Growing Up Free

“Children are like sponges. They pick things up so fast. You set them up with a computer, and soon after they're teaching the adults. For a parent looking for a job or trying to get free tax info, imagine what a difference having a computer and a computer literate child in the home will make.” – Lynn Bender, GeekAustin

In post-Katrina New Orleans, people all over the world and we here at home, have recognized the need for many, many things. There is an obvious lack of adequate housing, an education system that is exponentially worse than before Katrina, and a general feeling of being "out of touch" with technology. One of the issues that is most obvious to our local tech community is the lack of educational tools focused on the latter: technology.

We are definitely a city of traditions and history. We celebrate old buildings and architecture, foods of generations past, and music our grandparents listened to. We work hard and celebrate harder and raise our children as we were raised. In the wake of our glorious traditions, we sometimes forget that the rest of the world continues to move forward. That computers and technology are viable tools and the skills utilized in the use and creation of these things are NECESSARY.

With this in mind, while working with the local tech community, I have been inspired by the efforts of Linux Against Poverty and Lynn Bender of GeekAustin. I came to discover this initiative through William Hurley (or whurley as he is mostly known, of whom I am an ardent fan and supporter) and was blown away by the outcome.

In early 2008, while working with Michelle Greer of the Austin American Statesman on a separate project, Lynn began thinking about how he could use his local resources (in the form of GeekAustin) to generate donations of retired systems and distribute them to needy families. Linux Against Poverty was born. In December, Lynn called upon the HeliOS Project, a group that takes decommissioned computers, installs Linux and distributes them to needy families in central Texas. The ideas were powerful, the organizers were passionate, and soon a movement was born. A few short months later, on August 1st, 2009, Austin held its first Linux installfest, with over 300 donated machines. It was an amazing and unparalleled success. (http://linuxagainstpoverty.org/lap-austin-install-fest-success)

As I watched the progress of the initiative via LinuxAgainstPoverty.org, I could only think about how New Orleans could benefit from an initiative like this. Although the process and results would be the same, getting technology to those who are without it, our recipients would not be individual families. After much thought and a long chat with Lynn Bender, we decided the best objective of Linux Against Poverty: NOLA is to find a group, school or other youth organization (or combination of several) that would be willing to accept a donation of about 30 computers with the Linux OS installed on them.

This was partially inspired also by the results of BarCampNOLA this year, in which a group of about 25 tech types got together and created a web site for NolaSchoolVolunteers.org. Seeing how important just a simple WordPress web page was to an organization made me aware that we could, as a growing, burgeoning tech community, go much bigger and be much more effective.

Now, with the help of Lynn Bender, Joey Kelly of the Linux Users Group and New Orleans Tech’s Youth Initiative, and the New Orleans tech community, the plan to hold the 2nd ever Linux Installfest is off and running. If you'd like to donate or get involved as a volunteer, an expert or a recipient, please contact lapnola@gmail.com and we will work together to meet your needs.

Some resources:

www.linuxagainstpoverty.org

www.geekaustin.com

www.neworleanstech.net

Twitter:

@linearb

@lapnola

@champsuperstar

@neworleanstech

Thank you for reading and please, if you can, donate or volunteer.

Regards,

Champ Superstar

I wanted to take a moment, to thank all of you who came out for the Florida Baptist Children’s Home build-day. We had a very, very successful day, and without all of you, our day would have been a colossal failure.

First, thanks to Dr. Pharr, for her wonderful babysitting services. She was, genuinely, the keystone for the day. Without her, I would not have been able to be at the build-day, let alone trying to coordinate.

The build-day is one that I will carry with me for the rest of my years. We may have others, but there will be nothing that will stay with me quite the way this one will. It took my breath away, to look up and see what must have amounted to 75 people, working away together, in rhythm and sync. Half of the attendees were residents of the children’s home, and I must say, I was incredibly proud of the way the adult participants took the kids under wing, and really mentored them through all of the stages of computer repair and installation. I was so proud to see everyone working together, doing their parts and pitching in. And, at the end of the day, our numbers proved how strong we functioned as a team. We processed a total of 47 computers.

There were moments, in all of this, that took my breath away. I watched a 17 year old boy teach an 11 year old girl how to take RAM out of a junk computer. I listened in as a young college man taught a group of teen girls about electrical circuits, and how computers read data as 1s and 0s. I received several squeeze hugs, and thank yous, from kids who were incredibly excited to know they would have a computer they could play with.

All in all, the day was an incredible success, and nothing I write here could adequately describe how thrilled I was, or how proud I am, to call all of the participants friends. Thank you, each and every one of you, for touching my heart, and helping us accomplish this goal. Maybe, hopefully, we managed to change a child’s life for the better. That’s all I can ask for.

Too tired to write much tonight, but suffice it to say it was a very, very good day.

Pictures below the fold

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We will be joining up with the Ubuntu Florida LoCo and Lakeland Linux Enthusiasts at the Lakeland campus of the Florida Baptist Children’s Home to build them a 6 seat computer lab, as well as installing 6 individual computers in their dormitory houses.

In addition to that, we will be teaching the teenagers there about computer repair and software installation, so bring any working, semi-working, or not-at-all-working computers you want to donate and we will get them fixed and installed for donation to other kids in the Central Florida area. Any donations of computers or parts is appreciated, and will benefit not only the Children’s Home kids in learning, but will also provide a working computer for another child in need, two great gifts with just one donation!

Location:
Florida Baptist Children’s Home:
1015 Sikes Blvd., Lakeland, FL 33815

Time:
10:00 am until we’re done.

A late lunch will be provided for anyone that attends and lends a hand, so please RSVP here to let us know how many people to cook for.

Come and be a part of the fun! Techies and non-techies are welcome, you don’t need to know anything at all about computers to be a part of something special in the lives of these kids.

More information about this event can be found on our Wiki.

Thanks to everyone who has been bringing in donations, we are well on our way to having what we need to setup the Florida Baptists Children’s Home lab and house computers. But we have many more children on our waiting lists, so if you have any working, semi-working, or not-at-all-working computers, please let us know and we will arrange pickup or drop off.

Thanks again to everyone for your generous donations.

Qimo will be at this year’s Atlanta Linux Fest on September 19th.  We will have a booth to demonstrate Qimo and pass out some LiveCDs.  We will also be giving a presentation on QuinnCo and GrowingUpFree.org.  Admission is free, and there will be people from all parts of the Linux and Open Source community there, so if you’re anywhere in the South Eastern US, please plan on coming by.

We are more than happy to announce the completion of The Settlement Home Project.  Because of the nature of the place itself and other security considerations, we chose to do execute this project in stages.  It took a bit longer than I wanted due to an arm injury I incurred by loading 70 21 inch monitors into a truck.  Had I not had the help of HeliOS Project volunteer Justin Carnahan, I would still be there.  Thanks Justin.

So over a period of 4 weeks, we installed 12 computers, one for each selected girls room.  These machines ran varying flavors of Linux, depending on the hardware architecture.  Most all are loaded with educational games and applications so these machines are learning tools, not MySpace doorstops.

I want to personally and warmly thank Linda Kokemor, Mike Downing and Ben Garcia for their help and guidance as we placed these machines.  Ben Garcia is the System Admin for The Settlement Home and has done an amazing job of building a strong and reliable network for them.  Not only that, he carried most of the heavy stuff in when I was unable to.

I don’t think I can say enough good things about the Management and Staff of The Settlement Home.  The professionalism and care that is obvious through even the most casual of observations is no accident.  The Settlement Home has thanked us profusely for our help but it is us who needs to thank them.  It is through them that we do what we do.  See, they think this is actually work for us.  What this happens to be is our favorite activity that has turned into a job.  A person can not ask for more of a blessing than that.  Thank You, folks at The Settlement Home, for giving us an opportunity to do what we do.

But onward, we have new challenges ahead.  The HeliOS Project has accepted a project to install 25 computers in the East Austin Learning Center, located on the first floor of the Cristo Rey Catholic Church on 2nd Street.  The Project Manager for the Learning Center is Christina Fernandez Collazo.  She is absolutely delightful and we look forward to working with her.  She delivered the good news today that the plans have changed for the Center…it will now be located on the first floor.  Hallelujah!

This is an especially challenging project as we are struggling with funding at this point.  We have most of the machines we need and Lord knows we have enough monitors.  However, there will be some fairly significant costs involved in transportation and extra parts/equipment that will be needed.  If  anyone is interested in helping fund this or any of our efforts, please click this link.  Your help is greatly appreciated.   We are currently looking for funding to fuel our efforts though the end of the calendar year.

Thanks for helping us do what we do.

Ken

The HeliOS Project is happy to announce our semi-annual raffle. We do these twice a year so as to secure funding for the next half of the calendar. You can enter the drawing by donating here.  A confirmation letter will be sent to the email address you provide.  All winners will be notified via email.  Our winners will also be posted as they are drawn on twitter.  Follow helios17.

This event sports some of the best prizes we’ve ever offered. From Alienware and Acer laptops to AMD personal internet devices to autographed copies of Carla Schroeder’s Network Cookbook, we think we’ve got the Geek Thing covered. Take a look at what your 10 dollar donation puts you in the pot for:

Alienware m5500i-R3 Series. Dual core 2 gig chips with a gig of ram and 100 gigs of hard drive space. Radeon Mobility X1400 graphics brings you into the game. DVI output is present with a dvd burner and card reader. System is currently SuperOS with all the bells and whistles ringing and blowing. Runs great under full compiz effects…I’ve used this laptop for making first impressions with new users and it is a powerful tool. Not to mention that it performs beautifully. You can see a full slideshow here. An extra five dollars insures we ship a 1 gig stick of ram for you to upgrade it with.

Acer TravelMate 5720: Problems aside from getting the TrustedCore shredded into non-existence, this is a fantastic laptop. That bully will not bother you any more on this machine. Also I’ve now heard two stories of people falling with their 5720’s and having the computer
breaking their falls…and then firing right up. I can believe it. Sporting a built-in WORKING webcam, it delivers your smiling face via the HD Radeon Mobility HD 2400 XT graphics setup. It is powered by a 2x Intel Core T7500 dual core chip. This comes with one gig of ram, a 160 gig hard drive. It has a VGA AND a DVI out with a dvd burner rom present. Personally. as much press as the Alienware gets…? I think this TravelMate 5720 is the better laptop. It has a card reader in the front and like the Alienware, it takes conventional and express PCMCIA devices…however wifi is built-in so you will probably not need them for connectivity. Full info can be found here.
An extra five dollars insures we ship a 1 gig stick of ram for you to upgrade it with.

Each laptop comes with the charging device and a brand new spare battery still in the box.
You want weird prizes? Check this out.

We are offering two AMD 50×15 Personal Internet Devices.

What are they? A minimal function computer about half the size of a toaster. It is capable of surfing the net, sending emails, and it comes with some fairly cool software… Aside from the fact that these run a CE version of Microsoft XP, they are pretty cool. Need a computer for the kitchen? Maybe one stashed in the garage or on the workbench for looking up part numbers? A friend keeps one in the glove compartment with 6 feet of cat five so he can connect at client’s homes and demonstrate the unit. Keyboard and mouse are supplied but it needs a monitor. hey…it’s a friggin’ raffle. Some wifi dongles will work with this but you have to see which ones will work. New and still in the box, we are giving away two of them. You can see all about them here.

And we never, and we mean never, have a raffle without bringing The Goddess Of The Grid and her Linux Networking Cookbook to you. Carla Schroeder has written, what has been described to me, as the definitive Linux Networking manual. I’ve loaned my copy to 20 year experts in networking and they’ve all asked me how they could obtain a copy. We have two left from the last raffle…some folks just don’t want to get THAT serious about their Linux but their loss is your gain.

Entry is Easy.

This is the donation link. Donations per item are $10.00. So if you donate 30 dollars, you have three tickets in the drawing. if the donation is for like say… 25.00 then we immediately know you want two tickets and want the extra gig stick of ram shipped if you win one of the laptops. Unfortunately, we cannot ship the computers overseas, the cost is simply prohibitive, however Ms. Schroeder’s book is shippable anywhere in the world. Directors of The HeliOS Project, volunteers for The HeliOS Project and employees of HeliOS Solutions are not eligible for this drawing. The laptops offered are previously owned and come with no warranty. They worked fine when we shipped them, We promise.

The funds for this drawing will see to it that we have gas money, maintenance costs and the everyday funding we need to operate our HeliOS Project effort for the next six months. Thanks for everything you do for us and most importantly, thanks for being part of what we do.

All-Righty Then

While we do keep a separate blog for most HeliOS Project stuff, we'd like you to know that this is the time of year we need to secure funding for the second half of the year. As of this posting, we've placed 91 individual computers, over half of The Settlement Home project is complete and we will finish Space12 right after the Linux Against Poverty event is over. Hopefully that event will bring us the LCD monitors especially required for that install.

We know that these are tough times for everyone. I myself am unemployed after being laid off two weeks ago so I am the first to understand how priorities can shift in times like this. Should you be in the position to help see us through the year, we would appreciate you clicking the donate button on the left side of this page. This funding is used for day-to-day expenditures like fuel, incidental parts and the constant small costs associated with our operation.

The vote is not in yet, but there is a possibility that we will be raffling off two really decent computers in the next week. One is an Alienware M5500 and the other is an Acer (don't start it) TravelMate 8210. These are mid to high end machines, running 2 gigs of ram and 160 gig hard drives. Both are dual core and fairly scream through any task you can through at it.

Keep an eye out for this announcement and if the Directors vote in favor of it, we'll rock and roll with the raffle. This isn't exactly a newsworthy blog so it will not receive any real exposure on the net. We would surely appreciate it if you would spread it around to your friends.

All-Righty Then

OK...I think we can put the old wive's tale to bed that Linux Users just don't spend money.

2DBoy will be the first to punch a pin in that bubble.

I could have linked the same data with a personal quote from Kyle from 2DBoy in my blog but that wouldn't have proven much. The fact that Linux Users absolutely destroyed all previous first-day sales of World Of Goo by 40% is a powerful indicator.

What has been proven though is that Linux users will shell out a few bucks for what they want. We have another non-believer in our midst.

NetFlix.

This blog is to the point. Help us get the petition link out to as many people as you know.
http://www.petitiononline.com/Linflix/petition.html
Pathetically, less than 400 signatures reside on the petition at the time of this post. You don't think it will make a difference?

Oh, let me show you something...as if the Acer deal didn't show you your power.

A few of weeks ago, we highlighted the story of Mark Van Kingsley and his quest for a Dell Studio XPS with Linux pre-installed. Now mark isn't a militant sort of guy...well, yes he is when it comes down to it but he really didn't do anything to merit being transfered to "TEAM BLACKHAWK". Obviously a special ops customer service division to handle Linux Militants. In a word, Mark raised hell over the fact that he couldn't get the machine he wanted. When the agent invoked the Microsoft Licensing Agreement as the reason that he couldn't get said product with Linux, Mark asked them:



"So you mean Microsoft dictates to Dell what they can and cannot sell me?"

The tech responded: "Well you could look at it that way..."

Yeah, I guess we could Mr.-Team-Blackhawk-handler-of Linux-Militants. How else would one look at it?

And just so you know...I realize that Team Blackhawk probably has a completely legitimate roll...somewhere. I can appreciate someone else with an over-used sense of the melodramatic.

Mark wasn't the only one that contacted Dell about this. After we published the story, we received just over 3 dozen emails either asking for the right email address and phone number to Dell or communications telling us that they had already contacted Dell about this silliness.

Just over three weeks later....Voila!

That was just enough time for their techs to get the hardware kinks out of it. Now I cannot with a straight face sit here and try to convince you that we did this...the evidence is empirical at best and with Dell choosing not to answer out calls about it, I guess we will never really know.

But ya gotta wonder....ya really gotta wonder.

So if you would, give us a hand in letting NetFlix know we would very much appreciate joining in on the party. Between the Acer Debacle and the Studio XPS thingy...I think we're on a roll. And you should finally realize the strength you possess.

I'll bring the popcorn.

All Righty Then...

Folks, just a short note to let everyone know we have kicked off our twice-yearly fund raiser.  This is the time we need to put together the money we will need to operate for the second half of 2009.  As always, we appreciate your participation in what we do and no matter at what level you aid us, it is equally appreciated.

We have two donation sites and in order to quell any confusion, we will explain.

The “Donate Here” button on the heliosinitiative.org site is for our long-term needs.  Usually, donations over $25.00 are placed there.  We use that for large ticket items, vehicle repairs and larger planned expenditures.  The donation site on Ken’s blog is used for day-to-day expenses such as fuel, small ticket parts and accessories we need to build our computers.  Donations at either site are hugely appreciated.

We are also having a raffle for two pretty nice laptops.  Watch the Blog of helios for details.

As well, we have been offered 64 21-inch monitors.  While these are CRT’s they will go a long way in helping us provide full computer sets to our kids…in a BIG way.  Let’s just hope I don’t have to carry any more of them up 3 flights of stairs.  We are in critical need of warehouse space.  If you know of anyone who has some they would be willing to donate, let us know.  We are also in the process of applying for several grants so we will more than likely morph into paying customers down the road.  Any help in this area would be appreciated.

We are expecting to exceed our output from last year by at least 75 computers.  Thank you for helping us meet our goal.

Ken

We have had our share of hassles and problems in getting the computers we build to our kids.

And for the record..."our kids" signifies the kids that receive our computers...not at all genetically linked here.

The problem with the Acer TravelMates however, has shown a disturbing trend that has been developing for over a decade. It used to be called "Customer Service"

Now I simply refer to it as "Customer Annoyance."

Not at all catchy or bright, but it gets to my point.

More and more we are spending inordinate amounts of time on hold, listening to inane tele-music or self-hyping ads for the company that is currently wasting your time by making you listen to it. You come close to meditation and prayer, hoping to hear a voice...a real voice, one that will assist you in solving your problem.

In my case, apparently the Deity I prayed to didn't speak English.

Neither did the "real voice" that I hoped for. Not well anyway.

So I want to recap what it took to solve the problem of the TrustedCore Setup Utility that I recently reported on.

The initial problem was that the computer came default with the Trusted Computing Module active. We have written extensively on Trusted Computing...fact is, in 2006, we wrote 11 articles on it. Simply put, this is big brother with it's boot on the throat of freedom. Now while I can see the value in someone losing their laptop and having this feature in place, I have first-hand, experienced the problems it can solve. Apologies were given as I fell into the "1 percent" that suffers its ill affects...it sux to be that one percent, trust me.

After trying the obligatory "000000" password, "password" and "acer", I was locked out of the password field to the left. I was then taken to an ominous black screen that said "entry denied". Under that was a 6 digit bracketed number. That number as it turns out, is the magic number you must give to the AcerTech. He then plugs it into the magic decifererererr machine that spits out 6 possible numbers that may or may not work.

They didn't...but fortunately for me, before I had to disassemble the machine and do the DIP switch machination, there was one looooooonnnnngggggg shot...one that seldom worked.

Making sure the AC adapter was plugged in, hit the fn + esc key and immediately smush the power button.

Yeah right, like that's going to circumvent this complex security chip.

I'll be damned if it didn't. Unfortunately, it did not work for the second Acer and I ended up with my hands in the guts of said machine. At least I now know what a DIP switch is. But to get to all of that, I had to go through some pretty unreasonable gyrations.

I got serious about resolving this problem on Monday, the 18th of May. My cell phone readout shows a constant connection to Acer Customer Service from 0917 AM until 1128 PM. In that time I was shuffled to three different departments and in the end, each one of their "sessions" ended with the suggestion that I pay the fee to ship the computer to Acer and let them "fix" it for 100 dollars.

The fact that I was a confirm-able charity didn't seem to interest them or sway the suggestion.

Tuesday, the 19th of May I decided on a new tact and began collecting Acer Executive phone numbers and email addresses for my days work. The best I was able to achieve in 2 hours and 57 minutes of phone calls was to talk to some admin assistant "gatekeeper", promising to have the Vice President of Pissed Off Customers call me right back.

Phone's been on since. VPOPOC has yet to ring me up.

On that Wedensday, I decided to start calling area technicians and stores that carried Acer products.

Don't ask...don't even friggin' ask. That was the day I decided that if I wasn't going to be able to get 2 extremely nice laptops operable for my kids, I was going to disassemble them piece by piece and start sending them, return receipt requested", to the various executives of Acer.

It wasn't to happen. Allow me to tell you what else isn't to happen.

And it would have been so much fun.

Michelle Minkin, a friend of this effort and an all-around nice lady; suggested that we auction off the opportunity to destroy these computers. We were almost ready to start soliciting the community for creative ways to make them go BOOM and film it for YouTube consumption.

You are right, it was a juvenile and silly idea. One I personally liked thank you very much. Sure it might have been silly.

So was spending 9 hours of my life seeking the solution for a problem that took all of 1 minute to solve.

I honestly don't know how AcerTech came to find out about our problem but it seems that two of them did at the same time. Both from the same city and extremely close to Austin.

Both were from Acer.

Both offered to help.

I am not sure if they heard about our plight and simply decided to take it upon themselves to fix it or were called from San Jose and told to put the fire out before it spread too far.

In the end, it really does not matter. Given some of the things said during the conversations we had, I would hazard a guess that number two would be most accurate. I am further supposing that there were calls made to different players and within the traceable chain of custody for this laptop to determine if indeed I had legal possession of it. If that's the case, then I can understand to a point. Then again, it shouldn't have taken three days of someone's life to untangle a seemingly small knot.

But again, it really doesn't matter.

What does matter is that there is an entire culture of Customer Annoyance within our society. Companies have gotten too big to care about your piddly-ass little problems and
the structure of Customer Annoyance has become bloated. Having worked in Tech Support myself, I know the Tier one, tier two....structure.

And it sucks.

Especially when you have to threaten to publicly destroy a corporation's property to demonstrate its worthlessness.

All moot now.

We have the laptops fixed and slated to go to good and deserving homes. Equally important, we know that voices joined are voices heard. And that some AcerTech somewhere decided that this had gone on long enough. My personal and sincere thanks to that guy,

Thank you for your voices.

All-Righty Then...

I'm in a bit of a crunch for time here, I have someplace to be shortly so I will have to be more precise tomorrow.

I received a phone call from an Acer Tech "somewhere". Came across as "unknown number" on my caller ID.

Walked me through a set of fairly complex codes and key combination presses.

One TravelMate 5720 is now unbricked and enroute to possibly change the life of a child.

Or create a MySpace junkie.

We can only influence the first to the best of our abilities.

My warmest and sincerest thanks to a guy who did the right thing...even though he could have lost much for doing it.

All-Righty Then

helios

Yeah, it's my charity...

But that shouldn't matter here. I'd write about this regardless.

About two months ago, nFusion Group LLC, right here in Austin donated a small truckload of computers to The HeliOS Project. 90 percent of these machines were "plug-in ready". I didn't have to crack one case on all but two of them.

It was a pretty and impressive site to behold for us.

These were not cast-off's either. Case on point.

Two Alienware i5500-xxxx laptops and the rest were a mix of mostly Acer TravelMate 5720's and 8210's....throw in a couple of Top of the Line Dells and a toshiba 13 inch tablet laptop and bingo...our kids have computers.

None of these machines were more than two years old and the generosity of nFusion is obvious when you look at the retail prices of these machines sold new. Heck, take a look at what they are selling for at current market prices on ebay and you get a good idea of just how generous a donation this was.

Aside from one of the desktops needing a power supply, everything just worked.

Almost everything.

When I began triaging the machines to get them ready for our kids, I ran across two of the Acers that had what seemed to be a bios password on them. Not a problem, either flash the bios or pull the battery for some amount of time and problem solved.

Uh...no. Not here. Not for these.

What I ran into was something that I have ranted about in the past to the point where I almost bored myself.

Trusted Computing.

What I was running into was what seemed to be an even pre-bios window that read simply:

"Phoenix TrustedCore Setup Utility. It has a field for a password then two arrow-down's to accept - escape.

After stabbing around and getting locked out after the obligatory three attempts, I called Andy Krell, the IT Director at Nfusion. I told him of the problem and he said he would research it and get back to me.

In doing so, Andy assured me that no one remembered putting that "feature" on the computer and that his exhaustive search turned up no setup disks for that situation. He gave me the numbers to Acer Tech and Customer Service and I thanked him for his time.

A word about Andy and nFusion. Aside from their obvious generosity, these folks have bent over backwards to get this issue resolved. What we have are a small number of extremely expensive and much needed laptops that are essentially bricks....at no fault of nFusion. On two subsequent contacts with Andy, he further went out of his way to go back into the receipts and archives to find out where those disks might be stored if stored at all.

They weren't...and I fully understand that myself. Once you get employee's swapping hardware from one person to another, those disks generally vaporize into the nether-regions quickly.

Acer? I've spent at least 3 hours a day since Monday just trying to get through to someone who can help me. Either the tech support accents are so thick I cannot understand anything or I spend so much time on hold my ear goes to sleep.

These are the numbers I've called.

Let me tell you one particular phrase that these tech support folks did enunciate with clarity.

Credit Card.

After explaining to the fine Acer folks that we were a charity...a largely non-funded charity and that these laptops were meant for disadvantaged kids, it really didn't matter to them.

The bottom line for The HeliOS Project?

"Pay us 100 dollars and we will fix the problem for you. Other than that, you have no other options."

"Good bye."

So...several ideas have come to mind. I have the ability and know-how to disassemble most laptops to the third echelon level of maintenance. I'm thinking of Fedexing one small part each day to one of their top execs until I get their attention. Would I actually do that?

I don't know yet...as satisfying as it might be, I doubt it would do anything but cast a bad light on our efforts.

So Acer....a couple of Austin kids that were supposed to get life-changing gifts of technology will not. Thank you for welding closed what might have been an extremely good opportunity for them. Many now will remember Acer for that wonderful attribute.

And no...please...

We will not accept any donations for the 100 dollar extortion by Acer.

If they can't see past their company policy long enough to see an exceptable circumstance...

Maybe that idea of parting out these machines to their execs isn't a bad idea. Maybe purchasing any more of their products IS a bad idea. Maybe returning the product in a less than passive manner might get their attention.

Then again...there are some awfully smart people that read this blog. I am betting we get this resolved among ourselves.

I'm still thinkin' about it.

If you want a Linux machine, check out Zareason.com. They do nothing BUT Linux and they were Linux before Linux was cool... They also support financially many Free Software projects.

All-righty Then





helios