BB to rescue when disaster strikes

Katrina in its wake left a trail of destruction. As in any disaster, communication links are of paramount importance. An appeal from Public Webstations to set up old donated computers and make free access for the affected people. This has reminded of the killer tsunami. India was found wanting in the disaster relief operations (as usual). However, what has struck me in the appeal is the old used Pentium based computers that have the ability to run Live CD Linux versions. Of course, it gladdens my heart since I am an avowed Open Source proponent.

As the News Forge site mentions and I quote:

“The computers needed are available in abundance for free or minimal cost and many organizations have an excess of these older computers with no use for them. The technology needed to turn them into web stations is both free and effective, being based on the Linux operating system and the Firefox web browser. A single file is downloaded and burned to a CD-ROM, placed in the CD-ROM drive of the computer, and then the computer is booted from the CD-ROM. The computer boots up directly to a Firefox web browser window in less than a minute, not requiring any keystrokes or skills to get there.”

A working web station would take no more than 5 minutes to set up, and requires no ongoing maintenance except in the case of hardware failure. In case of any difficulties, the machine is just rebooted.

Broadband does has its spin offs and so does a strong robust infrastructure. The moment I read this story online, I had an impulse to put this up here on the Blog.

Any more ideas?