Another Gates computers query -- adding software

[Phalbe Henriksen]

Hello, again, everyone.

What have you added to your Gates Foundation computers and what have you 
tried that didn't work?

We've decided it's time to add software to the Gates Foundation computers. 
We have teenagers playing the Barney games! I've spent some time looking 
around and talking to people and discovered that there is a virtual mine 
field out there to be negotiated.

First, you have to negotiate the site licence issue, if that's what you 
want. Second, you need to know if the game CD is hard-coded to search only 
the CD drive, or if the executable can find the hard drive or the server. 
Third, you need to know if the software can be accessed from more than one 
computer at the time if you want to load it on the server. Fourth, you need 
to know if the software is new enough not to have Y2K conflicts. And 
probably "etc" after that.

But, before you do all that, you need to identify what you want. We have 
added the phonics software that Recorded Books sells and will soon add 
Microsoft's Pandora's Box and Brainsbreaker, my favorite jigsaw puzzle. 
(Brainsbreaker is available from <www.brainsbreaker.com>.) One of the 
things I like about Brainsbreaker is that we can import pictures and turn 
them into puzzles. We want to "puzzle" (is that a verb now?) pictures of 
the library, the bookmobile, and our county and its towns. I like Pandora's 
Box because it's sufficiently sophisticated to offer a challenge to those 
poor teenagers playing the Barney games. It's also clean and non-violent. 
Actually, the phonics program, Brainsbreaker and Pandora's Box are equally 
suitable for adults. But, I'm not here to sell you these programs....

And then you need to add another hard drive to each computer, if you're 
adding programs to the public computers rather than to the server. Our 
computer consultant says the Gates Foundation computers are totally maxed 
out, leaving just enough room for NT to work. We added a 30 GB h/d to the 
one we're experimenting on.

Karen Schneider and I have been chatting about adding programs. She has an 
entirely different list from mine she's found to be successful:

>  Edmark
>
>Thinkin' Things Fripple Town
>
>  Humongous Entertainment
>
>Blues 1-2-3 Time Activities
>Blues ABC
>
>  KnowledgeAdventure
>
>  Bear's Imagine That
>  Jumpstart 3rd Grade
>  Jumpstart First Grade
>  Jumpstart Kindergarten
>  Spelling Blaster
>
>  Living Books
>  Arthur's Teacher Trouble
>  Green Eggs and Ham
>  Just Grandma and Me
>
>  Microsoft
>
>  Magic School Bus Animals
>  Magic Schoolbus Dinosaurs
>  Magic Schoolbus Explores Bugs
>  Magic Schoolbus Explores the Human Body
>  My Personal Tutor Math
>  My Personal Tutor Reading
>
>  Scholastic
>
>  Clifford Reading
>  I Spy Junior Brain-Building
>  I Spy Junior Puppet Playhouse


As you can see, Karen has done much more research than I have. She says you 
can make *no* assumptions. A company will have a CD that will work and 
another, seemingly no different, that won't. And Microsoft products aren't 
guaranteed to work just because of the Microsoft/Gates Foundation connection.

Karen circulates CDs in her library, so if she finds one won't work on the 
Gates computers, she just puts it in the circulating collection. I don't 
have a circulating collection, so I can't afford to buy a CD and then find 
it doesn't work. And that's where my question to you all comes in.  What 
have you added to your Gates Foundation computers and what have you tried 
that didn't work?

Phalbe Henriksen
Director
Bradford County Public Library
Starke, FL