Phila Nonprofit Ramps Up Effort to Solve Public's Computer Problems

By J Paul Sank, NTR Staff Reporter
August 24, 2011

When Nonprofit Technology Resources says, "Bring A Computer Ask A Question", people who respond can expect one of the greatest consumer values they'll ever get: A free workshop comprising three hours of one-on-one expert attention devoted to solving their computer problems.

"We invite people in from the community to get their computer questions answered by professionals-in-training or volunteers or skilled work clients," says NTR Help-Tech program director Steven Feldman.

"At times we've charged for the workshop. Currently we're running it for free," he goes on. "The idea is, we are looking to serve folks that have a difficult time finding good tech support elsewhere that is affordable and capable.

"So clients will bring their computers in for a few hours, whether it's their desktop or their laptop," says Feldman. "They may use our mice, keyboards, monitor, and Internet connection to leave some of that stuff at home. And our techs-in-training or interns or other skilled volunteers will help them with whatever computer questions they have."

A reasonably typical example of the BACAAQ workshop happened on July 6. Let's go there now:

Senior citizen Safiyat Muhammad's laptop "takes a long time to come on. And then when I try to do anything, sometimes it'll let me get through a process like the Facebook or the Hotmail. But, say, within ten minutes of me trying to get in, it'll freeze up, and then it'll shut down. And it's driving me outta my mind. I don't know how to fix it, so I came here for help."

Cheryl West, who joined NTR's Help-Tech program four days ago, has begun assisting Muhammad by "running an error program, 'cause the system, as soon as it's booted, it let us know she has some errors in the system, so now we're running a report to see exactly what that may be, and then we'll take it from there to see what could be causing her problem.

"I do believe it's memory," she adds, "'cause she only has, like, 1.5 gigabytes in the system, and it may just need an upgrade, but we won't know for sure until we read all what's in the system."

In addition to classroom and online training, the Help-Tech program provides participants with real-world experience in computer refurbishing and troubleshooting. Participants learn valuable computer support skills such as communicating with end-users, researching and providing solutions to hardware and software problems, and documenting problems and their resolutions. If they complete the program, they go back out into the world armed with two certifications that qualify them for jobs as help-desk technicians.

Vaughn Johnson, also a student four days into the Help-Tech program, is assisting West, his wife. He agrees that the laptop "might need more memory, but we'll see."

At this point, we should note that you can never go wrong by adding RAM (Random Access Memory) to a computer, but it may or may not fix a problem with slowness. Only if the hard drive is in top shape will it make sense to find out if RAM is the choke point. RAM problems don't often change with time and use. Drive problems, on the other hand, get progressively worse even if the software on the
computer stays the same. If NTR CEO Stan Pokras were here in the room, he would recommend that a hard drive "defragment" procedure be tried.

"Right now, we're going under the safe mode," says West a little later. "Okay, and then the safe mode, at least, it'll help boot her system up a little bit faster. It *is* a little bit faster, but accessing some of the information is still coming a little slow."

"My brother brought me here about a year ago to look at computers (in NTR's Computer Thrift Store)," says Muhammad, "because my son needed one and I was told that I could get something relatively inexpensive for him, and so I came and I looked around.

"His wife wound up buying a computer for him, so I didn't come back here," she continues. "But I came here last week, because I couldn't get this to operate. I came on a Monday; they said, 'Come back on a Wednesday around 12:30, 1:00,' and that there are classes, and that possibly someone can help me with this problem and correct it. If not, maybe I could get a different computer, if this doesn't work out."

It will probably work out somehow. NTR has a great depth of expertise, so if a Help-Tech helper doesn't succeed, an NTR person with more extensive knowledge will step in.

"What happened, I was trying to do banking on here," says Muhammad, "And it shut down in the middle of the banking. So I went on the phone and did the banking. Then I had a problem, because when it shut down, it had done the banking on the computer, but it shut down in the middle, giving me an indication that it wasn't working, and when I banked on the phone, I did double payments, and then I had overdraft fees."

Being a senior with a low income, she could ill afford those fees. "I said, 'I gotta get this thing fixed.'"

About an hour into the workshop, Muhammad says, "We're being patient. Making progress, though. It's moving faster than it did when I brought it here. It's going to different locations without it taking forever."

"There was a lot of problems where she had a lot of items checked, where in startup it would open up about 22 windows," says West. "So we narrowed it down to at least sixteen of them that we know that she actually needs to use. So now that we rebooted the computer and it opened up faster than what it was doing, so we're getting somewhere."

"But I do believe she's gonna need more memory," West adds. "So we're getting ready to check and see what type of upgrade she needs to use for her system, and once we do that, we should be okay.

"If that doesn't work," she goes on, "then we're gonna uninstall some of the programs she has in here that may not be necessary for her to have, to free up some more space also."

"Two months," says Muhammad, "I threw up my hands, because I was sitting there, 45 minutes, an hour, getting nowhere. ... Hopefully this'll do it for me."

As the workshop draws to a close, Muhammad says, "I'll be back next Wednesday, because we're working in the safe mode trying to get it to operate, but it has some very intricate problems."

"Basically, we're trying to back up what's in her system," says West, "and then reboot it, reinstall everything, and start all over to give her more access to more memory in her computer."

= = =

Clarence Draper, currently between jobs, has come here for "education and information".

"My question is, 'Why isn't my printer working?'" He hooks the Hewlett-Packard scanner/copier/printer up to his Toshiba laptop, and it doesn't do anything.

Before he registered for the workshop, he had been letting the problem ride. He's "almost embarrassed to admit" how long.

Now, though, he has become "fascinated suddenly with the computer world. ... The capabilities ...

"I'm in awe, to tell you the truth," he concluded. "It's just such a fascinating tool. I think I'm in for a nice ride. I'm excited."

BACAAQ helper Dorlean Murrain-Harris, another Help-Tech student, starts by "trying to download his drivers, connect this printer so I can print." If she can find some drivers online, download them into the laptop, get them installed properly, then the little programs will make the printer work with the laptop.

Draper also has a Kodak webcam he'd like to get working.

A little later, Murrain-Harris appears to be having trouble. "So far, no good. The drivers are in, the connection -- it's still not connecting."

Draper asks whether NTR takes donations of equipment. It does. He may decide to donate this printer if it can't be made to work with his computer.

Later in the workshop, Draper reports his status as, "failure to complete".

Murrain-Harris says, "The printer needs to be re-installed. We don't have any disk to re-install, so it cannot be completed."

Finally, at workshop's end, Draper is packing up his equipment while Murrain-Harris says, "It's no use. Compatibility's a problem ... between Windows 7 and HP."

But "the camera was cool," says Draper. "There was no problem there. Got [rid of] some spyware, and I'm good to go. I shall return next week" for "more knowledge. ... [BACAAQ is] priceless, as far as I'm concerned."

= = =

Cassandra McNeil, a graduate student, has been "unable to do my homework." Her desktop computer "had a lot of pop-up viruses. I couldn't write one document because of that."

Help-Tech participant Eric Stanford started his supportive efforts by intending "to install an XP operating system on there. It's possible that her old operating system was removed -- I don't know the location -- so we're trying to give her another one." Due to severe damage from the viruses, "it's gonna take more than a scalpel to get this thing done."

Such a serious repair effort would surely cost at least $100 or more in a shop, but here at BACAAQ, McNeil won't pay a dime for the several hours of labor. She says, "I actually went to a repair shop, at a computer repair store, and got bilked out of my money, basically."

"I actually purchased my first computer from here, [through] Community College (of Philadelphia)," she adds. "Initially, when I purchased my first computer here, I had to attend a [two-hour] class on a Saturday, learned to put the memory in and -- and I thought it was very exciting, so I remembered that experience, so that's why I came back here. ... That was a very exciting experience for me, so I always remember this location."

She's had the computer for five or six years. It has long outlived the three years NTR guaranteed it for. "I bought an *extended* warranty even, and it [has] outlived *that* one."

Help-desk trainee Angel Blanco is also on the McNeil case. "We're using a system repair disk to repair from XP, and it's three different partitions on the drive." Now that he knows about the unusual structure, he's zeroing in on drive C:, hoping to repair the system files there.

An hour or so later, "we're making a lot of progress," says McNeil. "What they did was they got my operations up and running. Now there's a lot of icons on my desktop that we need to uninstall. And then we need to put an anti-virus on there."

As the workshop nears its end, Blanco says, "The browser's hijacked everywhere I go. It's taking me somewhere else, so I gotta -- I don't know the main site of the security software, so I'm having trouble installing it. Now Internet Explorer is saying it isn't installed, so I can't use Internet Explorer. So I'm kinda stuck. Hopefully this works when I restart Firefox, and hopefully I can download this anti-virus program, 'cause she really needs it."

McNeil is feeling "wonderful compared to all the problems that I did have when I came in here." The majority of her problems have been solved, "except for this one. We've cut down to this last one. ... We're at the last stage, and I'm really sure we're gonna conquer this one, also."

= = =

The Bring A Computer Ask A Question workshop has been helping people with their computer challenges for seven years. In June 2011, however, it underwent a radical shift. Feldman lists the differences:

"We've gone from running once a month on Saturdays to once a week on Wednesdays. This allows us to make this workshop a training opportunity for our Help-Tech clients.

"We've also decided to stop charging for the program. Our costs in it are fairly minimal, especially when we run it during the week. Being that it's run during the week, it's not as easy to attract folks that are working. Making the workshop free helps us bring a meaningful reason to come back again -- it's absolutely free rather than $5 or $15.

"Finally, we have a consistent helper base in this workshop now. In the past, we were relying mostly on volunteers, and now we are relying mostly on our program clients that are already here during the week, already learning about the products they're supporting, and already planning on going into the field of tech support."

The "'Bring A Computer' workshop is wonderful," says NTR chief executive Stan Pokras, "because it really gives people who can't afford to have their computer worked on otherwise an opportunity to have some expertise brought to bear on their system and their problem.

"It serves our mission really well," Pokras continues, "And it's a whole lot of fun. It's always interesting, it's always different, and the people coming to help, who are working in there on the problems that people bring to us, generally enjoy themselves immensely, so it's a good thing for everybody concerned."

Bring A Computer Ask A Question is offered every Wednesday from 1:00 to 4:00 pm at 1524 Brandywine Street, near Broad and Spring Garden. There's no charge, but advance reservations are required and can be made easily by calling 215-564-6686.