Laptop Carts and the NComputing Solution
Hi!
I am the technology coordinator for a small (250 student) 4 - 8 school located in a high poverty urban district. We are trying to outfit our school with computers and looking at using NComputing cards to decrease the cost of putting multiple PCs in each classroom. NComputing puts a network card into a desktop box that you can then connect to 3 other monitors, mice, and keyboards. In effect, you get 4 terminals that share the resources of one computer. Supposedly it works fine as long as you aren't using graphically intensive programs. Using this solution we are looking at putting 4 terminals into each of our 10 classrooms for about $15,000 - $17,000. Has anyone used this product? How satisfied were you with it?
We are also looking at purchasing a laptop cart. I know Apple has a solution but I haven't researched many others. Can anyone share experience with purchasing and using a laptop cart?
I am the technology coordinator for a small (250 student) 4 - 8 school located in a high poverty urban district. We are trying to outfit our school with computers and looking at using NComputing cards to decrease the cost of putting multiple PCs in each classroom. NComputing puts a network card into a desktop box that you can then connect to 3 other monitors, mice, and keyboards. In effect, you get 4 terminals that share the resources of one computer. Supposedly it works fine as long as you aren't using graphically intensive programs. Using this solution we are looking at putting 4 terminals into each of our 10 classrooms for about $15,000 - $17,000. Has anyone used this product? How satisfied were you with it?
We are also looking at purchasing a laptop cart. I know Apple has a solution but I haven't researched many others. Can anyone share experience with purchasing and using a laptop cart?
Tags: labs, laptop carts
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Carsten Puls on
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I'm an employee at NComputing and can add that we have many schools using our X300 kits in applications using multi-media and videos. Since the X-series can support up to 7 users on one PC, there are some dependencies on the host PC's specfications that affect performance if all 7 users are running video at the same time. In general, if videos are played in their native resolution without scaling - you minimize processor utlilization and you can get great video performance across multiple seats at the same time.
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Permalink Reply by Jim D on
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I think video runs OK on the X300, certainly on the host if not on the clients, it just has problems with interactive multiuser applications that are not designed for multiple users to share a single copy of the application or OS. It's a great thin client if you want thin client performance. It seems that it is a thin client inside the PC using XP instead of Terminal Services. Our problem at our school is that MS has caught on to the hack and won't allow us to us XP. We must load W2K8 Server, but it won't run W2K8, so we have to downgrade to W2K3. The problem either way is that we must put a bunch a PC's running server out in the open and kids can hack that and then access the domain and then cause a bunch of problems. We tried Fiddlehead and it is just like a real PC, without any of the licensing problems and everything runs normally without hacks or fixes or having to pick and choose which software we are going to use. Check it out... www.myfiddlehead.com
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Permalink Reply by PaulaD on
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David,
Contact me if you are considering Fiddle Head. I've used Ncomputing and I work with someone who was involved in piloting Fiddle Head.
Paula
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Hello Paula,
Which ncomputing product did you use? X series or L series? I can't get MovieMaker and several other applications to run on the second and subsequent head. We had a couple easy to solve initial pilot sort of things (nothing big...new product I assume) with the Fiddlehead product, but it ran much more like a PC. We have tested it in our tech center successfully and are moving it to the HS. We have 2200 PC's in the two sites and are impressed. The tech support with Fiddlehead is great, they really helped us with the installation. Couldn't say the same for any other company.
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Hi Jim,
We use a combination of both Ncomputing devices. We don't seem to have a problem getting MovieMaker to run on multiple stations. In fact it runs very well. We use it at our high school in our video production class. So far it's been a great solution.
Fiddle head seems very similar but very expensive.
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Permalink Reply by Tracy Phariss on
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Hi, I piloted Ncomputer in the math computer lab at my school. After several district IT specialist and I looked deeply in the use, they determined NOT to install it in any of our 20+ high schools becuase of the student's comments and my observations . I kept a log of all problems and concerns. IT came out to the school and Ncomputer performed as poorly for them - the same crashes. Several problems occured - Java based interactive student problems would crash one or two terminal if students are going to the same website. Server based programs also crashed particular terminals when loading at the same time. So it was removed from the math computer lab and now is placed in the world language dept. To see if it will work when very little cpu power is needed if it works ok. API websites were also very very inconsistent about loading.
So I personal do not recommend N-computer for high schools. My school district is also looking at using in the elementary school level.
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Permalink Reply by Kara Norris on
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I've been looking into purchasing some of these for our small, catholic school. When speaking to other tech. coordinators they said that they did not recommend them either. I'm not sure that I want to deal with a whole new set of problems.
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Permalink Reply by David Lockstein on
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I was in the same situation as you all last year. I am an IT Director for a small school district in Wisconsin and needed to upgrade our 9 year old computers in our labs for little money. I looked at nComputing, but I did not like the hardware configuration and was worried about USB support, as well as video as most of these labs were going to be used for Adobe Indesign, CAD, and movie making projects. Plus how much will it be to upgrade in 2 years when this really intense graphic CAD program comes out you need to run in a lab? I looked at several solutions, and then I found SoftXpand www.miniframe.com It gave me exactly what I needed. A virtual desktop situation using Windows XP Pro and the ability to utilize my own hardware how I want. My first lab I replaced 23 old compaq computers with 5 high end towers all running Q6600 processors, 4gigs of DDR2 ram, and 2-3 8800GT Video Cards making 22 workstations. I replaced the entire lab for under $9000 counting hardware and licenses. Because of the layout of the lab I had to use 5 towers. I am currently replacing another lab after the huge success we had with this first lab. Due to the layout of this new lab I am able to use 4 towers for 24 workstations all running 3 8800GT video cards, and this lab will cost me about $8300.
The big difference I really like of this lab over any other solution I tested is the speed. Because it is a software solution and not hardware the software allocates the resources where they are needed. So if student A is surfing the net he is not using much for resources. Student B is using Word, still not a lot of resources so there is probably 3gigs of memory to utilize for Student C who is using Illustrator and Photoshop. All are running extremely fast because of how the resources are utlilized. I am very happy that I found this product. Thanks to the low cost I am able upgrade my whole school in the next year. On top of that, due to the energy savings of only 4-5 towers in each lab I will be able to replace a lab every year just on electricty savings instead of using my budget.
After replacing one complete lab, and building 2 smaller 6 person labs using this solution, and there not being a distributor in the US for SoftXpand, I decided to try to bring it to the US myself. If you want more information checkout www.multi-station.com or call me 920-484-3333 x269 or 920-210-3334 There are before and after pictures of my first lab on the website.
Oh, SoftXpand also has a teacher broadcast and monitoring system too.
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Permalink Reply by Dave Little on
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David, we tried SoftXpand in our library and had a number of issues.
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Permalink Reply by Jason de Nys on
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How does it go with several students streaming video i.e. Youtube?
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Fiddlehead worked very well as long as you limit the number of computer stations to the number of processor cores you have available. In other words a Quad core allows for four stations. NComputing is a mute point since XP can't be run under Microsoft's current licensing agreement. In any case video is questionable. Userfull SoftXpand was problematic for video applications. I would suggest trying Fiddlehead . It works very well and includes a number of applications that would normally be quite expensive.
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Dave, I'm curious as to what problems you have with SoftXpand, and please be clear that this is not Userful.
Jason, I know SoftXpand has no limits on what you can do with it. You are only limited by the hardware you use. To test it, I had some of my gaming students play World of Warcraft on one of my 6 workstation hosts. 6 World of Warcrafts all running at the same time, same machine all between 45-60 fps. Then again, I'm running 8800gt video cards, 4gigs of ram, and quad core processors because the money I saved on 5 machines allowed me to make sure the 1 machine was top notch. I figured if I can have 6 students running World of Warcraft at the same time, I won't have any issues with video online or off, adobe or any other programs we run here.
The only issue I have found with SoftXpand is if you don't follow the instructions when installing, ie you don't have all your monitors connected to the host so the computer has all those displays ready, Softxpand will only install to those displays available. So as long as you install SoftXpand after the lab is completely setup and connected you are fine, and it takes about 25 seconds to install and run.
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