Coordinator's report for November 2007 to February 2008

General News

Another three months of report writing neglect, I better make sure this is a good one. I have a fairly good reason for being slack, read my blog at www.kyliebraindump.blogspot.com to find out why. Hopefully I'll be more on top of things in the coming months. Big thanks to everyone for pitching in a lot more than they normally would - special mention to Jan, Tony, Allan, Rob and Greg.

Impact Environmental ran a waste management conference in October. Instead of giving delegates a gift, $1000 has been donated to us. The $1000 will be used to purchase computers for families referred from the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre (ASRC). ASRC are also contributing additional funds for this new 'back to school' educational program. 

The Shepparton GHD project went well, 35 computers were given out to refugee families and individuals. Training was held at GO TAFE, we conducted 3 sessions, each with around 15 people in them. Despite language barriers, most people got the hang of using our Linux computers pretty quick. Thanks to our WFD and volunteers for building and checking the computers, thanks also to our traveling trainers.

See a report and photos from our main website at: http://vic.computerbank.org.au/content-1/partnership-delivers-results-in-shepparton

Unfortunately we had a break in during December. Lucky we did not lose much cash (around $70) but we lost 4 laptops. We had to buy a new door and a new lock. There have also been a few building improvements; a big new sign on the front of the building and a couple of lockable storage cupboards. Thanks to Jan for organising all of this.

Our end of year wind down wasn't very spectacular, we had an end of year pizza day in Work for the Dole and volunteers went to the Hot Poppy for coffee and a snack. A good two weeks off was enjoyed by all.

	Linux Conference / Open Day Around 1000 people through the door, more than 36 groups with displays. The day also included a free lunch plus a chance to win all sorts of prizes. The Computerbank stand was kept busy most of the day, we had plenty of people interested in what we were doing. We ran out of flyers and open CD's - we took more than 100 along.
Pic of Tony in front of the banner he made

After LCA Open day a bunch of IT Share folks came back to Computerbank for a tour and pizza. Fun was had by all. Big thanks to Tony and Jan for helping out on the day, thanks also to Sally for putting together the e-waste display.

Computerbank loaned a lot of equipment for the conference. Rob, long term volunteer with us and also on the Melbourne LCA team, helped ferry equipment to and from the venue in Parkville. Unconfirmed but probably true, Linux Conf Melbourne team to donate $2500 of conference proceeds to Computerbank. Neato - big thanks LCA 08!

We were visited by Darrell Burkey from CASE in Canberra. He wrote up a small news item over at http://www.case.org.au/linux-conf-2008.htm - he got a great shot of our new sign on the front of the building.

We have some up and coming overseas projects - Cook Islands and Fiji, possibly Liberia too.

Our rent has gone up by 3% again. We now pay $2832.50, this is up from $2750. We also paid our annual rates payment in February, this was $2137.91.

Lastly, our Work for the Dole project is going well, we have a full project of super keen people. We will be rolling over for another six months at the end of February. This will run until the end of August.

Computers Out 2007

Holey Moley! Stop the press - 577 - this is an amazing effort for a volunteer based group. It is 112 up on last years effort of 465. All involved should feel proud and give themselves a pat on the back. :)

The total number of computers we have shipped since the beginning: 

1998- 2000: 45 ?

2001: 173

2002: 300

2003: 238

2004: 392

2005: 407

2006: 465

2007: 577

Sub Total: 2597

+ Special Projects: 1650 (South Pacific Project)

Total number of computers given out to the end of 2007: 4247

+ Approximate number of boxes recycled: ~ 2500

Total number of computers we have  reused  or recycled: 6747

This is a significant number of computers! We should all feel very proud of our achievements.

Computers Out 2008

Donations

Good donations from regular donors, we also received good quality donations from many individuals.

User Support & Training

Same old same old. ICEauthority problems and log problems. For users with newer systems (nov 07 on) log files are no longer being written and .ICEauthority is fixed. Another common problem is the mouse not being plugged in correctly, this means the desktop does not start and users are presented with Tux login: 

We have had terrible problems with prepaid internet providers. Hello sign up no longer allows configuration from a Windows computer, Dodo prepaid presents similar problems. More recently we had issues with planet prepaid cards. As a result we are no longer recommending or selling pre paid cards.

We have introduced a new form for quality assurance. The new form is basically a checklist of QA steps completed. In the next phase of the form we will incorporate both the tech spec and the checklist together.

In other quality assurance news, we are eveluating a new testing tool called "Burn In Test" for Linux. The tool is user friendly and can be set to take as little or as much time as you like. The tool tests memory, CPU, hard drives, and optical drives. See more info from http://www.passmark.com/products/bitlinux.htm The tool is not free software but a 30 day trial can be obtained from the website.

We have also had some recent problems with a particular model of HP LCD. We have had three returns due to sudden turn off. We will now test all LCD's for at least three hours.

Training is off to a slow start in 2008 with only half of the classes turning up despite attempts to confirm attendance. It seems that there is not much we can do to change this long standing problem.  Suggestions welcome. It is good to see that a few more people are coming to our 'show me how' Days.

About the Computerbank Ubuntu Distro

The distro is currently in test and we are fine tuning the scripts. The distro uses KDE for the default desktop but provides an option to use gnome. We include much the same software and customisation as with previous distributions. Some Video How to's have also been included. The distro seems to run faster than the current one. We have been building on a PIII 600Mhz. Boot times are around 1min 7 secs and Open Office load time is 17 seconds. Software and distribution upgrade tests ave worked without any problems. See the wiki page at http://vic.computerbank.org.au/wiki/ComputerbankUbuntuDistro for more information. Many thanks to Mohan for his help with this.

Volunteers

This time around we welcome to Sebnem, Sally and Peter. Sebnem has been helping out in the build room but is leaving to go to Brisbane in March. In addition to coming in on Wednesday, Sally has been a great help with front desk on Fridays. Peter has just arrived from NSW where he was also a volunteer for Computerbank NSW. Good luck to Seb and welcome aboard Sally and Peter.

For those of you who like numbers, since we first started back in 1998, 175 people have signed up to help at Computerbank! This is an amazing figure and it doesn't include everyone. In addition to this, we've also had over 500 work for the dole (WFD) participants contribute to what we do since 2001. Awesome stuff.

Finance

Allan has been doing a fabulous job with the bookwork and chasing up outstanding invoices. The Oct-Dec BAS activity statement has been done and will be submitted in the next few days.

Income 2007:

July = 6743.57

Aug = 9759.44

Sep = 5148.06 + Grants of 24,814.14 (WFD and SFD)

Oct= 8296.53 +

Nov = 4759 + 282.43 ING

Dec = 5414.41 + 279.08 ING

Income 2008:

Jan  = 4490 + 262.04 ING

Feb  = 2000 TD (11th Feb)

Bank Balances as at Feb 12th 2008:

Westpac = 1693.89

ING = 44,824.18

Total = 46,518.07