Free Manuals for Refurbishing Computers

Twenty years ago, I was building computer training labs in homeless shelters with no hardware budget. I developed a small refurbishing operation with a bunch of homeless guys who were much better at fixing things than I. We simply had to trial-and-error our way through it, much like the 600 or so nonprofit refurbishers in the Community MAR network. I only wish I had had access to a set of free, comprehensive how-to guides on how to get going on refurbishing computers then. 

At long last, it's a new ball game. TechSoup has just posted that set of free comprehensive refurbishment how-to guides.

The reason we did it was because TechSoup's Kami Griffiths decided that it was high time to host a webinar on the subject, so she asked two best-in-the-business computer refurbishers to tell what they know on the subject. They were Pat Furr of Computers for Classrooms (CFC) and Bruce Buckelew of Oakland Technology Exchange West (OTX West). Both started refurbishing computers around the same time as I did in the early 90's but kept going and now each supplies well over 5,000 computers per year to schools, nonprofits, and low-income people.

You can listen to a recording of Bruce and Pat's free webinar, view their PowerPoint presentation, and download the podcast. The webinar archive page also links to our TechSoup page where you can download their newly revised start-up manuals, and seven PDF computer refurbishment start-up toolkits that Pat wrote under sponsorship by Microsoft.

The toolkits cover things like how to set up a refurbishment space or warehouse, what personnel roles are needed, how to get good refurbishable equipment, separating useable from non-useable equipment (triaging), wiping a hard drive, testing equipment, troubleshooting, software installation, laptop repair, and demanufacturing equipment to recover parts.

Gone are the days when nonprofits (or anyone) needed to find out on their own how to add some refurbishment capacity to supply computers to clients or their own programs. You now have Pat Furr's and Bruce Buckelew's sage advice.

We just found out from TechSoup community manager Susan Tenby that the webinar was a hit on Twitter. Yesterday, our presentation was tweeted more than any other document on SlideShare.net, earning us a place on SlideShare's "Hot on Twitter" section.

Photo: Michael Surran, CC license