I've been asked to recommend a system for an 80-yr old first time user living in the South Island. My first choice would be naked DSL, VOIP phone, Ubuntu. However, there may be constraints like dialup access only. Do you have any "off the cuff" alternative solutions/suggestions? Michael
Michael McDonald wrote:
I've been asked to recommend a system for an 80-yr old first time user living in the South Island. My first choice would be naked DSL, VOIP phone, Ubuntu. However, there may be constraints like dialup access only. Do you have any "off the cuff" alternative solutions/suggestions?
Suggestions or solutions to what problem? The lack of DSL?
Daniel Lawson wrote:
Michael McDonald wrote:
I've been asked to recommend a system for an 80-yr old first time user living in the South Island. My first choice would be naked DSL, VOIP phone, Ubuntu. However, there may be constraints like dialup access only. Do you have any "off the cuff" alternative solutions/suggestions?
Suggestions or solutions to what problem? The lack of DSL?
while comparatively expensive, farmside seem to be the answer to no dsl service, and is certainly cheaper than satellite once was - and 2-way. whether your friend would want that level of expense is unknown. perhaps the starter plan is viable and he would qualify for the partner rate? http://www.farmside.co.nz/services/farmside_broadband/compare_plans/ have you checked to see if dsl is available on his phone number? dsl is available in plenty of places that some would classify as "rural". i'm nearly 10 minutes drive out of chc and have had dsl here for a few years now. Cheers, Roger
2009/1/13 Roger Searle <woja(a)paradise.net.nz>:
have you checked to see if dsl is available on his phone number? dsl is available in plenty of places that some would classify as "rural". i'm nearly 10 minutes drive out of chc and have had dsl here for a few years now.
Person concerned is a resident of one of the smaller cities. Since the relationship is rather indirect, I don't have full details. I'm assuming ADSL is available - but I could be wrong. It will be useful to find out how others have dealt with similar cases. I have managed to get friends "on the air" for under $200 by utilising old computers, Ubuntu, dial up access, and serial modems. Certainly not the best way to go and required a bit of "hand holding" to get going, but at least they had a relatively modern secure system without confusing (to them) messages. Thanks for your suggestions Michael
2009/1/13 Daniel Lawson <daniel(a)meta.net.nz>:
Suggestions or solutions to what problem? The lack of DSL?
Feel free to suggest a dialup solution or DSL solution or even a wireless one (but I doubt whether that is "on"). In other words, what have people found that works very well for elderly first-time users? Michael
An off the wall one. Try a two box solution, 1. Get an old P1 - P3 box from a chuck out pile. Install IPCOP as a firewall, dial on demand internet box, this handles all the internet (you can also have a manual connect option via a web page interface) his takes care of the modems and all the related issues, It also runs a dhcp server ( I even think I still have a dial on demand unit from back in they lurking here somewhere if an old box is not an option. 2. Network the 2 machines (cross over cable) - Wireless ... whatever (yes you could do this for a laptop, netbook ...etc. and a wireless router) 3. Create the user machine with any system you like, running whatever software they need 4. Enjoy, as any issue are in the IPCOP box, which can be very secure, (remote admin ... etc. ) while the user box/laptop ... etc. can be run in a user account and all the quirky issues are hidden from the user. 5. Feel good that you recycled all those nasties in the old box and kept them out of a landfill. Michael McDonald wrote:
I've been asked to recommend a system for an 80-yr old first time user living in the South Island. My first choice would be naked DSL, VOIP phone, Ubuntu. However, there may be constraints like dialup access only. Do you have any "off the cuff" alternative solutions/suggestions?
Michael _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
On Wed, 2009-01-14 at 18:35 +1300, Bruce Kingsbury wrote:
5. Feel good that you recycled all those nasties in the old box and kept them out of a landfill.
Feel not-so-good that an elderly person is now paying for an old computer to draw 60W or more 24/7 doing almost nothing.
I have an old Pentium 200 with 128 Mb of Ram acting as my connection to the internet. I run Windows 98 with ICS enabled, and a network card that takes the connection to a 8 port 10/100 Mb/s Switch. I am certainly one that doesn't advocate ditching old hardware just because its old (im old hardware too...), and have to put up with a dialup connection as the Spotswood Exchange isn't broadband enabled. I stay on the internet all night (from 8pm till 8 am) doing what I need to, and am happy to excuse the power that the computer uses as a means to an end, but if the senior person here wants connectivity, why not use an old pentium box that can be booted when needed and shutdown when not needed. I am sure that there are minimal distros of Linux that would work with redundant hardware such as a Pentium 1, I havent gone there since i think why fix it if it 'aint broken. Just a thought. Glenn Morrissey.
Yep, as soon as I posted it, I knew that comment would be greenie bait, which is why I'll never make a greenie. I put people first, and wanted to make his problem go away, as for doing nothing, for him its doing a lot, making his life easier. (I also offered a dedicated low power box that does the same job.) If you were really worried about cost, you could set the bios wake up and shut down times. And as I said it was an off the wall comment to make the whole modem issue go away, if you don't like it then don't use it. Simple Bruce Kingsbury wrote:
5. Feel good that you recycled all those nasties in the old box and kept them out of a landfill.
Feel not-so-good that an elderly person is now paying for an old computer to draw 60W or more 24/7 doing almost nothing. _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
Yep, as soon as I posted it, I knew that comment would be greenie bait, which is why I'll never make a greenie.
Not so much a greenie thing as a cost thing. Leaving machines on 24/7 adds to the power bill, and a lot of oldies are on a pretty tight budget. I'd probably set up something with an external modem and 'always-up, retry on fail ppp' connection. When they want to use the net just turn the modem on and the connection can come up. Otherwise turn the modem off and it will leave the phone line free for normal use. Very simple. And if they just want to do the basic web/email/cardgames thing there's nothing wrong with a gnome desktop.
ok, the cost of leaving a 200watt machine on all day, all year is: 20c/5hour, that is $350.4/year, if adsl is avalable, get that, the cost difference between dialup and a server/firewall or an adsl modem is nearly nothing sorry about raiing on anyones parade To be fair, i set up a kubutu system for my aunt recently, and jsut used a dialup modem on, a dynalink 1456ve, works like a treat Cheers Andrew On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Bruce Kingsbury <zcat(a)zcat.geek.nz> wrote:
Yep, as soon as I posted it, I knew that comment would be greenie bait, which is why I'll never make a greenie.
Not so much a greenie thing as a cost thing. Leaving machines on 24/7 adds to the power bill, and a lot of oldies are on a pretty tight budget.
I'd probably set up something with an external modem and 'always-up, retry on fail ppp' connection. When they want to use the net just turn the modem on and the connection can come up. Otherwise turn the modem off and it will leave the phone line free for normal use. Very simple. And if they just want to do the basic web/email/cardgames thing there's nothing wrong with a gnome desktop. _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
Andrew Crosby wrote:
ok, the cost of leaving a 200watt machine on all day, all year is: 20c/5hour, that is $350.4/year, if adsl is avalable, get that, the cost difference between dialup and a server/firewall or an adsl modem is nearly nothing
The actual cost of running the machine is likely to be much less than that. However, I'm only pointing that out for completeness. If you put in two older machines, you've just got two things to fail. And older machines do fail. If you put in DSL with a DSL router - even the cheap routers that various ISPs give away free with connection - then it will have enough of a "firewall" (by virtue of being a NAT device, and therefore disallowing incoming connections) that anything behind it will be basically secure. If you use a cheaper DSL modem, then you'll need to run a host firewall, but even that isn't exactly hard to manage. As for the suggestion of OS, pick whatever you're happiest supporting, especially supporting remotely. And If you don't want to be beholden to this person for support, pick whatever they're going to get best support for. There is no point putting in an Ubuntu system if this persons son or daughter or grandkid is going to be the one supporting it and only understands Windows. It'll only make linux look bad.
sorry about raiing on anyones parade
To be fair, i set up a kubutu system for my aunt recently, and jsut used a dialup modem on, a dynalink 1456ve, works like a treat
Bingo. Also, I have a bunch of external 33k6 and 56k modems kicking round, although I think they're missing PSUs (which can be bought from DSE quite easily). If anyone wants one, you're welcome to them.
This is a bug that's been driving me nuts for ages. If Totem is set to its minimum (default) size, when the Open File dialog is opened it's automatically reduced to as small as possible, which means I have to grab hold of the bottom-right corner and drag the window bigger so I can see the files. However, if the Totem window is enlarged slightly, when the dialog is opened again it's often at its regular full size. Thus the question is, is it possible to specify what size an application window should be? Personally I'd love to set the size of the dialog window, but I've no idea if /that/ is possible. Sandy
This is a bug that's been driving me nuts for ages. If Totem is set to its minimum (default) size, when the Open File dialog is opened it's automatically reduced to as small as possible, which means I have to grab hold of the bottom-right corner and drag the window bigger so I can see the files. However, if the Totem window is enlarged slightly, when the dialog is opened again it's often at its regular full size.
This bug has been driving me nuts as well and we're not alone: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gtk+2.0/+bug/285285 Hopefully, there's a bugfix coming around soon...
Thus the question is, is it possible to specify what size an application window should be? Personally I'd love to set the size of the dialog window, but I've no idea if /that/ is possible.
Don't think so, that you can choose a fixed size/minimum size for a window (unless the application allows that)... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
On Wednesday 21 January 2009 22:19, Chakat Sandwalker wrote:
This is a bug that's been driving me nuts for ages. If Totem is set to its minimum (default) size, when the Open File dialog is opened it's automatically reduced to as small as possible, which means I have to grab hold of the bottom-right corner and drag the window bigger so I can see the files. However, if the Totem window is enlarged slightly, when the dialog is opened again it's often at its regular full size.
Thus the question is, is it possible to specify what size an application window should be? Personally I'd love to set the size of the dialog window, but I've no idea if /that/ is possible.
You can set the initial size of an application using the -geometry option available for X applications.
From "man X":
GEOMETRY SPECIFICATIONS One of the advantages of using window systems instead of hardwired terminals is that applications don't have to be restricted to a particular size or location on the screen. Although the layout of windows on a display is controlled by the window manager that the user is running (described below), most X programs accept a command line argument of the form -geometry WIDTHxHEIGHT+XOFF+YOFF (where WIDTH, HEIGHT, XOFF, and YOFF are numbers) for specifying a preferred size and location for this application's main window. The WIDTH and HEIGHT parts of the geometry specification are usually measured in either pixels or characters, depending on the application. The XOFF and YOFF parts are measured in pixels and are used to specify the distance of the window from the left or right and top and bottom edges of the screen, respectively. Both types of offsets are measured from the indicated edge of the screen to the corresponding edge of the window. The X offset may be specified in the following ways: +XOFF The left edge of the window is to be placed XOFF pixels in from the left edge of the screen (i.e., the X coordinate of the window's origin will be XOFF). XOFF may be negative, in which case the window's left edge will be off the screen. -XOFF The right edge of the window is to be placed XOFF pixels in from the right edge of the screen. XOFF may be negative, in which case the window's right edge will be off the screen. The Y offset has similar meanings: +YOFF The top edge of the window is to be YOFF pixels below the top edge of the screen (i.e., the Y coordinate of the window's origin will be YOFF). YOFF may be negative, in which case the window's top edge will be off the screen. -YOFF The bottom edge of the window is to be YOFF pixels above the bottom edge of the screen. YOFF may be negative, in which case the window's bottom edge will be off the screen. Offsets must be given as pairs; in other words, in order to specify either XOFF or YOFF both must be present. Windows can be placed in the four corners of the screen using the following specifications: +0+0 upper left hand corner. -0+0 upper right hand corner. -0-0 lower right hand corner. +0-0 lower left hand corner. In the following examples, a terminal emulator is placed in roughly the center of the screen and a load average monitor, mailbox, and clock are placed in the upper right hand corner: xterm -fn 6x10 -geometry 80x24+30+200 & xclock -geometry 48x48-0+0 & xload -geometry 48x48-96+0 & xbiff -geometry 48x48-48+0 & ------------------------------------------------------- So if you wanted to launch Totem with an initial window size of 300 pixels wide, 200 pixels high, located 30 pixels down and 30 pixels right of the top left of your screen, you could try: Right-clicking on the Totem entry in your application launcher (aka "start menu") then edit the entry, changing the command line options from "totem" to "totem -geometry 300x200+30+30" Or, Apparently you can edit your ~/.Xdefaults file and add a line that reads: totem -geometry 300x200+30+30 Or, Make a shell script that reads: #!/bin/bash totem -geometry 300x200+30+30 & and then create a link to it from your desktop and use the link when you want to launch totem. (Don't forget to make the script executable) HTH, Wayne
I tried it, and that doesn't work because '-geometry' isn't a valid option for Totem, as Totem doesn't to be an X program. Presumably nearly anything that has 'x' as its first letter is an X program. Sandy Wayne Rooney wrote:
So if you wanted to launch Totem with an initial window size of 300 pixels wide, 200 pixels high, located 30 pixels down and 30 pixels right of the top left of your screen, you could try:
Right-clicking on the Totem entry in your application launcher (aka "start menu") then edit the entry, changing the command line options from "totem" to "totem -geometry 300x200+30+30"
Or,
Apparently you can edit your ~/.Xdefaults file and add a line that reads: totem -geometry 300x200+30+30
Or,
Make a shell script that reads:
#!/bin/bash totem -geometry 300x200+30+30 &
and then create a link to it from your desktop and use the link when you want to launch totem. (Don't forget to make the script executable)
HTH,
Wayne
For a long time now -- pretty much since I installed/reinstalled Ibex -- the desktop and file manager windows have taken an absurdly long time to load. From login, I can be waiting up to thirty seconds or so for the desktop and its icons to load, and the panels to load with /their/ icons. Also, when I open a Nautilus window for the first time, it can take, again, anything up to around twenty seconds to open. Subsequent windows are quick (one or two seconds). The installation on my desktop computer (a 2.09GHz AthlonXP running Ubuntu 8.10 on an old 20GB drive) works perfectly fine. Would anyone happen to know what might cause this? I think it annoys me more than the dialog size problem. Sandy
participants (10)
-
Andrew Crosby -
Bruce Kingsbury -
Chakat Sandwalker -
Daniel Lawson -
Gavin Denby -
Glenn Stuart Morrissey -
Michael McDonald -
Peter Reutemann -
Roger Searle -
Wayne Rooney