Re: Off topic: Ideal patron computers??

[Brooks Fancher <bfancher at bham dot lib dot al dot us>]

I would imagine that going with a black LCD monitor would go a long way
to making people think that they are more modern. When I replaced our
Public PCs in the Computer Lab and Adult Departments to years ago with
new PCs with Black LCDs, the patrons made comments to the effect of how
modern they looked. 



Also, how often you update the software on the PC and and make small
changes to the software can have that effect. I have recently started
adding Mozilla Firefox  and updated Adobe Acrobat to version 7 on our
Lab computers and the patrons have really noticed the changes. Even
changing the color scheme of windows can help. 



Front USB ports are great. We have just recently started to allow
patrons to use keychain drives and they really appreciate having the
from ports. Unfortunately, these two year old Dell towers that I
currently have in place, have recessed ports and they insert at a funny
angle preventing some of these drives to not be able to be inserted. I
cannot insert my own drive into these machines.  I am looking at some
internal USB hubs that go into the spare 3.5 floppy slot.



512MB ram is perfectly adequate for Library systems. Most of our
patrons don't have more than a couple of programs open at one time and
even on my home system, I almost never use the full gig I have, only
when I am doing video editing.



I just put in an order for 35 new systems and I chose the Dell SX280
with the LCD monitor with an all in one Stand. They take up a lot less
space and I don't have to worry about the towers on the floor, which
see plenty of abuse. I also velcro down the monitors to help prevent
them from being knocked over. 



Here are the specs of the computers that are going into the public
areas. The staff areas have slightly different specs, most notably,
internal dvd/cdrw drive and usb floppy drives instead of no cd drives
and an internal floppy that the public machines have.



Base :    Intel(tm) Pentium(tm) 4 Processor 530 (3.00GHz, 1M, 800MHz
FSB)

Floppy:    1.44MB Floppy Drive, D Module

Mouse :    Dell™ USB 2-Button Optical Mouse with Scroll

File system :    NTFS File System for all Operating
Systems

Hardware Support Services:    3 Year Limited Warranty plus 3
Year NBD On-Site Service

Operating System(s) :    Microsoft(tm) Windows(tm) XP Professional,
SP2, with Media

MEMORY:    512MB DDR2 Non-ECC SDRAM,400MHz, (2DIMM)

Monitors :    Dell UltraSharp™ 1704FPSX flat panel, all in one
stand (17.0 VIS)

Keyboards:    Dell USB Keyboard, No Hot Keys

Resource CD :    Resources CD contains Diagnostics and Driver
for OptiPlex Systems

Optional Chassis Components:    Rear Cable Cover, SX280

Speakers:    No Speaker Option

Internal Boot Hard Drives :    40GB SATA, 7200 RPM Hard Drive

Module Bay Devices :    No Optical Device

Hyperthreading:    Hyper-Threading feature preset to "ON." Can
be disabled/enabled in BIOS






Welcome to Adobe GoLive 5







------------------------------------------

Brooks
Fancher

Computer Service Department Head

Homewood Public Library

Homewood, Al 35209

Phone: 205-332-6630

Email: bfancher at bham dot lib dot al dot us

Web Page: http://www.homewood.lib.al.us









The Greene County Public Library is in the process of developing a



























jmann at gcpl dot lib dot oh dot us





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