Used Technology

There's a neat blog post called How to Build the CMoy Pocket Amplifier that I was thinking of trying out. As I think I've mentioned before I built a car media computer that runs off a 12V inverter and some regular PC speakers (car's audio wiring is all messed up, it wasn't me -- honest). The sound is low and I wanted to do something custom, this looks like the perfect project.

Today I had the opportunity to work with an Asus EEEPC Netbook. Unfortunately it was a bit under the gun with 14 volunteers vying for my attention along with 5 customers who of course wanted to speak to me (instead of a volunteer). The EEEPC owner had an external USB DVD burner that she couldn't get working under Xandros Linux. Neither Brasero nor K3B were installed. What was interesting was that the DVD+RW tools were installed and dmesg revealed that Linux did see the CD/DVD+RW. Unfortunately Brasero did not and k3b was missing some dependencies so we couldn't install it. On the command line the following appeared to burn (very slowly): wodim dev=/dev/sr0 filename.txt However when I went to check the CD we couldn't mount it under another system...

This afternoon I ran across an interesting site with photographs of a " PalmTop " made by IBM running IBM's OS/2 operating system. Hand-sized computers have existed long before the Netbooks, but computers like the XO laptop and Netbooks have revolutionized the industry because of their wireless connectivity capability. Thanks to Daniel Basterfield for putting together the interesting PalmTop site.

In today's flooded netbook environment I wouldn't buy a Palm TX. While the TX is typically less expensive (I think mine was approximately $299CDN new a couple of years ago) it isn't quite as functional, especially compared to the Linux-based netbooks. Here are a few problems the TX suffers from: * Proprietary Operating System - While there are development tools on Windows and Linux for Palm OS, you're still locked into an operating system that you have a limited environment to develop for. Steps have been taken by a small group to create a Linux-based OS for the Palm TX but it lacks some necessary functionality (e.g. Wifi). * Limited wifi security without buying an option. The Palm TX doesn't do WPA2 wifi security out of the box, which means it's insecure out of the box. Palm calls the paid upgrade an "Enterprise Security" feature. The upgrade isn't terribly expensive, only $10 last I looked, but it no longer appears to be available on Palm's s

If you live or work in the Kitchener/Waterloo area and your organization is looking to dispose of any of the following equipment, please contact me (Charles) at The Working Centre's Computer Recycling Project: http://www.theworkingcentre.org/cr/ . Normally we charge to take in any of this equipment because of the recycling costs associated with this equipment, but we're a bit tight on these items and would be happy to wave the fee we'd normally charge. Laser Printers * HP 1100, 1100A Laser Printers (& proprietary parallel cords) * HP 2300 Laser Printers * HP 4200 Laser Printers Please note the condition of each item (whether it's working or not -- we still might accept non-working models of these printers for parts). We're also looking for working notebook power supplies for the following models of notebooks: * Thinkpad A31

For those who care http://freshmeat.net/ got a nice new web 2.0-ish redesign. I've always liked Freshmeat and this new design looks even better.

At The Working Centre's Computer Recycling we offer computers with Ubuntu Linux installed (System Unit, Monitor, Keyboard, power cords, mouse, everything you need to get going) from $30+. Systems start at PIII 600MHz with 256MB RAM and a 10GB hard drive, basic, but enough to get started. So far we've been doing stock installs of Ubuntu 8.10, which leaves me customizing the distribution by installing things like codecs, autologin, etc. I've been working on setting up a Drupal portal for volunteers to learn to do these things. Once the portal is done I'm going to make it available both in our remaster of Ubuntu and here online.

We have a Xerox Phaser 8550 Thermal Wax Printer available to anyone who wants to pick it up from the shop. We tested it and it turned on but the display spewed out an error. I don't remember what it was (obviously not toner since this is a was printer). We could spend the time investigating and fix the printer, but we'd rather just give it away to someone really interested in a Wax Printer. From Technology

The other day we built a multimedia computer for the shop . I chose Mandriva Linux because I wanted to provide volunteers with a different experience from the typical Ubuntu Linux they're used to. And it was an experience for me. I've worked quite a bit with Red Hat/Fedora, SuSE, Debian, and Ubuntu, but not so much with Mandriva. I actually found myself a bit lost when it came to package management. I was unfamiliar with urpmi. So I did a bit of research and found a few interesting links. See the story I wrote here: http://www.charlesmccolm.com/content/helpful-mandriva-linux-links

A couple of volunteers from The Working Centre Computer Recycling Project and I started a podcast, Tech Data, last Saturday after the shop closed. The first episode I put out myself a few weeks ago, but last week, John, Andrew and I got together and recorded a second episode. I've managed to edit about half the podcast. The second episode should be out by Saturday. Check out the podcast here: http://www.charlesmccolm.com/podcast/

The other day I met with other members of our organization's IT crew and it occurred to me that Computer Recycling was short on some items that might seem plentiful in today's environment. Our most wanted list goes something like this: Clean USB Keyboards Clean USB Mice SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM in 128, 256, and 512MB configurations Hard drives 10GB and larger An oscilloscope for the shop HP Laserjet 2100 and 2300 printers Working speakers with all parts If you have any of these items available in the Kitchener/Waterloo area please contact us as per the link below: http://www.theworkingcentre.org/at/comp_recycling/comp_recycling.html