[plug] Computer bank

[Garry Moir]

It is really good to see so much excitement generated about the possibility 
of helping others, but lets not forget first principles relating to 
starting a busines venture.

We need to do our market research and determine the demand for services 
that we can offer, before we decide what to offer and how.

Given that Plugians probably have neither the time, nor the expertise to do 
this unaided, I suggest that we work in conjunction with one or more of the 
charitable organisations that deal with the less fortunate members of our 
community. Groups such as The Salvos, St Vincent de Paul, Anglicare etc. 
They have a much better network amongst the people we wish to contact than 
we could hope to have, so I suggest we make contact with them to determine 
both the interest and maybe get some guidance on the best ways to proceed.

Another point to consider is that whilst we may all think that offering 
training is a great idea; Who will be available to do it? It will require a 
constant effort, otherwise little will be acheived. It is no good having 
heaps of people excited and eager to learn if we are unable to muster the 
manpower to train them. This is not something that we can just have a bit 
of a dabble at and then walk away from if it gets too hard.

I question the logic of offering Linux to new users. Linux is not yet a 
user friendly desktop OS, because it still requires command line tinkering 
and that in turn requires a reasonable understanding of what's under the 
hood of a PC. If we are aiming at new users, then I vote that we give them 
MacIntoshs. On the other hand if we are aiming at more advanced users, then 
to what extent are we duplicating and competing with the established 
training industry?

These comments are not aimed at knocking the ideas raised so far, but to 
try to focus our attention on what is the exact purpose that we are aiming 
to achieve?

Garry Moir
Systems Administrator