Public Computing Services Democratizing Information

Public Computing Services is a not-for-profit organization devoted to providing computing services to everyone. We do this by distributing internet software designed specifically to let public charities distribute computing services to their segment of the public.

In broad terms, we'll do whatever it takes to put the power of information at everyone's fingertips. The most efficient way for us is to 'empower' public charities so that they can they can provide, and customize, information services to their segment of the public.

Our 'toolbox' provides computing services to the general public through the internet. Individual clients create an account on our web site or one of our clients'. From there, they can create and share documents (e.g., word processing, spreadsheets, presentations) via the world-wide-web (WWW).

Since we don't have enough space on our servers to support all the individual users we'd like to, we spend most of our time helping public charities distribute software services through their web resources. We give them all the software necessary to build the same web site and tools we use (if they want to do all the customization themselves), and all the support to do so.

The possibilities for distributing public computing services are endless. Schools can distribute software services to under-privileged students. Shelters can share their resources with the homeless. Small academic organizations can let members publish their work through the internet. Arts groups can give space to artists who otherwise couldn't promote their work. Workforce centers can distribute software services to job seekers. Similarly, we think we can also reduce the burden on government to support charities and their clients.

If you find PCS useful and want to support its continued growth, please make a donation. Your donations help pay for development costs, infrastructure and promotion of public computing services. Specifically, we need financial assistance to purchase bandwidth and keep our servers running.

Primarily, we hope the public will support PCS beause we help close the digital divide. Our contribution to community building is to give everyone better, if not quite equal, access to computing services. We hope that the long term benefits include a better informed, self-sufficent public.

We think computing services will result in a more informed, better educated public for two reasons. First, with better access to computing services, more people will learn the computing skills that they need to be self-sufficient. Secondly, if a larger portion of the public can create and share information easily, the population as a whole should be better informed. That's one of the principles that PCS shares with other public information sources such as the Public Broadcasting System, National Public Radio, and local cable access television. We think the public will support PCS for similar reasons.

A side benefit of public computing services is waste reduction. By providing computing services, we reduce the need for waste-producing processing like printing, copying and shipping. We help publich charities leverage under-utilized resources. Most charities only use a small fraction of the storage space and bandwidth provided by their web hosts. We help them distribute these resources to the public. By using, and contributing to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), we reduce development effort for all computing services. FOSS reduces 'reinventing the wheel' where competing commercial sofware delopment spends resources creating nearly identical solutions for computing needs.

Another side benefit is that public computing services can lessen the burden on governments. In addition to helping public charities distribute services to the public, we help them streamline their own technology. They can devote reduce their need for resources, and spend more of their resources on their missions, as opposed to keeping up with technology.

Our plan is to someday provide web hosting to public charities for free, like GrassRoots.org does. We hope public donations will fund 100% of those expenses. Until then, we need to pass hosting costs along to our clients. We only charge what it costs us to provide this service, including server rental, network access, and installation time.

We don't discourage that. Those are viable alternatives that could be more cost-effective. In our experience, however, many organizations are hesitant about proprietary and/or ad-based providers.

Google Apps provide similar tools and similar rates for nonprofit web hosting. GrassRoots provides free nonprofit web hosting. Neither is specifically designed for charities to distribute public computing services, which might prove less cost-effective in the long run. Google is, of course, supported by advertisements, which could impact performance (negligibly, in our opinion), but might also include unpredictable content that could be contrary to an organization's core values.

To the best of our knowledge, each of these alternatives is built on proprietary software. That limits an client's ability to completely customize computing services (negligibly, in our opinion). In addition, in the unlikely event where one of those providers goes out of business, gets purchased by another provider, or stops providing those tools for any reason, their clients could lose the ability to provide computing services.

All of the services PCS distributes are Free and Open Source Software. Among other things, that means no one has to buy a license to use it. It also means no one needs to worry about losing it if PCS ever dissolves or evolves. Every line of code we create is 'donated' back to the open source community we derived it from.

We are open to grants and grants from private foundations and possibly government agencies, but don't yet have the resources to pursue them. We don't have any specific plans for future grant solicitation, but we do believe our program would be attractive to grantors. We would welcome volunteers to help us seek and apply for grants, but it's not an immediate priority.

Contact a technology expert! One of our experts will walk through an initial checklist of what your needs are. From there a follow up call or on-site visit will be established.

1. Software Development - PCS is a proud member of the Open Source Community. If your organization can accept the terms of open source licensing, we will gladly develop and support software customized to fit your needs.
2. Data Consulting - PCS can build your organization's data 'warehouse' from the ground up. We can analyze existing data and make recommendations on how to better organize it.
3. Training - The ideal technology solutions should install right out of the box and work intuitively without training. Unfortunately, no one has yet invented ideal technology solutions. We have experience with technical documentation and end user training. We can help your organization learn to make the most out of your technology, no matter who created it. We specialize in e-Learning (online training). 
   • We can also do training at your site. We tailor hands-on exercise-based projects that reflect your organization's operations.

The PCS mission is to put the power of information at everyone's fingertips. Our 'model' is to empower public charities so that they can they can provide information services to their clients. We also strive to make it easier for then to do their jobs, by enhancing their information technology.