[Hidden-tech] Donating Computers Advise/Information?

Jonathan Dill jfdill at jfdill.com
Fri Feb 24 14:52:41 EST 2006


W. Cody Anderson wrote:

>Having many not-for-profits and schools for clients, it's generally my
>experience that one gets what one pays for from a free computer.  Even for a
>semi-new (3-5 year old) PC, I can easily make the argument that by the time
>they've paid for OS, software and RAM upgrades, not to mention my time,
>they've often already sunk 75% of the cost of a new computer.  In almost all
>cases, they choose to go for the new one - especially since they get a
>warranty, too.
>  
>
I concur with that statement 100%.  I have taken on a few old computers 
that people have given to me to pass on to charity, and found that 
people didn't really know what they had or how to properly assess the 
condition of the equipment, to be honest I regretted it and realized it 
will take more of my time and money than I want to invest.  I still have 
an old laptop that has a broken backlight, I know how to replace it, but 
it is the inconvenience and expense of getting the necessary parts to 
fix it, which I would have to find on E-bay as they are no longer 
available from the manufacturer.

What might work is if something like this could be done with a group 
like Boyscouts "Electronics Explorers" where it could also be an 
opportunity to teach kids how to repair computers, and have them do a 
good part of the work.  In high school, I repaired tape players for a 
local audio books for the visually impaired program in Schenectady, NY 
which also got some support from the GE R&D center there.  GE provided 
the parts, and a few employees from GE volunteered their time to teach 
at Electronics Explorers and show us how to do the repairs.

Lastly, to be legitimate, and not to expose any of your personal data 
that may have been on the computer, the computer should really be 
donated with any media or CDs that came with the computer originally, or 
even better, you should wipe the hard drive and freshly re-install the 
operating system.  At minimum, an older PC is also going to need current 
anti-virus software--for *personal use* you can get free anti-virus 
software such as Avast or AVG, but technically it is not legal to use it 
for anything other than personal use.

For something like a library where only internet access is needed, one 
possibility I have thought about is to run old computers off a 
lightweight CD-based Linux distribution, for example FeatherLinux runs 
fine on many old PCs even Pentium II.  Since the operating system is 
basically static info on a CD, rebooting the computer essentially wipes 
everything clean.

Jonathan



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