52 iMacs (circa 2012-2013), Dual-Boot (WIN and iOS) that served students, staff, Instructors and Faculty SO WELL … and don’t owe us anything, are now on the way to their Forever Recycle Home!
And The CALL Facility is back to … mostly normal, as you can see the ‘Before‘ all the iMacs (& other miscellaneous recyclables!) were picked up and the … ‘After‘! And yes, those are NEW DESKS, TABLES AND FURNITURE! More presents are coming for September!
CALL Before iMacs Recycled
CALL Before iMacs Recycled
CALL After iMacs Recycled
And the huge mountain of tech has now been moved to their Forever (for now!) homes across campus! Thanks to ALLISON for organizing everything so we all knew … what would go where! YAY ALLISON!
Each workstation in CALL now has either a NEW DELL or a NEW MAC MINI! They will all be ready for September – so much ‘Behind the Scenes‘ is going on, so that we are ready for September!
And HSD was added to the mix for recycling cardboard, plastic and paper too!
HSD and more cardboard!
HSD Cardboard Pancakes
HSD Cardboard Sandwich
HSD Hallway of Cardboard
Thanks to Sage and Keanu for helping out make mountains out of cardboard molehills! YAY SAGE AND KEANU!
We are not done yet and there are more presents to unwrap and recycle the wrapping over the summer, in preparation for September! Stay tuned!
I did a previous post about Recycling in CALL, and have also included the same Gallery of photos here, to show HOW MUCH CARDBOARD is used when purchasing technology! One computer is lots … DOZENS ADDS UP TO ?QUITE A BIT OF CARDBOARD!
CALL, & other computing classrooms, are getting new computers! Over the past few weeks, all the older iMacs have been removed, accumulated and are currently waiting to be recycled! Most of the new hardware had been put in place, but is not quite ready yet! The biggest change will be that there will no longer be dual-boot computers, running on Apple computers. Dual-Boot? What is that? It just means that with the right kind of Hogwart’s Magic, you can run both WINDOWS and iOS on an iMac! Just partition and install. Oh, if it could be THAT simple, but … let’s just say that those old iMacs served us very well!
It was always satisfying to hear from some students, that Windows running on one of our CALL iMacs was often FASTERthan their OWN Windows laptop! But time catches up to all of us, and technology advancements are even faster!
New dedicated Windows and Mac are strategically located at workstations for individual and/or group work starting in September! AND THEY ARE REALLY FAST COMPUTERS!!! And the new BIG SCREEN MONITORS ARE AMAZING! They were barely installed when … we were all sent home! I did a sneak peak a few posts ago, “SSShhhh . . . Clearihue’s Hidden Secrets . . . & GEMS” and at the bottom are the new monitors! SO MUCH MORE COMING!
And there is SO MUCH ROOM for individual studying, quiet workspaces, quiet group workspaces and comfy furniture too! A BRAND NEW CALL!
More details on the NEW computers will be in a future post, but looking back at how over the past ~9 years, the ‘old’ iMacs certainly don’t owe us anything. Every single iMac that was used since the last refresh in ~2012 was still working! That was a total of 52 computers! And I always like to say CALL had 104 COMPUTERS making it the largest computing classroom at UVic!
The CALL Facility CLE A025 – Post Flood!
Some were moved to other locations AFTER ‘The Great CALL Flood of 2015‘ and continued to work for students as drop-in with newer operating systems! We did lose some keyboards and mice and kept a wary eye on the iMacs that were doused, but amazingly, the design, the curvature of the back of the iMac, helped displace the water and they survived!
And below is the last look at all the ‘old’ iMacs from CALL! Thanks for the memories … well … maybe the memory, all 8GB of onboard RAM! Colin and crew removed ALL THE HARD DRIVES IN ONE DAY! THANKS COLIN!
Oh, and the very last photo – I even included my own work iMac, so I have reconfigured my desktop, literally, for when I am on campus! The first time in MANY YEARS, at UVic that there has not been a Mac computer on my own desktop! Lots of Macs around though! And every blog has been created on my DELL laptop at home! So, WIN wins in the end … for now!
CALL Recycle of iMacs
More iMacs
Even MORE iMacs
Yeah, more iMacs
All inventoried too
Back side
CALL Before iMacs Recycled
CALL Super Computer
Lots of recycle
Other stuff too
One last long look
MY ‘new’ Desk in CALL
But, one last bit of trivia is that … we have kept a couple of the slightly newer Post-Flood CALL iMacs for testing purposes. They can run iOS up to Catalina, but since all the new Macs in CALL will be running Big Sur, they really are test iMacs in case we need to test out support for similar hardware. They too will eventually go at some point in time.
Almost every single day, there is news of a new security breach somewhere, and that includes Canada too. And just one aspect of computer security is using a VERY difficult to guess password or passphrase.
What is the difference? To make a long passphrase short … IS a password! Passphrases are longer and are often REQUIRED to be longer than the passwords that we have become familiar with.
And in addition, something called MFA, Multi-Factor Authentication. Basically TWO things you need to know or provide, in order to proceed securely to a UVic or other important site. Think of it as an extra lock on your way into your home, each lock needing a unique key. If you don’t have the first key, you are stopped. And if you don’t have the SECOND key, you are also stopped!
This is great news and will provide ADDITIONALand IMPROVEDsecurity for all of UVic and that means for ALL OF US! Check out, of all places, Wikipedia for a ‘Wikipedia’ explanation of (MFA) Multi-Factor Authentication.
So, the next client might not be swearing at you … they might be providing you with their PASSWORD! WHICH THEY SHOULDN’T DO!
Some fun and interesting links below about famous movie hacks and security!
ComparingApplesandOranges More Recycling of….. Cardboard!
This is the final gallery for all the cardboard recycling from The CALL Facility this spring. The DELL monitors had an astonishing amount of cardboard INSIDE the monitor box itself! So if a picture is worth 1000 words, then … I will recycle all my words! My last post about recycling was here. And I made a ‘Copy‘ of that post and updated it – exactly one of the ‘OAC WordPress Hints and Tips‘ I mentioned in my Post BEFORE this one! Shameless Product Placement!
I have included the same list of UVic Recycling Links at the bottom from that same post.
ComparingApplesandOranges but not actually….. Oranges!
Ah, one of my favourite lines is ‘You can’t compare apples to oranges!‘ OF COURSE YOU CAN! I just did! LOL!
I am unpacking the new tech for The CALL Facility and the old adage of ‘clean as you go’ works well in tandem with ‘clean as you go AND RECYCLE‘ TOO! So I kept the DELL ‘thinking inside the box‘ pile beside the Apple ‘thinking inside the box‘ pile on separate tables, just as a curiosity. Well, it was very interesting!
First, the new tech is AMAZING! This is the first tech refresh in many years for CALL and I am certain that all the students are going to be impressed! AND the new furniture and a few more wonderful surprises are in store for when we do go back to UVic in September! ALL GOOD! MANY THANKS FOR ALL THE NEW TECH IN CALL!
So below is a little gallery of the pile of everything that was inside the DELL tech (computers & monitors) and the Apple tech (computers). Can you tell which pile came from which tech?
And that is just the interior contents, wrappings around stands, monitors, cables, etc. but does NOT show the actual BOXES that all the tech CAME IN! Basically all the plastic wrap, paper, twist ties, etc. The boxes are still there and I will be recycling them too – cardboard and internal cardboard holders for the tech.
I am scheduled on campus, each Tuesday, so I am slowly working my way around opening everything up (DONE!), taking inventory (SN#s), and then finally plugging things in! Slow, but steady progress! Do it right!
I will also do updates here, new Recycle Posts and update my Favourite UVic Links Page too!
Whatever CAN be recycled 
52 iMacs (circa 2012-2013), Dual-Boot (WIN and iOS) that served students, staff, Instructors and Faculty SO WELL … and don’t owe us anything, are now on the way to their Forever 
So, the next client might not be swearing at you … they might be providing you with their PASSWORD! 
Ah, one of my favourite lines is ‘
works well in tandem with ‘
