if I find a bug? How do I update this?
We tried playing Advance Wars DS with “Direct Play” (as I don’t have the cartridge) and sadly the realtime game mode SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS.
So really there seems to be only Mario Kart as the mobile wireless game. Oh well, we have to start somewhere.
I was hoping to use the DS as a Wireless AP detector. Sadly it is nowhere near as sensitive as my Thinkpad T30. I’ve yet to try Nintendo’s WIFI service. The launch seems to have been done pretty badly. There is only a couple of hotspots in that Australian state of Victoria in places I have never heard of.
There was talk of hotspots in McDonalds. Oh well, all this “free” wifi hotspot stuff never seems to get off the ground sadly. 
They must be worried that laptop users are going to leech the Free Internet.