Following a surprise visit by Channel 4’s “The Secret Millionaire”, The Amber Foundation received received a donation from Kevin Green, one of the biggest private sector landlords in the country and a multi millionaire. Kevin was inspired by the work of Amber and gave £20,000!
Some of the funds were spent on improving the IT Facilities for the Amberteers which in turn reduced the strain put on the existing system.
Hightrees Organisation installed a new LTSP/K12Linux server along with network bootable PC’s to provide a centralised system for basic internet and application use, including Mozilla Firefox for web browsing, OpenOffice for compatibility with Microsoft Office documents.
The system has been put on a standalone network along with internet filtering software to provide controls for internet/web site use.
Alongside the ‘day-to-day’ PC’s, HP Thin Client’s were installed providing a virtual Windows environment using VirtualBox for running education software which has to run under Windows XP.
Staff have the ability to remotely monitor the machines in use as well as control the terminals ‘s when they are being used in a ‘classroom’ environment using iTalc. This allows the terminals to be locked, remotely controlled to assist the user or to override local control and to be used as a demonstration from a master terminal.
Using these Open Source tools has reduced the the amount of licensable software products such as Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Anti-Virus, freeing up funds to be used elsewhere within the organisation.
