[NPMUG] Goodwill CRC update, April 17

[Robert A. Donaldson]

Dear Mac friends:

Many thanks to Charlie Hutchens, John Hamill, and Tucker Trainor, for  
joining me at the Goodwill Computer Recycling Center today.

Today was, without a doubt, the absolute worst day we've ever had  
refurbishing Macintoshes. And that's the good news... :-)

We refurbished just one Mac, a 350 mhz Graphite G4 Tower. We de- 
manufactured 12 other Macs, but not before spending a lot of time  
trying to figure out why we couldn't get them to work.

In retrospect, the answer was: They're broken. Well, duh...

I guess it's just the Polyanna in us that leads us to try to get some  
of these lost cases running when we should cut our losses and punt.

Our all-time total of refurbished Macs is now 1,826. Which, if you're  
keeping count, is exactly one more than last week's total.

We'll have another work day next Friday, April 24. Please note PennDOT  
has begun the widening project on East Carson St., and the block in  
front of the CRC is restricted to two lanes. Meter parking in front of  
the building has been eliminated during the construction.

As a gentle reminder, please note Goodwill has finally re-instituted
the security procedures they were using in the Lawrenceville facility
before the CRC moved to the South Side. Security cameras have been
activated, and the metal detector at the exit has been switched on and
staffed.

Entry is only from the South 26th St. entrance. We cannot enter the
ComputerWorks Store and go through the back door as we used to.

We are asked to stop at the reception desk at the main lobby to sign
in to get a volunteer badge, then sign in to the log book at the CRC
entrance at the metal detector. The log book now has a separate tab
section just for our members to sign in and out.

We followed these procedures when we were in the Lawrenceville
building, and it's taken Goodwill some time to re-install all the
devices to cover the area with video surveillance.

These measures are to make sure data on disk drives does not get out
of the building before the drives can be securely erased or destroyed.
Goodwill is serious about this, as everyone should be. Any incident of
data from the drives they are entrusted to wipe or destroy getting out
would destroy the credibility of their operation, and lead to people
sending computers elsewhere for recycling.

So please, check in. It takes two minutes, and we're not in any hurry.

Hope to see you there!

Robert A. Donaldson
radonaldson at mac.com
(H) 412-922-3303
(M) 412-477-9188