Technology and Medicine combine always makes me grin. As he's talking about combining the gold with the antibodies all i can get out of my mine is "Freaking Genius".
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Email I have for a long time considered doing a computer/internet class for senior citizens willing to learn. I have done a good bit of teaching and instructing in the past, but mostly with youth. I came to the conclusion one day that youth already have a leg up, they are being raised in a time where technology is very prevalent, I won’t go as far as saying that that kids today have more opportunity to learn technology than any generation before.. but that’s almost the case.Update 3/31/2008: Verizon balked doesn't look like they're going to be able to step up for this one.
As you can imagine, a company like ours is presented with many requests to provide wireless service for many good causes. Unfortunately, we can't accommodate all of those requests [totally understandable, im sure they get pummeled] , and have chosen to put our support behind HopeLine, our phone recycling program that benefits domestic violence prevention and awareness agencies around the country.
So, while what you are doing is terrific, we won't be able to help you out.
They did however, offer to loan me a pci card or usb whichever I liked most and see if it was right for the project. After which it was 60 bucks for 5 gigs of transfer a month or 40 bucks for 50 megs [50 megs? who would pay for just 50 megs]. I think I'll pass on this one. Hey at least they heard me out.
Update 4/19/2008 - I think I found the answer to the connectivity issue
A Window Mobile software development company out of the Netherlands put out a very sweet application for Windows Mobile. WMWifiRouter put out by Morose basically turns your phone into a hotspot. I've been using it for a few days now specifically on travel in and areas with no wireless connectivity to see how she works. The hotspot shows up on my wireless manager as a ad-hoc network. But I'm sure this has something to do with setting it up, easy enough to figure out. I don’t really know what else to say except the product does exactly what it says, and I get great speeds. Love it.
Update 5/13/2008 - The M.E.T.O story was picked up on Cap Gemini's "Talent"
A pretty cool article and screen shot
The Other Face of Capgemini
Maryland Elder Technology Outreach
Published on May 13, 2008
One of our US Sogetians, Eric Harlan, Sogeti Principal Consultant, shares his story on the Maryland Elderly Technlogy Outreach initiative he has set up to help seniors become familiar with laptops and the internet. Read on and see how you can contribute to this initiatve.
"The idea came to me the moment I realized my generosity might have backfired a bit. You see, as a Christmas present, my wife and I decided to purchase a computer for my grandmother. We didn’t give it much thought because we had given her an older laptop to get used to “computing”. We didn’t expect that applying the new medium of the internet to the mix that things would complicate.
I went over her house, set the computer up and realized I was in trouble when her first question was, “ok, what number do I dial to get into the matrix?” No kidding. So I began to show her the ways of the web, how to get online, how to sign up and check email and even how to shop. She starting getting quite good but with her experience came more questions.
A generation in need of help
I started to realize that with every generation born after the dot com’s, they’ve gotten more and more familiar with computers at a younger age. With that, I also realized that the real group in need of pc education was the seniors of our society. I joined my grandmother at one of her senior center computer classes and found that the real desires of our seniors today are quite simple in the grand scheme of things. Email, Pictures of family, Senior Events and News and surfing/shopping online. These things come almost second nature to 99 percent of Gen X’ers and even Baby boomers are getting more acquainted with the techno box. But seniors didn’t have a clue for the most part.
I decided there that I would tailor a volunteer class specifically to seniors and specifically to those areas of interest. I assumed that with a little confidence and some knowledge, those seniors would be just like my grandmother and start to desire more skills for navigating the W.W.W.
Biggest challenges
The hardest challenge in my quest to help out was acquiring hardware, and honestly still is. I had quite a few offers to donate desktops and some older macs. But let’s face it, Macs aren’t mainstream enough for seniors and desktops aren’t mobile enough for me to pack up and roll away after each class. The idea was to not focus specifically on one center, but try to hit at least two per month.
During one of our sessions at the Baltimore SharePoint Users Group a fellow Sogetian suggested maybe I ask corporate to donate some of their older laptops they were offering for sale. I did so and after some help from Brian Sullivan (VP Sogeti Baltimore) and the folks at Sogeti Corporate, we finally acquired 10 laptops. They were PCs with 256 megs of ram and 40 gig hard drives. Perfect for a group of people where literally, speed could hurt matters.
Steady progress
We’ve made a lot of progress in the past few weeks and all we have left are to find 10 USB WI-FI adapters (the older laptops don’t have built in Wi-Fi) and to figure out a way to share out a mobile internet connection. As I said above, speed isn’t the greatest need so there have been some talks of turning a 3G wireless phone into a mobile hot spot. I’ve been talking with Verizon to get a phone or connection donated but to no avail. Hopefully some of the other feelers I have out in the industry will pay off and we can get a solution to a mobile internet connection. Even if we can work out a way connect a master laptop up to a connection and share the connection out through that laptop. The details are still sketchy here (any advice is welcome). Hopefully when we get this all worked out and in place we can start our first round of the curriculum. I’m hoping to have this in place by the end of June.
For a generation, and honestly a wonderful culture our seniors have made countless impacts in our lives and the development of our society as a whole, I think this is a wonderful idea and a great way to give back to just a few of those folks.
There’s only thing I’m afraid of - and I think it’s a good problem - once these seniors learn to share photos with their families, what will they want to learn next? Dot Net anyone?"
Update - 5/14/2008 - Well when the updates come they pour!
Werner van Alphen with Morose Media donated a copy of WMWifi for the METO cause. Very cool, thanks so much. You can read more about WMWifi on their site or in the above update. Thanks again guys every bit helps!
Update - 5/27/2008 - Wireless Adapters!
One of the users in the Baltimore SharePoint Users Group, Buddy Webber acquired 3 PCI slot style wireless adapters from his employer. I think two more and I'll start amp’ing up the project. Thanks to Buddy and Martek for the donation, it won’t go un-noticed!
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Email Ok so you learn a few things from the people that your stuck onsite with for weeks at a time. My buddy and colleague Marc Fruth was telling me how he used the FREE Linux based KnoppMyth to build out his 1 TeraByte Media Server. Boasting its DVR capability (for 15 bucks a year). I have been looking for a good use for my old PC when i was finally finished with building my new one . I began to think of it as a server option, possibly using it for running a few VPC's and maybe active directory so my wife and I could sync up calendars. Then hearing what and how Marc did his, it seemed to be a perfect fit for a aging but FULLY capable P4 3.2 Ghz HyperThreaded CPU, water cooled with 3 gigs of visible ram (Two 2 gig modules).
I did an assessment of my DVD collection. And well, a rounded up number of 400 DVD's with a rounded up Max of 4.7 gigs each is about 1.8 TeraBytes of storage I'd need to just get what I have now (all non HD dvd's) onto the server. Then i'll need enough space to start storing Blu Ray movies. I know a Blu Ray Disk is 50 gigs of storage, I cant see the movie itself taking up that much space. Regardless I need storage. 1 TB drives are roughly 215 bucks so to pull 4 gigs of raid 5 I gotta dump a cool grand on just drives. But in return at least i'll have a reason to get rid of the stacks of DVD binders i have laying around.
The box will need an HD quality video card, with HDMI output which I have done zero research into I also have to figure out how to get the sound from the video in through the video card and out the HDMI cable (since HDMI is just dvi with sound right? or is that VGA with sound, i cant remember). Anyway. Then i have to probably get a HDMI switch for my main tv it only has 2 HDMI inputs and one carries my XBOX and the other the Fios TV. I know the wife is going to end up getting her PS3 one of these days so i might need at least a 2 port switch.
The only crap thing with KnoppMyth is that you have to have an independent computer at each TV's location an input for the ethernet to get the video and sound and a HDMI/DVI output to push the video to the TV. But all my TV's have ethernet inputs, cant i just run it right into the network? I'll have to check into this one. If not I can score one of those micro linux computers that fit into at box the size of a electrical wall socket.
I'll keep all 6 of you that read this blog in the loop on how she gets built out.
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Email The old one i think is going to get retired into a server. She's a P4, 3.2 Ghz Hyper Threaded, Asus northbridge, 4 gigs of ram, 360 gigs of space, Water cooled, 2 DVD burners.
Here's the new one's parts so far.
Update : Ok so I purchased the last of my parts. I picked up:
I got all the parts in except the case, which comes tomorrow. I couldn't wait, I already extended the plumbing lines to the northbridge water block and installed the cpu.
Here is all the glory (except the case), I'll have some finished shots and some specs after the build.
Summary:
2.4 ghz QUAD core P4
Asus P5B motherboard
1 terrabyte of combined storage
8 gigs of ram (if i go 64 big i can use it all)
Nvidia 8600gt (slightly smaller than the new stuff out but i dont need that much)
Transplant my two light-on DVD-r's (16x)
New case (eh)
Thermaltake 500 w PSU
Koolance Exos water cool system:
CPU Block, GPU Block, Northbridge Block, 1 Hard Drive Block
Update 4-22-08
ALL DONE.
She. Freaking. Screams!
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Email So a quick props to dell or at least who ever made the old dell thumb drives.
Unknowingly i threw this in with a pair of jeans into the wash. Through a double rinse cycle as well as a double dry cycle (jeans weren't dry enough), i pulled it out threw it in my usb hub and sure enough all the data was there and it was working fine. Cant wait until all drives go solid state.
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