Donation drive for a friend...

[seawasp]

ETA: The drive is over. Thanks very much to everyone who participated! The funds covered what was absolutely needed.


I have a friend named George Green (kharaku). He's made some... pretty bad life decisions, and he's stuck at the bottom right now; check his LJ entry here if you want details of the problems that make this an acute issue. To a great extent he's gotten himself in this mess, but at heart he's a good guy and some of his current problems are NOT his fault, so I'm going to do this for him once.

Short version: George's stuck in the Ukraine with essentially no money, and his laptop -- the tool he uses to do whatever work he can get as a web designer, writer, etc. -- was stolen from him.

He needs a new laptop; his ideal would be a Mac Powerbook but he's used others; the last one taken was an ASUS P50IJ.

I have set up a Paypal donation button below for people to contribute towards getting him a replacement laptop, probably from craigslist or some similar used location unless people are extraordinarily generous; any excess will go towards helping him have some resources to get the heck off the streets/out of charity places. If someone HAS an appropriate laptop they would like to donate, contact me and I'll arrange to get it to him.

I will leave this up for two weeks; if insufficient funds for a laptop  are given, I'll send whatever I have to George to at least give him something to work with.

Comments

[melchar.livejournal.com]

Hi hi. Good wishes to your friend. I live in Campbell, Calif - and can pass along some karma. A chum who needed help gave me his laptop for the help last year. It's a Mac and my main desktop & laptop are PCs, so it gets like no use. If someone can pick it up or pay for the shipping, it's his if he wants it.

It is a 1.67 ghz Power PC G4, running Mac OS X 10.5.8
- or if he'd rather -
I can give him my old Dell laptop [a Dell inspiron 5150, running WinXP with 2 gigs of RAM & a 200 gig harddrive] It's more than 10 years old and is still nice, but can't run MMO's any more

[kharaku.livejournal.com]

a g4 with 10.5.8 would work for the development stuff I do. It would definitly help me get back on track! How much ram does it have?

i've been asking people for a few bucks for food on the street to make ends meet lately so having a mac to develop on would be amazing in terms of helping me get back on track!

[seawasp]

Just realized you may not see the question in my reply to Melchar -- what address that you TRUST can this be shipped to?

[seawasp]

Since that obviously works for George, I'll pay for the shipping -- let me know how much it costs and I'll pay you back immediately, unless you need me to pay up first; if there are donations I'll use those to offset the shipping costs and then if there's any left send it on to George.

George, what address that you TRUST can it be shipped to?

[kharaku.livejournal.com]

My BEST advice is to send it DHL to Lviv and have them hold it at the DHL office; DHL has more English speaking employees than it does Ukrainian or Russian ones (try speaking to a Russian in Ukrainian some time if they seem like the same language) failing that the US post office does garuntee deliver and insurance but it's flakey about refunding for a lost shipment and replacment value of 'lost' objects.

I trust Yuliya's address completey but hold at office wither DHL or Post Office is a smarter option.
Yuliya's addess is Serdyuk, Yuliya 79066 Ukraine, Lvivska Oblast, Lviv 26 Syhivsk Apartment 66

It could be better to call DHL quote wise, I do need it badly but next day would be absurd I am sure

USPS (which is really fedex) Express Mail® International Flat Rate Boxes are 75 dollars, priority mail is 69 so express seems to make more sense.

[kharaku.livejournal.com]

Serdyuk, Yuliya 79066 Ukraine, Lvivska Oblast, Lviv 26 Syhivska Apartment 66

again in ANY option please try to use Pick Up At Post
I will get you the ukrainian for that phrase in latin and cyrillic letters before we ship.


This sounds amazingly exiting!

[kharaku.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming the machine is this:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.67_15.html

do you know
current ram installed
current hard drive installed
whether the battery seems to still hold a charge
?

this is about the best a non intel mac that would 'do the job' for getting me back on track to projects

[melchar.livejournal.com]

It's got 2 gigs of RAM, a 15" screen, a 50 gig harddrive - and your link looks like the same laptop. It has a 'meh' battery. The battery will keep a charge for at least an hour, but I wouldn't guarantee it to go much past an hour unplugged.

I will admit that I use an OS9 clamshell macbook [because it can run a MAC OC7.5 program that this other - newer - on cannot]. I really haven't used the G4 much at all.

Give me an address to send it to [plus any conditions I should make with the shipping] and I will try to get it mailed Monday.