Here are a few photos of NABB's library, before and after. Before the conversion, the room was mainly used for storage and eventually became a dumping ground for all the items the teachers no longer required in the classrooms.

Space is at a premium in Holmfirth J I & N School, it was therefore essential that whatever furniture was fitted accommodated as much as possible.

Before
This was the NABB's library back in April 2007.














After
In August 2007 it was complete.
































There are 17 thin clients housed in the room. The Promethean ActivBoard is connected to a Windows XP machine in a server cabinet 15m away. The USB leads use repeaters so no data is lost. A standard USB connection can be no longer that 7-10m before a repeater is required.


Each HP 5725 thin client is mounted to the bottom of the furniture using HP's quick release bracket. This provides quick and easy access to all the cables & means that a client is very quick to swap.

It's been almost a year now since Promethean revealed that they're working on Linux drivers for their range of ActivBoards and still no news of when and if it's to be released to the public.

Through piecing together information I've googled, it seems that Promethean advertised for a Linux/Mac software tester back in March, it's unclear if they managed to recruit anyone for the position. Now they're again recruiting for a similar position :

Software Tester: "You will be responsible for testing the full range of software & hardware products on Windows, Mac & Linux platforms. You will assist with maintaining the issue database & will liaise with other departments to qualify issues raised from internal & external users."

This is becoming quite a problem for us because as I've mentioned before it's the school's intention to make the transition to FOSS. There is certainly more demand for Linux support from Promethean, especially this year, but the exact numbers are unclear. I would therefore urge Promethean to adopt a platform-agnostic approach within a reasonable time frame to satisfy this increasing demand.