Project:
Refurbishing Computers
Project Name:
HelpingTulsa
User Group Name:
Tulsa Computer Society
Location:
Tulsa, Oklahoma
WHAT we do
Project Description:
Refurbishing computers, and giving them to schools, churches, non-profit organizations, Senior Citizen Centers, Tulsa Housing Authority facilities, and HUD Section 8 facilities.
We have been refurbishing computers for seven years (the last two of which were under the HelpingTulsa name). As http://helpingtulsa.org indicates, during the last two years we have refurbished 957 computers. These computers have one of three sets of application software installed on them: Bible, Senior, and Children. See http://www.helpingtulsa.org/images/ to see what is in each set of application software.
How we will use award money:
Monetary award would be used to cover purchases of items not provided when companies donate computers to be refurbished. For example some remove hard drives, or fail to provide mice and power cables. We would also like to purchase software that will completely destroy all information on a hard drive, so we can provide that software to major donors in hope that they will give us their old hard drives, and we would like to fund the expense of a mailing to encourage major corporations to donate their old computers to our project.
Supporting Documentation:
See the http://helpingtulsa.org website. Note that we have monthly entries in which we document how many machines were distributed that month and where they went, and we also include entries showing photos illustrating how the distributed computers are being used.

HOW we do what we do
This is documentation on all of the procedures we use in our Computer Refurbishing project, including sources for all of the programs we use, and procedures on how each of the tools we have developed can be constructed. There is even an offer to Generate an Image Machine HD for Other Projects
All of the files describing how we Refurbish Computers should be available by following the first link, but to make things easier on the Jerry Awards judges I am listing some of the main subfiles in this site:
What we do when we get a donated computer
Clone 4 Disk - the first tool we use
Programs on the Clone Disk, including where to find those programs
Image Machine, including where to find the application programs installed by the image machine
Windows Partition
Clone Partition, including where to find the programs used on the Clone Partition
Batch files
Explanation of the TRANSFER.BAT file which is the basis for customizing the software to be installed on a refurbished computer
Explanation of the IMAGES.BAT file which demonstrates how the operating system is selected
Explanation of the BIBLE.BAT file which demonstrates how certain application programs are transferred
How to make a new image for the Clone Partition
Making new copies of floppies
Ghost Partition
Images used by HelpingTulsa
Installing a Ghost Image
Making a Ghost Image
Creating an Image Machine
Updating an Image Machine
How To Find Drivers
We will provide space for a website for recipients
How to build a web page
Interesting expansion of the program
Old Procedure which describes step by step how we did things before we consolidated everything into our Image Machine
Help Launch Other Projects
Tools we use
Publicity Is Important
Finding Worthy Recipients
Children Image
Change Wallpaper
Generating Image Machine HDs for Other Projects