Troy, Please give consideration to http://www.mncfs.org/ which gives or sells refurbished computers to schools. I believe public television has a video of the operation that may be available for viewing by potential equipment providers (corporations, etc.). This work is done by inmates of the Stillwater Prison. The MnCFS process guarantee to wipe the disks, in case your client would reconsider. I got a tour of their process and it is rock solid. Any inmate who was observed, by the ever present guards, even looking at the data on the disk before wiping would be immediately "fired." This would be a personal tragedy for most inmates because the computer refurbishing jobs are the most highly coveted. I was told directly by a very smart man, in prison for murder, that the general public can do no better thing than to increase the employment of the inmates. Work done by the inmates is very beneficial to their mental health and reduces the risk to society upon their release. The budget cuts have hit the prison system, various cell blocks are being converted to double bunking which will be very stressful for all concerned. The refurbishing work earns an inmate something like up to $1 per hour, from which they pay restitution, purchase personal items, beverages, etc. Imagine the incentive system that emerges when it takes 2 hours of one's life time to purchase such a luxury as a can of Coke. The refurbished machines of older generations are simply given to education. Newer generations of machines are sold for a modest fee. In addition to helping with the mental health of the inmates, the machines are also helping reduce the cost of Minnesota education. Thank you for pondering this matter. -- Lyno Sullivan Stillwater, MN Bcc: Director of Minnesota Computers for Schools (MnCFS) > -----Original Message----- > From: tclug-list-bounces at mn-linux.org > On Behalf Of Troy.A Johnson > > > How old are these laptops? > > >>> smac at visi.com 11/21/03 11:49AM >>> > <off topic> > I will have some old laptops soon, (Toshiba, compaq, etc...) they will > > not have hard disk drives in them. They will be sold cheep because > they > don't have hard disk drives in them. They will be checked to be sure > they function at a basic level. Did I say they will not have hard > disks. > </off topic> _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list