Just an after thought. You mentioned a rack-mounted server as one of the potentials to be thrown out. As you know, a rack mount system is ideal for hosting in a data centre. If that one does become available, I'd like to see if we could find some way of hosting it somewhere...then maybe we could offer very cheap or free hosting for the charities and non-profit organisations.
<br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/26/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Stuart Burns</b> <<a href="mailto:stuart.james.burns@gmail.com">stuart.james.burns@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi Les,<br>
<br>
Yeah, The thing as a group as sounds good because I have tried before
to try and get the local council involved, wrote a nice letter to the
local council and MP to see if a) they could help or b) donate to a
worthy cause. It was a big fat NO from both of them, but I really think
it could be a good idea. For example I know a lot of colleges are
paying "scrap merchants" to take away fully working P3 1GHz machines
every term end when they get the new 3 GHz dual core machines etc<br>
<br>
I'd be interested in doing it and if it works, it would save this
company at least a few hundred a year in "landfill fees" not that it
would end up in the landfill, if you get my meaning.<br>
<br>
I mean, on top of all that kit, I have 3 17" crts that are going in the
bin so to speak, and its just wasteful ! And just think, if our 100
person company has these machines kicking about a lot of others must
have an even bigger amount. ie Octel, Shell, all the financial service
companies in chester and the like (although I have no doubt that they
have removal mechanisms in place)<br>
<br>
Only problem I forsee that would be a pain is when they try and install "Need for speed 3" on the linux boxen ;)<br><br>
Interesting thought though!<div><span class="e" id="q_10e84f308823b159_1"><br>
<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/26/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Les Pritchard</b> <<a href="mailto:les.pritchard@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">les.pritchard@gmail.com
</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi Stuart,<br><br>There's several things you can do with old kit like
that. As you say, they're not bin jobs yet - far from it.
There are charities that will take the boxes off your hands and pass
them on to community projects. I could see the laptops being
particularly suited for that, but the server boxes would also work well
as terminal servers. What I sometimes do is just pass them on to
local non-profit organisations I know of. Perhaps this could be a
worth while thing for the Chester LUG to consider doing - collecting
kit like this and donate it to local causes....complete with Linux /
BSD installed of course!! That could bring publicity for Linux,
Open Source and the Chester LUG as well as helping out these people.
<br><br>If your company would go for that - would anybody else be
interested in doing this kind of thing? If we share it between a
few of us, I'm sure it wouldn't be too bad.<br><br>I know several
people on the list (me included!) and other friends wouldn't mind some
of the kit to play with themselves...but I'm just trying to think of
this from the good cause, Open Source style approach of benefiting the
community as a whole. (Plus the Techies Against Sleeping on the
Sofa issue many face when bringing back "another box" ;-) )
<br><br>Thanks<br><br>Les<br><br><div><div><span><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/26/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Stuart Burns</b> <<a href="mailto:stuart.james.burns@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
stuart.james.burns@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
</span></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><span>Seems a simple question really, but where I work I we PAY some person to take away all our "old" machines.
<br>
<br>
I currently have a few knocking round and it seems a pity for them to
go into landfill because at the end of the day they are still good
machines, but they have gotten bit rot etc and slowwwweeeed right down.
Nothing a format and a light windows manager wouldnt cure<br>
<br>
The specs of the machines that I *may* - subject to company approval be getting rid of are:<br>
<br>
4/5 Compaq Ipaqs, ranging from P2-450s to P3 800s with memory and hard drives<br>
1 HP P3 450<br>
1 PowerEdge 800 <br>
1 PowerEdge 450 with ~30 GB RAID array<br>
<br>
There may even be the following depending if our upgrade over the next few weeks goes to plan<br>
1 Dual Xeon 1 GHz/1Gb RAM/19GB RAID 5 array 2u Rackmount<br>
1 PowerEdge 800 <br>
1 PowerEdge 4300 450Mhz with ~30 GB RAID array with tape drive<br>
<br>
Problem that I have is, i use freecycle for most stuff, but
unfortunatly with the PCs you either get a) well intentioned newbs who
doent understand IT at all and feel they have a right to phone you up
at 9pm because program "coolgame.exe" doesnt work or b) people take the
stuff I gave for free (ie a few p3 machines, printers etc ) and sell
them on ebay !<br>
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