[TriLUG] Penguins in the desert

Douglas Ward binaryflow at gmail.com
Mon Oct 10 15:37:38 EDT 2005


When someone travels to check their e-mail they bring the messages and
attached files back on a floppy disk (or some other storage media). People
who travel out there also bring things with them. Apparently internet cafes
in Monrovia aren't the safest places to check e-mail. We have to work with
the donated equipment that we have on hand. The budget is tight and we are
trying to stretch it as much as possible. I'd love to go with military grade
hardware or laptops but we can't afford it unfortunately.

On 10/10/05, Christopher L Merrill <chris at webperformanceinc.com> wrote:
>
> Douglas Ward wrote:
> > They have one printer with no network. The machines they have are
> Windows
> > machines and fall prey quite often to the latest virus outbreak. They
> have
>
> I can't help with many of your questions, but I have to know:
> If they aren't networked and have no internet access, how are they
> getting virii?
>
> > 2) We are trying to visualize the unique challenges of operating
> computers
> > in the desert without air conditioning. Has anyone ever done this
> before? If
> > so, would you care to share any lessons learned?
>
> Be sure the cases are properly ventilated and the hardware has temp
> sensors...and the OS watches those sensors and shuts down properly.
> If you are taking new hardware, you can test it easily enough - unplug
> the processor fan and put paper or something around it to prevent
> airflow. Runs some long-running operation and wait for it to overheat.
> Might want to be REAL sure it's working before this test, though -
> failures can be expensive :(. I'm assuming there are tools to read
> the temp readings from the OS.
>
> Have you considered notebooks? Lower power requirements and the
> better ones are designed for a wider range of operating environments.
>
> Easy to steal, though.
>
>
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Chris Merrill | http://www.webperformanceinc.com
> Web Performance Inc.
>
> Website Load Testing and Stress Testing Software
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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