Eee

The Future of Thin-Client Computing

An obesity crisis in the making: thin is good, slim is better, fat is best

For years I have been a fan of the ‘free, open source software/terminal server/disk-less terminal’ model of computing. I am obsessed with the  absurdly large savings on software, licences, maintenance and energy consumption that are there for the having.

I am not alone. Since January, more and more recession-driven education and public sector personnel have been asking me about the latest 'new' (and now fully buzzword-compliant) computing paradigm known as 'thin-client'. I guess the word has got out at last that PCs are a tad overkill.

Splashtop, Windows and heresy in school

The dispersal of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) is the stated role of this blog and most of the time this author attempts to do so through plain, simple, out and out advocacy of Free, Open Source software. Today, though, I am going to attempt a balanced approach and do something tantamount to heresy. I am going to say that sometimes it's ok to use Windows.

Yes I know it's just this condescending attitude of 'penguinistas' that really gets up people's noses but I have been playing with various ASUStek products recently and have discovered Linux Splashtop and The Eee Box desktop PC. The reason for the 'Windows' statement will become clear as we go on.

Branding Open Source moves heaven and earth to beat Microsoft

Google's and Amazon's 'homes in the clouds' are to have a new neighbour, the good ol' boys from Seattle. Microsoft's online-adventure, named Azure (conjuring up images of clear blue and paradoxically cloud-free skies) may however turn out to have an identity crisis comparable to ill fated Windows ME and Vista.

'Cloud Computing' will succeed or fail on the trusting nature of its users, so if social network sites are any guide, it will be a sure-fire bet for the dolts of this world. Microsoft has bravely (or foolishly) opened up yet another competitive front, this time in the sky... where Open Source based rivals dominate.

The Universal School Desktop

or how the future is being 'Windows Proofed'

The one thing that you really need when teaching something to a group of children, students, adults, whoever, is to ensure that they are 'singing from the same hymn sheet'. Put less metaphorically, they all need to be accessing the same text book or work sheet during the lesson. If not chaos is sure to follow. Any teacher who has blithely asked a group to 'turn to page 22' only to find there are two versions of the text book in the class will know what I mean. If in an ICT context for example you are demonstrating the use of formulae in a spreadsheet or mail merge in a word processor/database with the aim of transferring these skills to the class, then this means everyone needs to be able to continue using the same spreadsheet/word processor.

Linux can save UK schools billions: Part 2

It's true, free open source software can and will save schools a small fortune. But why schools in particular?

The first thing to get clear in your mind is that I am not talking about simply replacing expensive proprietary software with free open source equivalents. Sure this measure alone saves money and when you are talking about server software it can be a lot of money. However what distinguishes schools is a model of computing that has created an unsustainable money eating monster.

Free, open Source software will allow schools to move to a model that will not only save money but will allow more students access toICT. Below is how this can be achieved.

Known unknowns

Linux triumphs in UK schools as hell freezes over

This post comes hard on the heels of an important piece of news... at least one Open Source company has become part of the Becta's official list of suppliers to the education sector. The new procurement frame work under the aegis of the OGC relaunches the supply of ICT to education. The emphasis is clear: deliver value for money to UK schools.

It was not long ago that most commentators believed an Open Source company would join the likes of Capita, Serco and RM shortly after hell froze over. But times do change. In this case the driving force for change seems to be (we presume) the well-known cost-benefit values of Linux and other Open Source software.

Open Source will lead to the end of the world

A recent post has introduced me to a term with which I was previously unfamiliar. 'Click-bait' was the epithet used by a US reader to describe the title of my blog and it both intrigued and disturbed me. It means self-evidently that the title is more attractive in a sensationalist sense than the article merits. The post below is hardly sensational, it's all about how Linux can speed up your computer hence the sub-title 'Linux feels the Need for Speed'.

Linux fights Creationism in UK schools

It hurts to say this, but in the early 2000s you knew where you were when it came to school PCs. We all used Windows 2000 Pro. It worked OK and countless children and their teachers based their understanding of ICT on it. It was also at this time that Exam boards and accredited agencies created numerous schemes of work and certificates to prove how ICT as taught in schools was in tune with the real world.

Schools like their computers to be predictable. Many teachers, administrators and students who obtained their ICT 'competence' certificates between 2001 and 2006 felt secure in their 'learn-once, use-forever' skills acquired on what appeared to be a 'final' version of the PC.

Sysadmins for their part loved Win 2000 and proudly bearing their MSCE certs were slowly rolling out the XP upgrade (after all XP is not too different to Win 2000).

Has Becta presided over the collapse of the UK PC industry?

Last summer the list of ‘thriving’ UK PC manufacturers contained a very familiar list of players. These were RM plc, Akhter plc, Evesham Computers Ltd and Viglen Ltd.

The industry collectively had concentrated on the public sector market, especially the education sector, since it was becoming clear that retail selling in an ultra cut-throat market was untenable.

The dangers of retail selling were graphically illustrated by the sudden collapse of much loved Evesham computers in late 2007 following Gordon Brown’s axing of the Home Computer Initiative. Their education public sector contracts, which we shall see were being squeezed too, were not sufficient to save them.

Can we give every school child in the UK a Linux notebook and still save money?

The simple answer is 'yes' we could do it now and we will save the taxpayer millions of pounds.

In previous posts I have documented the exponential rise in school ICT costs over the past 20 years. The articles focussed on costing ICT fully. This meant summing the costs of software purchase, software licensing, hardware replacement cycle, support costs and for the first time, electricity costs. The latter now make up 20% of the total ICT spend of a secondary school's £100,000-£200,000 annual total.