Acquiring donated computer equipment. (Technology).Before you accept donated equipment for your school district, understand what computer equipment you need. It is hard to turn down free computers. And you are likely to be offered more of them, due to the new 21st Century Classrooms Act for Private Technology Investment, which encourages large companies to donate computer equipment to public and private schools by offering tax incentives for these donations. In most schools these days, computers don't operate on a standalone basis as they do in your home. They are connected to a network of some sort. Therefore donated computer equipment can only be of use to your school district if it fits well into your school's computer systems or networks and if it can run the applications you need it to run. CompuMentor, a nonprofit organization Nonprofit Organization An association that is given tax-free status. Donations to a non-profit organization are often tax deductible as well. Notes: Examples of non-profit organizations are charities, hospitals and schools. that works with low-income schools on technology issues, has found that it is advantageous to place more recent computers (Pentium 300s and above) in administrative offices, while it's often appropriate to place older computers in training labs and classrooms. Anything below a Pentium 166 connects to the Internet too slowly. Don't accept nonworking equipment unless you are certain your tech support team can repair it or that you want to use it in a training program geared toward fixing computers. Some of the best work and curriculum development around this is being done by the Students Recycling Used Technology programs in Portland, Ore. (www.strut.org). Reputable Dealers If you are unsure whether a donated computer is useful to you, refer donors to a refurbisher or recycler. Refurbishers usually handle newer equipment that they fix up for reuse. Recyclers accept older equipment, take out useful parts and break down the rest for recovery of materials. If you can't accept a computer equipment donation, provide people with alternatives to properly dispose of it. Find listings at TechSoup (www.rechsoup.org/recycle). Whenever possible, seek donations from a reputable refurbisher. Rather than soliciting or accepting donations directly from individuals or businesses, it is often wise to apply to refurbishers for older equipment. This gives you a better chance of getting good equipment in working order. Share The Technology's online database (www.sharetechnology.org) matches donors with recipients by locale (programming) locale - A geopolitical place or area, especially in the context of configuring an operating system or application program with its character sets, date and time formats, currency formats etc. Locales are significant for internationalisation and localisation. . Additional listings of refurbishers can be found at the TechSoup site. If you accept a donation, try to get the software that goes with the donated computer. This is important because all computer software eventually corrupts. It is useful to have any original CDs or disks that came with the computer because they contain device drivers and technical manuals needed for fixing the machine. Software companies today are making it more of a priority to discover and prosecute software piracy-the use of unlicensed software. We encourage you to tighten your policies about systematic inventory of your computers, software, documentation and licenses to minimize your exposure to this liability. Getting the disks and manuals is usually enough to make transfer of the software legal. This is certainly the case with Windows operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. , one of the most important pieces of software. The manual usually contains the Certificate of Authenticity A Certificate of Authenticity (COA) is a seal or small sticker on a proprietary computer program, t-shirt, jersey, or any other memorabilia item, especially in the world of computers and sports, which is designed to demonstrate that the item is authentic. . Windows operating systems require a separate COA (Certificate Of Authenticity) A document that accompanies software which states that it is an original package from the manufacturer. It generally includes a seal with a difficult-to-copy emblem such as a holographic image. number for each computer. Your district probably has other software with site-licensing agreements in which you have permission to use the software on all computers in several schools. Responsible Disposal Remember the accessories. Don't forget about the keyboard, monitor, mouse, printer, modem or any other accessories that you'll need for the donated PC. Ask for any packaged software See software package. that donors might be willing to part with. An office suite such as MS Office or Lotus Smart-Suite is the most useful software. Delete personal information. If the donor did not do this ahead of time, make sure that your technical people delete all Internet cookies, e-mail, personal applications, temporary Internet files In a user's computer, a collection of the most recent Web pages and files downloaded from the Web. The files are stored in a folder that acts as a cache so that subsequent requests are retrieved from the local hard disk. , bookmarks, cache files and profile folder. This can be done using Norton Utilities Widely used utility programs for Windows and Macintosh from Symantec. Used to fix problems and fine tune the machine, they include functions to restore deleted files, diagnose the disk for corrupted data, defragment the disk and clean up and track changes to the Registry. WipeInfo or manually. Dispose of your obsolete computers responsibly. Find listings of recyclers at the TechSoup site, the National Safety Council's Electronic Equipment Recyclers (www.nsc.org/ehc/epr2/recycler. HTM HTM HyperText Markup (file extension) HTM Hand To Mouth HTM harmful-to-minors HTM Held-to-Maturity HTM High Tide Mark HTM Hazlo tú mismo (Spanish: do it yourself) HTM Hierarchical Temporal Memory ) or the Electronic Industries Alliance listing at www.eiae.org/. Many schools also refurbish re·fur·bish tr.v. re·fur·bished, re·fur·bish·ing, re·fur·bish·es To make clean, bright, or fresh again; renovate. re·fur their older computers and have giveaway programs to their students as a regular part of their curriculum. Jim Lynch Jim Lynch redirects here. For the Survivor contestant of the same name, see: James Robert Lynch (born August 28, 1945 in Lima, Ohio U.S.) was an American football linebacker who spent his entire eleven-year professional career (1967-1977) with the AFL and NFL is senior research manager of CompuMentor, 435 Brannan St., Suite 100, San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , CA 94107. E-mail: jlynch@compumentor.org |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion