| | From Durham Herald-Sun Monday, September 8, 2003 | |  |  | | | The Herald-Sun/Walt Unks | | | Mark Dibner and his son, Ned, an eighth-grader at Brogden Middle School, have refurbished supposedly obsolete computers for students at Brogden who do not have computers at their homes. They turned their basement into a computer infirmary to get the machines ready for students who need them. |  | |
| | |
BY MICHAEL PETROCELLI : The Durham Herald-Sun
Sep 7, 2003 : 6:36 pm ET DURHAM -- There's still room to do laundry in Mark and Ned Dibner's basement, but just barely. A washer and dryer still wash and dry in one corner of the room, but the rest has become a sort of surgical clinic for old personal computers that, with a little effort and know-how, the Dibners hope can end up in a home where they'll be appreciated. After hours on end this summer breathing life into the supposedly obsolete machines, the Dibners plan to donate them to students at Brogden Middle School, where Ned is in the eighth grade, who do not have computers at home. For today's middle school student, not being able to connect to the world through a home computer is a major obstacle, Ned Dibner said. "I use the Internet all the time," he said. "I don't know what I'd do without it." When he and his father get done with each of the computers in their infirmary, each machine will have a modem for dial-up Internet access, as well as free software for other key functions including word processing. Mark Dibner, president of a biotechnology consulting firm in Research Triangle Park, knew little or nothing about the inner lives of computers when, on a whim, he bid on a part known as a motherboard on eBay. He found out the next morning that his bid was the winner and figured he had to teach himself what to do with the collection of circuitry he now owned. "I live on a computer, but I don't open them up," he said, "I've always had employees do that for me." With the help of how-to Web sites, the Dibners assembled a computer from scratch for Ned, and they didn't want to stop tinkering. "It's sort of like a puzzle," Ned Dibner said. "Each piece is different, and the pieces fit together differently, and once you get it you feel great about it. Calling their venture Kramden for Kids (Kramden being the names Ned and Mark backwards), they began asking friends, acquaintances and people advertising old equipment for sale on Internet bulletin boards to donate any unwanted computer parts for a good cause. Some chipped in computers that had been sitting in their closets since they bought newer models. A company donated more than a dozen monitors it had no use for since upgrading to a larger size. One person handed over a bag of perfectly good memory cards. The Dibners set to work, sometimes staying up into the wee hours in their Cranford Road basement. Getting each machine up and running with all the needed accessories and software takes about six hours, Mark Dibner said, and in some cases it took them three or four hours just to realize that a machine was damaged beyond their powers of healing. "The real expense is the time," Mark Dibner said. So far, though, the pair has finished rehabilitating more than a dozen computers, and plans to deliver 15 to Brogden this week or next. The Dibners' project was a welcome surprise for Brogden, Principal Alexis Spann said. "Most donations from parents are to the school itself," she said. "It is unique for us to get computers donated to students in their homes." Teachers and administrators have targeted 15 seventh- and eighth-grade students who have made the honor roll without the benefit of a home computer. Principal Alexis Spann said she is still waiting for confirmation from parents and students that they want the donated machines, but expects everyone eligible to accept the offer. "I don't know of any student who would turn down the opportunity to have a computer," she said. "I wish we had more. Now that the word is out, we have students coming to us asking if they can have computers." |
|
