Week one into my test with a thin client. From a work perspective, I can easily accomplish all of my tasks in this operating scenario. We have had a few hiccups here and there, but for the most part running M$FT applications on a Debian thin client has been very painless. I am using all of the M$FT Office 2007 applications including Project and Visio. For my test, I am using all of the big three web browsers and a couple of open source applications, namely a Jabber server client and an app called ColorPick. My only annoyance is ColorPick as I cannot figure out to shut it off with a keyboard shortcut. But I will get that resolved in the next few days.
So, at this point, I am very content with the pilot. I have also been using the thin client software from home across a VPN on my wireless network. The performance is almost exactly what is on the corporate network and all of my applications work flawlessly. As this is my first experience using thin clients,I am surprised at how well it works. I can't imagine why many companies wouldn't take this approach, especially those that deal with sensitive data. The security of a thin client and the ability to lock it down at the server level are very appealing.
All in all, a very satisfying experience and with the growing presence of available broadband, I ma quite content moving forward computing in the cloud.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Metrics of Open Source Success
Dana Blankenhorn and Paula Rooney's blog at ZDNet has a posting today about the metrics of success for open source. It succinctly describes why many of us pursue open source solutions and being providers of open source applications to needy industries. That is why I started Open Solutions for Education, to serve an education community that is under many different pressures.
Most of us chasing this path will never be rich and many of us write our own personal checks to get our business started, keep it floating and many times to avoid shutting the doors completely. While open source is a great movement, the reality is that products quickly become complex and require an organization to provide long term support to ensure that the market penetration occurs where widespread benefits can be realized.
So the next time you download that "free" application, consider that someone has likely spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours getting that product to a point where you can use it. So give back to the originators. Click on their Google ads, donate some money, send them some code, help them get some customers, etc. It is all about community and if you truly like the product and consider yourself to be a community member, then contribute! Altruism and philanthropy are noble pursuits.
Most of us chasing this path will never be rich and many of us write our own personal checks to get our business started, keep it floating and many times to avoid shutting the doors completely. While open source is a great movement, the reality is that products quickly become complex and require an organization to provide long term support to ensure that the market penetration occurs where widespread benefits can be realized.
So the next time you download that "free" application, consider that someone has likely spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours getting that product to a point where you can use it. So give back to the originators. Click on their Google ads, donate some money, send them some code, help them get some customers, etc. It is all about community and if you truly like the product and consider yourself to be a community member, then contribute! Altruism and philanthropy are noble pursuits.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Walking the Talk on Thin Clients
This week sees the beginning of my one month pilot to completely use a thin client in a pilot project for my company. The thin client software comes from an education thin client provider in Georiga, ACS, and is very affordable. For the cost of the client software and a decent thin client, Aleutia as an example, I can compute for under $500 at the desktop running Linux and using M$FT Windows applications off of the server.
My current setup includes a 4 year old Dell laptop, Ubuntu 8.10 and the IDS native Linux client. My server profile includes all of the M$FT Office 2007 suite, IE 7.0, Firefox 3.04, Pandion Instant Messaging, Adobe, etc. The pilot server is an old Dell desktop that is about 4 years old as well. It is all running on a 10/100 network and streaming audio and video are not considered.
So far so good. I will keep updates coming as I go through the test. With this approach, schools could literally use computers until they completely failed while still allowing the students and staff to use the latest and greatest SW. There is a huge cost savings aside from the initial HW purchase in that the thin client SW only sends outputs from different devices and then recombines them onto the client. Thus, you do not have to have a M$FT client access license and you can "share" applications in the sense that 2,000 users could use only 500 licenses for M$FT Office. Pretty cool stuff.
More updates to come.
My current setup includes a 4 year old Dell laptop, Ubuntu 8.10 and the IDS native Linux client. My server profile includes all of the M$FT Office 2007 suite, IE 7.0, Firefox 3.04, Pandion Instant Messaging, Adobe, etc. The pilot server is an old Dell desktop that is about 4 years old as well. It is all running on a 10/100 network and streaming audio and video are not considered.
So far so good. I will keep updates coming as I go through the test. With this approach, schools could literally use computers until they completely failed while still allowing the students and staff to use the latest and greatest SW. There is a huge cost savings aside from the initial HW purchase in that the thin client SW only sends outputs from different devices and then recombines them onto the client. Thus, you do not have to have a M$FT client access license and you can "share" applications in the sense that 2,000 users could use only 500 licenses for M$FT Office. Pretty cool stuff.
More updates to come.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
openSIS Version 4.2 Released
My little startup, OS4ed, released our latest version of our open source SIS, openSIS, on November 12th. You can read about it here. This release marks a real milestone for us as we are confident that we have a very stable version out there that is ready for schools to depend upon day in and day out. It also marks our commitment to the community in that it is now deployed at Eduforge.org and no registration is required for download.
We hope to continue providing new functionality and new solutions in the coming years that will serve education. Take a look and join the community. Also please send us suggestions for improvements and we will do our best to get them into the product. Thanks for the continued support.
We hope to continue providing new functionality and new solutions in the coming years that will serve education. Take a look and join the community. Also please send us suggestions for improvements and we will do our best to get them into the product. Thanks for the continued support.
Computing in the Cloud or is Google Apps Ready for Prime Time?
Chris Dawson at ZDNet had a recent post on the thought that he might switch his users over to Google Apps. His basic question was: Is there anything teachers or students need that Google Apps can’t do? I think a better question would be: Is there anything we do that is too complicated for Google Apps or Open Office or Star Office?
I am a member of the camp that thinks the majority of us can easily replicate our current functions and daily activities inside a number of free offerings available today that have longevity, maturity and good support. The real obstacle in many organizations is resistance to change and a desire to stay in a current comfort zone. Granted this is an oversimplification, but in many cases it is very true.
At the core, I don't really think that the average user uses any advanced features in the M$FT Office Suite. And at the end of the day, we could all stand to be without whiz bang PPT slide shows with the latest SmartArt features and animations. So as I evangelize open source in my organization and to my clients, I ask them to explain to me what they do that is so complicated? Often times, they simply can't answer as they haven't really thought about it.
TCO is an important point that people always talk about it. Paul Murphy (pseudonym) had a post today about recession favoring open source and gave an example business case of TCO savings. It has some very good points in it about how small business might be more willing to look to open source as all costs have to be examined.
So, how complicated are your Office documents?
I am a member of the camp that thinks the majority of us can easily replicate our current functions and daily activities inside a number of free offerings available today that have longevity, maturity and good support. The real obstacle in many organizations is resistance to change and a desire to stay in a current comfort zone. Granted this is an oversimplification, but in many cases it is very true.
At the core, I don't really think that the average user uses any advanced features in the M$FT Office Suite. And at the end of the day, we could all stand to be without whiz bang PPT slide shows with the latest SmartArt features and animations. So as I evangelize open source in my organization and to my clients, I ask them to explain to me what they do that is so complicated? Often times, they simply can't answer as they haven't really thought about it.
TCO is an important point that people always talk about it. Paul Murphy (pseudonym) had a post today about recession favoring open source and gave an example business case of TCO savings. It has some very good points in it about how small business might be more willing to look to open source as all costs have to be examined.
So, how complicated are your Office documents?
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