[FreeGeek] Day 1 rough notes

[David Repa]

Greetings,

Below are some notes I jotted down while getting dirty at the mothership...

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Receiving Area

area includes keyboard, mice, and speaker testing room

goods are sorted into bins, and larger objects taken back after being numbered

examples of bins are pwr cables, coloured cables, cd's floppies, stuff
for the store, laptops, metal, pure plastic, toner, mouse pads, ribbon
cables, stuff bound for adv. testing(routers, modems etc), loose
cards, to name a few.

there is also a bin for CBM(copper bearing materials), things like
floppy drives, old speaker etc go into it.  Also there is a shopping
buggy for cables to be destroyed(fills up quick)

monitors are only kept if a)they are from 1998 and up, and are a min.
of 17 inches.  There are gaylords outside for instant disposal.  4
gaylords in total.  One for monitors, one for scanner, one for
printers, and one for keyboards.

Mac items are all put into one area for later testing and sorting.

area includes tools, and 3 hand carts receiving area also includes
bins for paper waste, garbage, cardboard

Some improvements could be made like - adding a tool wall(tools were
always being misplaced or on floor), perhaps having a covered outside
receiving area(rain), better signage example - keep all epson scanners
or keep IEEE 1284 marked
cables

area could be closer to processing area, keep down travel time

need different databasing program.  Something that prints
numbers as they are needed not vice versa.  a system similar
to that found in scrap yards.  the need for this is to track
what comes in and out.  also it enables to guarantee working
parts in store(as long as they have a number).  Very similar
to scrap cars.


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General Thoughts/Observations

NO stairs!  Must be handicap accessible.  On Saturday there was
three wheel chaired folks working there.  They has access to
all areas.

Keep procedures simple and clear so new volunteers can start
working right away with out much training.  Signage  with
clear pictures etc.

*************
Dismantling Area

Tools!  Lots of them.  Sturdy work benches(wood).  Gaylords for
cords, pure plastic, motor items(not including HD), power
supplies(cords cut), coloured wire, steel

Improvements - better tool selection(hammers, pry bars, eye
protection)

it was mentioned that if the steel was compacted they would
get more money.  Perhaps design simple crusher?

Look into assembly line style procedure??

Current system seemed not efficient.

Visible first aid station


*****************
Education!

Don't let the geeks teach!  Can "over talk" and lose peoples
interest.  Have separate class for more advance people that
want to geek out.

Must be ready to teach people who possible have very little
education or can't read.  Was given example of 70 yr old woman
who did even know what a space bar was.  Time to empower
people not talk down to them.

Simple class out line -

cover inside hardware(mobo, pwr supply etc)
cover outside hardware(what diff. cables look like, where they
plug in etc)
first boot, login name, power up and down a couple of times
have students make list of goals(I want to... with my
computer)
take them over to the store, do some shopping(printer, DVD
player etc)
setup new hardware, run apt-get type program achieve goals
run automatix to make realplayer, java etc work, box must be as
usable as a winbloz box
before they leave make sure their ISP works if they have dial
up

Ubuntu seems to be the distro of choice, many positive things
about it, very user friendly, stable.