The Wandering Computer
Posted on February 26, 2008
We have a computer at church that has wandered around from person to person over the past couple months. It belonged to a person for I don’t know how long, then started having issues. She was due for a new computer so I ordered one for her. When I had her all set up, I took hers out of commission, intending to re-image it. Before I got to it, one of the pastor’s laptop needed the screen replaced, so I checked out the wandering computer and it seemed ok, except for needing an upgrade in memory. I set him up with it and ordered the memory. I either upped it to 1gb or 2gb, but it came in a few days later.
Not long after that, his laptop came back from it’s warranty repair and I took the wandering computer back. After that, the computer that feeds the flat screen in the lobby began having major issues, so I stuck the wandering computer there for about 1 week. Next, our long time worship leader came on staff and I began the process of ordering him a new laptop and right about the time I ordered it, I realized I could give him the wanderer, so I took it out of the sound booth. That was ok because I just plugged my laptop in and used it to feed the flatscreen. Now that John’s laptop came in, I almost lost the wanderer to the youth. I was really looking forward to having it in the soundbooth, but I’m currently negotiating with Chris, the youth pastor and we will probably make a trade. The problem is the new cabinet he is putting together is too small for the computer he has and he thinks mine will fit in there better.
The current issue we have is our main presentation computer is having major issues and needs to be re-imaged. So, after arm wrestling Chris and easily winning, I’m putting the wandering computer back in the sound booth while we re-image the main one. By next week, he’ll have it and I’ll have the one I traded for in the sound booth too.
The wandering computer should find a new semi-permanent home in the youth room and that is where this story ends. It will have been in 6 different locations by the time it’s all said and done and I know it had at least 2, maybe 3 users from before I was here.
There’s no point to this than to document the path of one computer under my watch.
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Tags: ReachingCarthage, techarts
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2 Responses to “The Wandering Computer”
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Nice; seems like a really good idea actually for those communities that can afford to do something like this with old hardware – and there being someone who’d creatively document it
Actually, I think it’s a great point. Even a fairly small organization needs to have a spare PC that is capable of running most of the applications that a church uses. It should be ready to go and sitting on a shelf.
Thanks to buying good equipment, and keeping on top of maintenance, I don’t have machines go down often, but I’m glad that I was able to cabbage onto a descent machine and keep it on the shelf in my office for those times when a hard drive dies, or a mother board just konks out. I can drop a loaner into place very quickly and the staff member or volunteer can get back to work!
kdl