As part of our network upgrade work, Bristol Wireless has recently retired a couple of Pentium III-powered Compaq Deskpro EN machines that were acting as network gateways and performing other roles too. As these CPUs were only produced for 4 years between 1999 and 2003, that means our hardware is rather long in the tooth. […]
Bristol’s University of the West of England (UWE) has announced that a shipment of refurbished computers and office furniture has just arrived in Togo after an eight week voyage. The recycled equipment was refurbished by UWE student volunteers. The equipment is now being installed in 2 internet cafés in Lomé, the Togolese capital. Both internet […]
Bristol Wireless was donated* some redundant laptops yesterday that were surplus to requirements. Their arrival has encouraged volunteer Acesabe to try experimenting, as about an hour ago he tweeted: Think I’ll have a pop at installing ChromeOS on one of those old laptops we got donated @BristolWireless yesterday http://chromeos.hexxeh.net Please let us know how it […]
Your correspondent arrived at the lab last Friday to find there was – initially at least – nowhere to sit down. We had a full complement of volunteers present – both old and new – and a couple of customers too. Looking at our volunteers, I’d like to draw your attention to 2 of them. […]
A couple of days ago, Bristol24/7 reported that Bristol is entering the race to be Europe’s top green city in 2014, so it’s perhaps appropriate to have a look at what Bristol Wireless can do as regards green IT (although, of course, we’re not the only people doing stuff like this in Bristol. Ed.). The […]
Just after your correspondent had published yesterday’s LTSP round-up post (news passim), Acesabe got busy with his Twitter client, tweeting: #LTSP 4.2 & 5 running as #vserver clients on host laptop, old lappers get to live another day! He also posted the picture below online at Twitpic. The hands on the keyboard on the far […]
Bristol Wireless are advocates of green ICT and constantly urge people to refurbish and re-use hardware where possible before recycling or buying new kit. Nevertheless, we were most intrigued to come across the laptop in a pizza box illustrated below – a fine example of recycling both consumer electronics and disposable food packaging. Eagle-eyed Linux […]
A couple of days ago, we received a generous donation of an Acer laptop from an anonymous caller at the Lab (thank you kindly, sir! We did ask him if he wanted any kind of thanks, but he resisted all our blandishments. Ed.). He only asked that we wipe the data off the hard drive, […]
A pleasant surprise awaited your scribe on his arrival at the Lab yesterday: one of the happy smiling faces lurking there was Mark, who had to bring a halt to his volunteering activities last year to find a job to pay the bills. Anyway, Mark now has some spare time on his hands again and […]
A couple of days ago, we received a donation of a rather smart machine; this will be refurbished and offered for sale as part of our refurbishment project, for which we currently have a selection of machines complete with a full set of software (internet, office, entertainment and multimedia applications) available starting from £30. The […]
Bristol Wireless will be officially reopening the Computer Room at Windmill Hill City Farm, Philip Street, Bedminster on Thursday 21st October after a brief period of closure. To mark the reopening, we’ll be holding an open access drop-in session from 10am-4pm on that day to encourage new internet users to get online as part of […]
Today is the last day to sign up for BarnCamp 2010, which will be staged in the beautiful Wye Valley from 11th to 13th June 2010, courtesy of Hacktionlab, a regular convergence space where activists interested and/or working in the areas of alternative media, renewable energy, online video distribution, free software or any other form […]
Earlier this week on Monday, Bristol’s Watershed (“home of the laptoperati” – event quote. Ed.) played host on Monday evening to Connecting Bristol‘s Green Open & Social event. The event was so well attended there was a waiting list for tickets due to over-subscription. As with many Connecting Bristol events, it was also streamed live […]
It’s 3pm on Friday afternoon (aka POETS Day. Ed 🙂 ) and the lab is in the capable hands of Jim, Stefan & your ‘umble scribe. Jim & Stefan, both freshly supplied with a hot drink are busy working away on machines for our refurbishment project, whilst yours truly is catching up on paperwork, but […]
When Bristol Wireless heard about the recent break-in and theft of computers at UK student campaining group People & Planet, who are based in Oxford, they were more than happy to help by donating two snazzy refurbished Linux desktop systems complete with flat panel screens. People & Planet (P&P) are already using the machines in […]
Our old friend John Palfrey has emailed us with an update and picture of his Linux Lounge bus, which is gradually coming together as a showcase for open source IT and green energy technologies. The bus is a 1984 MCW Mk11 Metrobus, 9.5m in length and is powered by a 10.5L 6 cylinder Gardner engine. […]
vnunet.com reports that almost 2 years after the WEEE disposal rules came into force, the UK is still lagging behind the rest of Western Europe in recycling electrical goods. Research by Dell found that 13 per cent of UK consumers do not recycle electrical goods at all – more than four times the figure in […]
Being on a low income it’s virtually impossible to find the money needed to gain access to the latest computer operating systems and software. Many times I’ve found myself angry at being denied access to software simply because of my economic status. I was therefore presented with two options: the first being to use pirated […]
If any one is interested in trying out a bit of digital Djing I would highly recommend Mixxx. I stumbled across it a few months ago whilst having a browse through the Synaptic package manager and to be honest with you, I love IT. It’s quite a simple application to use and the graphical features […]
In the Bristol area (and other less favoured parts of the 3rd planet of a lowly star on the end of an unfashionable arm of the galaxy), Bristol Wireless has built up a fair reputation as übergeeks. We’ve also done some work beyond Bristol too. Building on the latter, Bristol Wireless now wishes to extend […]