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Mind Dumps Go Here + Low ~ No Cost Technology 4 Productivity + OpenBSD
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Educating your old hardware, or buying your kids something other than a PS 2

Soap Box
Posted by: Samiuela LV Taufa on May 14, 2007 3:51:45 PM
Part of our investment in our kids are all those fancy advertised toys, as well as a bunch of 'educational' titles (computer programs) from Disney and other better known names in the educational software tools.
 
We've started using older hardware (cheaper to buy) for the kids, but still have been buying CDs (albeit on the cheap compared to 'current' games)
Computers are relatively inexpensive these days however the software that runs on the computer is still at a fairly high cost if you are looking at purchasing several titles. It seems ridiculous to go out and buy 1000's of dollars worth of software that your children can play educational games and do their school work. If you own an older computer (Pentium 2 or newer) and have a few hours free one weekend you can build your children a great computer so that they can play educational games and do their school work. Now you can finally have your computer back.

How you ask?

You can make your kids a usable computer by installing a free open source operating system  and some great 100% free open source applications. So first we need a operating system,  My choice of operating system for this particular task would be Ubuntu Linux primarily because it is as easy to use as Microsoft windows,  and is a one disc ISO image that you can download at  http://www.ubuntu.com/products/GetUbuntu/download?action=show&redirect=download. All the instructions you need to burn and boot the disk  are located either on or are linked from that page and are very easy to read and follow.

If you have  an extra windows or mac license and are inclined to use Windows or mac os some of these applications will run on windows and mac. There are many great applications for  children. weather they are younger  or  older   i will start with a list of applications aimed at the younger kids and i will list the application for older kids in part 2 of this article which will be posted soon

Visit bTonga

Obviously, I currently prefer a BSD system because that's what I've taught myself. But the kids get what the kids can use, not what dad can use.

At the moment they're using Microsoft Windows because that works best for them. They are beginning to like the Windows versions of childsplay and gcompris and love the Gnome Same Game, so a Linux/BSD future isn't that far away.

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