[lug] I'll trade programming deal for a used LINUX laptop (fwd)

[Wayde Allen]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 09:59:49 -0700
From: Thomas David Kehoe <kehoe at casafuturatech.com>
To: Wayde Allen <wallen at boulder.nist.gov>
Subject: BLUG request

Can you post the following request to the BLUG e-mail list? 
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[Subject:] I'll trade programming deal for a used LINUX laptop

Can someone sell me an old laptop which will run LINUX, PHP, MySQL, etc.?
Or help me buy an old laptop on eBay, and install LINIX, etc. for me?
I will pay for the computer, plus I may be able to get a programmer to do
work for you.

My company is in Boulder, and makes electronic anti-stuttering devices.  A
25-year-old young man in Pakistan stutters severely, and desperately needs
our $700 device.  He is intelligent and hard-working, but only earns
$0.30/hour as a typist.  He has a computer and says he's learning Java.  I'm
giving him the anti-stuttering device.  He says he'll repay me with work.
If not, I can write it off on my taxes, without really losing anything.

I'm thinking of sending him a used laptop (a desktop computer wouldn't get
through customs without major bribery), loaded with the latest LINUX, PHP,
MySQL, etc.  Plus a couple O'Reilly books, and $200 cash to he can quit his
job, and in two months -- if all goes well -- I'll have a skilled programmer
willing to work per day for less than the price of an espresso in downtown
Boulder.

I program PHP and MySQL on my Macintosh, connected by DSL to a LINUX server.
I pay the LINUX administrator to maintain PHP and MySQL.  I know zero about
installing LINUX, PHP, MySQL, etc.  I need someone to do this for me.  I'd
like to work out a deal where I pay for the hardware, you install the
software, and he'll do programming for both of us.

Of course there are a lot of risks in this.  I tried this last October with
a unemployed friend in Massachusetts.  I gave him an iMac and a stack of
O'Reilly books.  He got on the Internet for the first time in his life, met
a Norwegian woman who is perfect in every way, and now they're engaged and
he's moving the Norway.  But he couldn't figure out basic HTML, much less
the database programming I do.  Now he's doing clerical work for me to pay
off the computer.
-- 
Stuttering Science & Therapy Website     http://www.fluencydevices.com
Thomas David Kehoe       Casa Futura Technologies       (888) FLU-ENCY