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  • Deprecated function: Return type of DatabaseStatementBase::execute($args = [], $options = []) should either be compatible with PDOStatement::execute(?array $params = null): bool, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in require_once() (line 2244 of /home2/renealte/public_html/includes/database/database.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DatabaseStatementEmpty::current() should either be compatible with Iterator::current(): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in require_once() (line 2346 of /home2/renealte/public_html/includes/database/database.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DatabaseStatementEmpty::next() should either be compatible with Iterator::next(): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in require_once() (line 2346 of /home2/renealte/public_html/includes/database/database.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DatabaseStatementEmpty::key() should either be compatible with Iterator::key(): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in require_once() (line 2346 of /home2/renealte/public_html/includes/database/database.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DatabaseStatementEmpty::valid() should either be compatible with Iterator::valid(): bool, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in require_once() (line 2346 of /home2/renealte/public_html/includes/database/database.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DatabaseStatementEmpty::rewind() should either be compatible with Iterator::rewind(): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in require_once() (line 2346 of /home2/renealte/public_html/includes/database/database.inc).

Follow-up [2014-11-15]

Neal and I are back in California again, catching up on sleep and deferred home tasks.  We also both have long lists of action items to tackle, from the Tanzania trip behind and for the Philippines trip ahead.  Each Reneal IEO trip brings lessons-learned and ideas for improvements, so it’s an exciting time for us to make strides in operations and systems that will benefit the students and teachers that we serve.  We are also hunting for resources already for the 2015 Tanzania projects.  Shipping costs to Tanzania dictate that we use laptops as clients in the low-cost computer system, so we are in need of a large quantity of used laptops to build new computer labs and address any hardware attrition at existing labs.  This will all make for a busy two months before we leave for Cebu in January!

My immediate task is helping to finalize the collaboration agreement between Reneal IEO, Arusha Node Marie, Habari Node Ltd, and the Arusha District Council.  We are now collectively working the details of school support, and we hope to send this information out next week to the four schools in the Arusha area (Mukulat Secondary School, Mlangarini Secondary School, Mwandet Secondary School, and Ilkiding’a Secondary School).  Arusha Node Marie volunteers will be making periodic visits for monitoring and teacher training, which will be a wonderful help to us in identifying challenges and opportunities for each school.  I will then work on preparing draft training materials for them, but it is so thrilling to know that they can bring their expertise as teachers and IT professionals to make the material clearer and more effective.

I also have a few updates to make for the system administration manual.  During this trip, we realized there is a need for a users’ manual as well, to provide detailed instructions for using system capabilities such as the school blog and the video and screen streamer.  We hope to issue the first version before we leave for the Philippines.  And of course, there is more equipment to ship and end-of-the-year financial reports to complete. 

Neal’s main task in the coming months will be to further his work on using NComputing nodes as clients for the Reneal IEO system.  Several of our 2014 and 2015 schools have NComputing hardware, so this is an important effort for him. He will also revisit the video and screen streamer programs that he has written to make them more robust and general purpose.  And as always, there are operating system updates to install and then testing to be done.  In the R&D department, he continues to work with Raspberry Pi and the SolidRun CuBox-I computer for a lower-power client alternative, plus spending a lot of time with Ubuntu 14.04.

We are looking forward to the next Board of Directors meeting in December to chart the course for 2015 and beyond.  There will be more time soon to reflect on the accomplishments of 2014, but for now we’ll be focusing on checking off items from our long to-do lists.  In short, the two months between now and our departure will be lively!