COMPUTER PROJECT

COMPUTER PROJECT

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AS you know we were given 10 Pentium 3 computers and a server by the Georgia Pacific Corporation in Toledo in December. This was due to the efforts of Donna Talarski who works there and to the older community members who had the foresight to get us a non-profit organization status with the IRS years ago. Georgia Pacific Corp needed that number so they could claim their generous gift on their taxes.

During the wait for these computers other residents have donated their older computers to the clubhouse so that they would be available for those who wanted to use them. Each of them had different systems on them as pointed out by Bill Holt which made it nearly impossible to use them to teach classes. Our new donated computers all have the same operating system which should lend itself to easier teaching.

Ben Davi agreed to send a letter of appreciation to the Georgia Pacific Corporation for their gift to the Seniors of Longview Hills. Other thanks needs to go to Bill Furgason who helped pick up the computers, and two others who we won’t mention at this time who offered to store and are storing the units at their homes.

Now that we have these computers it is time to talk about the computer club again. There are those that have the expertise we need to set in motion the building of a computer lab for teaching, games, surfing and many other related activities. Think of this a productive hobby that will help our community. All levels of skill can be utilized. Those who have attained guru status can help and direct others during the process. Those with little knowledge will gain and those with a lot will have fun setting up the lab.

The first step will be to take each computer and determine what it has and if it will work. Next, we will need to have a give away of the computers that are presently in the clubhouse to make room for the new ones.

Then we will need to build the lab and make it neat. Larry Henson says the room is sometimes being used as a dumping ground for old equipment. That practice will have to stop.

What is a server? Well a server is usually a computer with a large hard drive that has a unique capacity to serve all computers it is attached to. What this means is that we can load programs onto the server and all the computers attached to it can then utilize those programs. This is cheaper than buying programs for every computer. We don’t know what programs the server has on it now... So there is another discovery opportunity. The server also can use hardware such as a printer or a fax machine and share it with every computer hooked to it.

A great idea would be to get Donna Talarski to ask one of her IT tech people if they would be willing to help us set up the units as they were at GP or if we could just call them for help and questions.

The task for me is a bit large and over my head but I have learned to take things one step at a time and that usually leads to success. I’m hoping you will talk to your neighbor about helping out and for the newly retired, you have just left computers in your jobs and know a lot.. We can use your help.

Look for a meeting to be called soon..