Parents PC

[adam766]

Hello
I have been asked to set up a parents PC for our reception area.
Im Looking at the asus eee top, anyone had any experience with these?
Adam

[localzuk]

What exactly is it going to be used for?

[adam766]

for parents to view newsletters, access the web etc nothing too complex really

[Michael]

I would try and locate an old PC not being used, connect up a spare keyboard, mouse and screen and you should be good. Just make sure you hide the PC itself so it isn't tampered with.

If you're going to connect it to your network, I would make a point of creating a seperate OU and lock everything down.

[Mcshammer_dj]

I would think about a touch screen approach with the guts of the system locked in a box

[adam766]

its only going on a coffee table so i liked the touchscreen, i will definitely lock it down for the network

[powdarrmonkey]

You want Surface

[adam766]

Very cool, i do indeed want surface but have a budget of 1500 with the eee top i could buy 2 and have lots left.

[Domino]

saw lots of them at BETT this year, and although I haven't used them in anger both ZeroHour and I were fairly impressed.

Nicely built little units, the touchscreen was very responsive, etc.

If I were to do it I'd consider building a web portal for it and running IE in kiosk mode for it.

[matt40k]

LinITX.com - LCD Monitors / Touchscreens

Yer... pretty much ££ but you can always pick up a cheap computer and a nice touch screen tft.

[dhicks]

i do indeed want surface but have a budget of 1500

£1,500? That's masses! You could kit out a couple of classrooms for that! For that amount, get two projectors, a can of whiteboard paint, a wireless keyboard and mouse and a second-hand PC off eBay. Paint the top of a coffee table with the whiteboard paint and have both your projectors attached to the ceiling and pointed at the same spot on the table - now you have a projected screen that's not affected by shadows. You could go for the cheaper version with just the one projector pointing straight down at the table.

--
David Hicks

[adam766]

i know i'm sure i can find things to spend the rest of it on. cool ideas so far people thanks

[ejsaunders]

Whats your network running on?

My first thought was touchscreen, but kids will be kids, and parent's are parents, this makes it more a 'if I won the lotto and was being nice' scenario in my book. Yeah, it does cut down on mice/keyboards, leads, H&S, and people breaking stuff by tripping over things that someone's unplugged and decided to wind around something (depends if its to be left on all day too?) but its expensive.

What about a customised ITX box, with say on-board proc, gc, snd, etc in a locked cabinet, with a TFT and a trackerball-keyboard combo? You could get a local cabinet maker to make a nice surround for mounting it all in as a kiosk, and if you don't fancy trackballs, well CPC I know do keyboards with trackpads, which most people are used to these days.

I would go with a computer that would boot into Kiosk mode or at least some type of locked-down browser that was perhaps linked directly to the Intranet for the info, so they can't run programs, etc, its just iexplore as the shell or whatever (maybe one of those safer secure, cut down browsers).

Or, something running Linux that could boot over the NIC, pickup the gubbins, and then display a special desktop or the Intranet page.

I'd certainly go with locking down everything into one easy to manage space though, as I say, probably a section of the school Intranet that I'd catered specifically for THAT PC, change the browser ID to something so its auto redirected to that content.

So, sorry to waffle, but I'd say, get a cheap ITX or such mobo deal, build a nice case, mount a TFT at suitable height, cut hole for keyboard and mount that in the case too so it can't be messed with or unplugged and get it to boot straight from NIC to Intranet if its purely for info purposes.

Its one of those things that sounds amazing, but never works in practice though I can tell you.. Unless you have a lot of very inquisitive parents and your school has no annual report and they have to come and see it in person, I doubt it's gonna get much use aside from a novelty.

Oh, and there are those touchscreen adaptors that fit over TFTs... A future upgrade if it takes off perhaps?

[john]

I've used this program before for Kiosk stuff - PROVISIO - SiteKiosk - Kiosk Software für öffentlich zugängliche Computer and its brilliant! Very good stuff, and if used with a touch screen can make an on-screen keyboard appear as part of it. Well worth a go of the demo

Will say the site is in English despite the german titling that's showing