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Seriously... who steals computers from an organization dedicated to giving them away??

Stealing from a non-profit organization. Humans reach a new low.

"Be on the lookout for laptops loaded with Ubuntu and way-too-cheap Apples."
Right... ebay it is then.

people suck

Yup, you've got to be a special kind of douchebag to steal from a charity.

How many 4MB Dimms is that?

FreeGeek's got a fairly large facility. Its about the size of a smaller grocery store. I suppose whoever broke in was able to make off with quite a bit of equipment.

But what a truckload of crap though. Who would want to steal it? I donated an old laserjet4 about 2 weeks ago, and I feel sorry for whomever ended up with it. Not trying to be a dick, its a good printer, but it eats up more electricity than a fridge.

Most of the computers that run through their system are in the PIII 700-1000 range, and aren't worth anything as far as dollars go. They do just fine for basic use. Certainly not a gamer's rig.

Anyway, I hope that they catch the tweaked out meth addict that broke in and burn him on the sidewalk. They do good work over there, and certainly don't deserve to have dumbasses stealing from them.

Digg me down NOW!

Lowest of the low. Stealing is horrible in my eye, and stealing from someone who is trying to help someone else is just inexcusable. I assume (hope?) the thieves were desperate people who probably didn't even know what the business did...but it is still inexcusable.

"Thieves also reportedly took all the laptop memory at Free Geek, which members say will force a halt to their laptop rebuilding program."

eBay should have some sort of process in place so that people who have been robbed in a certain area could submit stolen items to watch for, in that area of the country, on their site. I'm sure people/businesses would pay a small fee to put a screen up for their lost goods. It could be a VAC that would do everyone a world of good. Then again, thieves could just truck it to some other part of the country and sell it. This is where recording serial numbers becomes extremely important.

But there are always pawn shops.

Jesus that sucks.

The freecycling programs are hard pressed enough to get systems out to folks that need them. Then a couple of ***** break in probably for $2000 of scrap in their minds, when all those system could have help people giving back to their communities (possible).

What a shame.

ATTENTION ROBBERS!

I have a room full of crap that was intending to donate to my local computer recycling center, but those ***** want me to PAY! So I say, attention robbers - come over and take what you like! I have:

Three (3) Pentium1 @133mhz w/16 MB RAM Full tower desktops!!
Five (5) assorted 13 and 14-inch CGA monitors!!
Two (2) Sparcstation5 (pizzaboxes) with floppy and 4GB SCSI HDs!!!
All sorts of cables, wires, and crap that I'm NEVER going to use!!
As well as a grabbag of misc. assorted computer crap from the last 15 years!!

I'll turn a blind eye, just please come and take it all!!

wow, i know free-geek, they are local around here and known by virtually every student and tech major.

its amazing that someone would break in to steal old laptops.. it really is.
im going to send them an old desktop.

lets turn this theft into an opportunity to help.

*****. won't they be surprised when they get home and find out the equipment is years old, worth nothing on the market, and has...Linux installed!

FreeGeek doesn't install Ubuntu, or work with Macs. old PCs only.

The word usage police are here.

They were not robbed. They were burglarized. Robbery involves the use of intimidation or force in a person to person confrontation. Burglaries take place when only the burglar(s) are present. Don't know why the media can't get that distinction.

Dispatch the robots!

I read this and was horrified. So I jumped over to the Free Geek site to see if they had made any statements, and here's what they have (via http://freegeek.org/news.php#breakin):

"Theives broke in to Free Geek very early on the morning of Saturday, November 18 and stole about $4,500 worth of hardware. The majority of the items stolen were laptops, laptop RAM, LCD screens, and high-end Apple computers. Additionally, many doors were forced open and sustained costly damage. The laptop program both provides us with valuable income and provides free laptops to local non-profits. This source of funding and hardware will be missing for a while as we build up our supply. Keep an eye out for laptops for sale in Portland loaded with Ubuntu Linux: if you see one of these, please call us!"

This is truly sad. I too am a resident of Portland and Free Geek is a great asset to our community. It's fairly obvious that this place is a non-profit when you actually visit their location. They also take on people who've been assigned "community service" by our courts. I can only hope it wasn't one of those people that Free Geek was trying to help that stole from them.

I've been sitting on a bunch of my old computer gear wondering what to do with it. Guess I'll take it to Free Geek now, as they need it now more than ever.

I live in Portland, and donated my old Laptop to them.

I am in PDX too. Perhaps it was the guy in the news who paid people $$$ to sit in line for PS3's only to have them sell for about $1500 instead of $3-5 k on ebay.

Sorry it happened though. I have donated stuff there too and driven off. No need for a receipt for my working but huge laser printers.

If you guys have no idea what this organization does check out the you tube clip below. They are doing great stuff for the community and it's ***** that some one would rip them off. And if you live in the Chicago area come out to free geek chicago we have a volunteer build program and follow the same model as the Portland org.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlIF3FqhPmw

I don't have any computers to donate but I have some l mother boards and other stuff I'll go donate to them today.

donation sent.

poor *****. Hopefully this is a small road bump into getting their cause better known. I hadn't heard of them before.

Obviously, these guys had some idea what what to grab, and also knew when and how to get entry without attracting attention...though FG is in a pretty "industrial" area of town, so aside from a couple of bars in the neighborhood, there wouldn't be much reason for witnesses to be around at night. "Cynical me" thinks that someone who's volunteered with FG (or at least spent time around the facility) before must have been responsible, given the selectiveness of the burglars.

This REALLY sucks. I'm a volunteer at FreeGeek. Made it a priority when I moved to Portland. They helped me get Ubuntu cloned onto my laptop drive because my cd-rom drive was broken. Also... by taking Mac stuff they hurt another organization in Eugene that trades their PC donations with the Macs donated to FreeGeek. They hurt 2 organizations I care about greatly.

He then continued to steal the soup from a homeless shelter.

the savages in this town.

Hi there. I work at Free Geek and I wanted to take a moment to respond. First, thank you all for showing such caring and thoughtful support. Free Geek is a great place: it's volunteer-driven, gives away computers and education, and is generally a fun place to hang out for all sorts of people. Of course, we couldn't do it without support from good people like you.

Now, some answers to queries above:
* Hard drives: oh yes, hard drives were stolen. Mostly laptop, some desktop. All had been wiped before they were taken. Thank goodness.

* The people who broke in at least knew the layout of the facility and what hardware is kept where.

* There are lots of Free Geeks and Free Geek-like organizations around the country. Check out http://freegeek.org/recyclelink.php for a few. For the person in Wash., DC, I found this link: http://tinyurl.com/ylkydg

Free Geek staff and volunteers are pretty torn up by all this. Our Laptop Program Coordinator walked around with his head hung low all day on Saturday. While many of Free Geek's programs were slightly affected, it was the laptop program that was hurt most. It is currently on hold, but can be brought back quicker if people make donations, specifically laptop parts (especially RAM) and money.

It's unfortunate that organizations that open their doors wide to the entire community must risk this kind of predation.

Thanks again,

Shawn Furst
Free Geek

yeah, i live in pdx and have volunteered at free geek with my friends, this is a great place and it ***** me off that someone would be this stupid and uncaring and pull this sort of *****. I hope these people are found and that free geek lives on and is made stronger by this other then making it falter in its path of awesomeness.
free geek= nerd power.