[K12OSN] Technology and Learning cover story: Linux

[Richard Ingalls]

IT was a great article, eh?  I'm glad to see that a national tech ed
magazine is putting more focus on Linux and OSS.

Thanks for the encouraging words Scott and Levi!  Scott - I'm a
hapa-Hawaiian (don't ask how I got to be in the Ozarks! - long story), and
my mother lives in Ewa Beach!  Small world, eh?  My tutu is from Niihau and
I have ohana on every island.  Haven't been back since 1994 though - too
busy raising a family out here in the mainland...  Scott you have land in
Rolla?  Next time you visit, "holler" at me and I'll look you up - perhaps
we can do lunch or dinner!  Levi - you're almost a neighbor too!  My
organization visits the hospital in Bolivar regularly as a role model
healthcare system.  I used to live in Rogersville (they didn't use Linux
then), and I started my college career in Rolla... best 3 freshman semesters
of my life!  I believe we were required to take FORTRAN.

And thanks to everyone on this mail list who has helped me through the years
to create those LTSP labs in my school district.  I don't know if those labs
are even still functioning now that I'm gone... it would be such a bummer if
that was dropped.  But the guy they brought in after me wasn't a Linux dude
- he shut down my Apache webserver and Sendmail email server and setup a MS
environment (probably spent money that I was going to spend on client PCs to
build more labs for more students).  Oh well...

The local hospital was looking for IT people and specifically an Educator,
and I fit the bill.  So now I do that... but I'm still promoting OSS and
Linux in particular.  We could save hundreds of thousands of dollars if we
could migrate our org to simply switching to using Open Office in a Windows
environment!

Funny that when I left the field of Education, I immediately setup a Joomla
server for a departmental blog/wiki/CMS.  Soon after the Sr. Net Admin setup
the free Windows SharePoint Services as a portal for the entire org.  So I
shut down my Joomla server - no need to double up the work we're doing.  Now
we've grown to need services that SharePoint "free" can't provide, but if we
want the full package it's too costly!  So, I'm back to beta-testing Joomla
and Drupal for my department to test, as well as Moodle and TWiki (I tried
MoinMoin, but the folks just didn't like it).

This time I think the Sr. Net Admin (who is actually younger than me) is
supportive of the idea and willing to put a virtual server online for me to
install all these OSS applications on for the entire organization.
Ironically, it will be an MS server, virtualized to run Linux as the OS...
not the other way around!  Funny, eh?  The Sr. Net Admin has experience with
Joomla/Mambo/Drupal, so that's a plus!

Wish me luck with these new endeavors folks... and if you're a praying
person, say a prayer for success on these projects.  Saving this money means
we're able to spend the money elsewhere on better patient care, or hiring
more nurses or support staff.

I hope it's OK for me to continue posting to this mail list, though I'm not
using K12LTSP anymore.  I learned all that I know about Linux (mostly) and
OSS from this list.  So I feel like it's "home" for me to talk about OSS and
Linux here.

Thanks to all of you for all that you do across the globe to help people and
organizations experience the benefits and power of OSS.  You folks are
great!

-- 
"miracles are a retelling in small letters
of the very same story which is written across the whole
world in letter too large for some of us to see."
-- c.s. lewis
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