Novice techie revives aging Macs.

Byline: SUSAN PALMER The Register-Guard

Four years ago, Lorraine Kerwood didn't know RAM from a male sheep. A hard drive was a bad road through the mountains. The innards of a computer? Terra incognita.

Not anymore.

Kerwood can spill the guts of a Macintosh in mere minutes. She can swap out a busted hard drive, replace a fan with shot bearings, insert, say, a video card and - miracle of miracles - put all the pieces back together and get the system working again.

No one is more surprised about this than she is.

Until she took a basic computer class five years ago, she knew nothing about the complicated machines. Now, she's a self-taught techie who loves messing with hardware.

She loves doing this so much, she has become a one-woman dynamo, rescuing old Macs, refurbishing and donating them to those in need. We're not talking about a few computers or even a few dozen.

Since her first computer giveaway in 1999, Kerwood has put more than 800 Macs in the hands of those who can't afford to buy them.

She's done it one small step at a time.

The 40-year-old, fifth oldest in a working-class family of 11 kids, never figured herself for a computer geek. For most of her adult life she worked as a massage therapist, but when tendinitis led to carpal tunnel problems that required surgery, she went looking for a new line of work.

She had her eye on social services and planned to attend the University of Oregon but took some classes at Lane Community College first to make sure she could handle going back to school.

One of those classes was a basic computer class, the kind where you learn to turn on the machine and open up simple programs.

"It was actually when I went to LCC that I really learned I wasn't stupid," Kerwood said. She also realized she had an affinity for computers.

She bought herself a Power Mac, but she didn't have it very long before the hard drive died. Unable to afford the repair bill, she wondered if she could do it herself.

Opening up the box housing the computer's innards was scary given all the electrical shock warning labels both inside and out. Then she unscrewed the smaller box holding the hard drive. That turned out to be a mistake, and it wrecked the drive.

Rather than discouraging her, it only whet her appetite. She bought a couple of older Macs from a secondhand store and began training herself in hardware repair, using online sites and user's manuals as guides.

She did this all in her spare time while studying for a bachelor's degree at the UO.

Eventually Kerwood realized that not only could she understand computers well enough to fix them, she also loved doing it.

"It was like, `Yes!' It was so exciting," she said.

Computers started coming her way by word of mouth. They began filling the house she shared with her partner, stepdaughter, son-in-law and grandkids - computers in the hallways, printers in the bedrooms, monitors in the rafters.

After she'd fixed about 20 of them, she decided to give them away and called the newspaper to run an ad.

But the classified ad employees didn't believe her when she said the computers were giveaways.

"What's the gimmick?" she was asked, followed by: "You want to pay money in order to give away stuff for free?"

She had to explain herself to three different people before the paper agreed to run the ad.

By 1999, Kerwood had graduated from the UO and found a job as a caseworker for the state's Child Welfare Services office.

But she continued working on computers in her spare time, giving more and more of them away.

Some found their way into the hands of kids in foster care. Others went to elderly and disabled people.

In winter 2001, she linked up with Free Geek, a nonprofit group in Portland that refurbishes computers and gives them to community volunteers. Free Geek specializes in the more ubiquitous PCs and didn't have the time, equipment or expertise to deal with Macs, but the group was getting a lot of Mac donations and hated seeing them go to the landfill, said Oso Martin, executive director of Free Geek.

They were happy to have Kerwood take the Macs off their hands.

"We really like the fact that the Macs are getting used. Given our limited resources, it's hard for us to keep track of two different lines of hardware. We feel good knowing they're going to be working computers," Martin said.

Schools also are the recipients of Kerwood's generosity.

Last October, 25 of Kerwood's Macs went to a Grants Pass private school, where they have formed the beginning of a computer lab.

Kerwood includes in each giveaway a monitor, printer, the computer itself, a modem and user manuals, along with a basic guide such as "Macs for Dummies" for those who need it. She also stays in touch with the people who receive the computers, functioning as unofficial tech support.

The people who receive the computers aren't the only beneficiaries.

Old Macs are more likely to end up in the landfill because they're not interchangeable with PC parts, said Julie Daniel, general manager of Bring Recycling Warehouse.

"Macs are not beloved in the used computer industry," Daniel said. "They're a speciality item, not compatible with other computers, and vendors have not really wanted them for parts salvage. She is dealing with the portion of the used electronics market that is a little more difficult to handle."

Kerwood's efforts have grown so much that she's started needing help. Her mother-in-law cleared her garage to give Kerwood a repair shop. It's packed now with more than 75 computers in various stages of repair as well as cartons of parts and shelves of user's manuals.

An assistant helps Kerwood with refurbishing, and a small group of computer lovers takes parts off her hands when she runs out of storage space, Kerwood said.

"They help their community, they get free machines; that's the rule," she said.

She also passes off some of the older Macs to Anand Keathly, a Whiteaker neighborhood activist who fixes them and gives them to low-income families in his area.

People have taken to calling Kerwood the Mac Lady, and it's a name she doesn't mind. She expects to continue rescuing and refurbishing Macs, and may even apply for formal nonprofit status. She'd also like to put out a regular newsletter to those who have received her Macs as a way of helping them develop some of the technical skills that she's developed.

"Mainly, I just want them to be used and to be kept out of the landfill," she said.

TECH HELP

Mac renewal: To donate an old Macintosh or to see about getting one, call 686-2366.

CAPTION(S):

THOMAS BOYD / The Register-Guard Lorraine Kerwood refurbishes old computers and gives them to children. Since starting her efforts two years ago, she has donated more than 700 computers. TECH HELP Mac renewal: To donate an old Macintosh or to see about getting one, call 686-2366.