I spent some time recent;ly playing with and learning about the concept of public computing. Computers placed in public locations, primarily for accessing the Internet.

Public workstations appear in libraries, internet cafés, hotel lobbies, work camps, military bases. They are anywhere people want to or need to access the internet, but personal computers don’t fit, or aren’t available.

There is a Canadian company who has really nailed the whole concept, Userful Corporation, out of Calgary (www.userful.com) has a product called the Discover Station. It is a Linux based computer, that is designed from the ground up for public computing.

A single PC can run up to 10 workstations, which is both economical, and very environmentally friendly, with less power consumption and manufacturing waste than 10 individual PCs. In fact last year Discover Station saved us all over 13,500 tons of CO2 emissions over what would have been generated with stand alone PCs. That is the equivalent of taking 2300 cars off the road.

If 1% of all the worlds computes were shared stations, it would have the same Co2 impact as taking 26 millions cars off the road.!

The concept of public computing is fraught with issues, security, reliability, management, cost. All are big issues with public computers.

Anyone who has ever tried to run a lab of Windows computers, knows what a challenge it is. Keeping all the systems running is a never ending chore, users try to hack in and often succeed in messing things up. All in all Windows is a fine single user OS, a fine personal computer OS, but for public computing, it well, sucks.

The software that runs the Discover Station is simple to manage and very elegant.

Running Linux, it is secure, through out, no issues with hacker or virus, and as important, there is almost no chance that users personal information gets compromised. As soon as you end your session the terminal restarts, blowing away all personal names, passwords, cookies, so security is a real strength.

Managing the Linux based system is very easy. They have a management console that lets you maintain all of your systems, regardless if you have a small network of 4 workstations in your hotel lobby, or hundreds of workstations in coffee shops across the nation. You can modify the systems, change the graphics on screens, and update the systems remotely.

One of the strongest features is the business model, you can set up your public computers for free access, or you can charge using prepaid cards that business owners buy from Userful and resell to their customers.

Userful is a Canadian company that has done a great job in taking on the challenge and coming up with a interesting solution, one that is used across the world in schools, libraries, camps, café’s and military compounds.

I was really intrigued by the business models they offer their customers. If I owned a small coffee shop or a chain, a hotel, or any place the public might want to sit down and access the Internet, one of my first stops would be to look at the Discover Station.