That wouldn't be a good gift for a low income child since the child's family does NOT have the money to keep Apple supplied with cash. It's like giving a new Mercedes to a poor person who needs a car, they can't even afford the clothes needed to be allowed to step on the Mercedes dealership property let alone pay for an oil change.
As for a school, if you can find one with a fleet of 2020 Macbook Airs, the gift would be great, but as an admin of a large fleet of machines in a non-profit, I can tell you that anything anyone gives us that does NOT exactly match our existing fleet models goes straight to the garbage. It costs us more to process an outlier machine in labor than replacing it. And we buy off-lease. If you can find some very small private school they might like it. But then you are donating to the wealthy. Unfortunately the widow's desires are pretty standard from someone who knows nothing about how the computer industry functions. A 2020 Mac Air was designed as an accessory for a young hipster with more money than sense. It has no real functionality other than to be used as a brag device and once it's older than a year, it's usefulness for that task is over. If the widow really wants to donate to an underprivileged child her best bet is to sell the thing on Ebay to a hipster-wanna-be and take the money and buy a brand new low-cost laptop running windows 11 Home that is in S mode and give it to the low income child. Win 11 Home S mode is about the most useless operating system on the planet but it is supported up the wazoo and will run a web browser that will display everything, which is really what the low income child needs (said child may have zero interest in computing tech, BTW) Fortunately for the window's moral sensibilities, there's enough low income kids out there smart enough to take the gift and immediately flip it so the machine itself won't collect dust. Of course, they probably will just buy a new phone with the money but the widow will feel better about "helping the poor" or whatever. Ted -----Original Message----- From: PLUG <plug-boun...@lists.pdxlinux.org> On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom Sent: Tuesday, June 4, 2024 4:34 PM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <plug@lists.pdxlinux.org> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Schools using macbook air computers many people said: > I would love to use a 2020 Macbook Air. Before this goes too far ... the macbook was found by the widow of a friend who died two weeks ago. It is HER goal to find a school for it, or a low-income child for whom it could make a big difference in life. Helping a child would entail other obligations, hence a school is better for *ME*, or a school with volunteers who can help a low-income child with maintenance and sysadmin. We have time to make arrangements; another urgent task just got pushed on the stack, long story to tell later. I may be offline for a day or ten. Keith L. -- Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com
