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Latest News Phoenix attends the Resource Fair at High Point High School Reaching out to the community, volunteers manned a table at the event which raised awareness of the many types of community resources that are available to residents. The Arc of Prince George’s County partner’s with Phoenix The Arc replaced older computers in both their residential facilities and their offices with the help of Phoenix Computers. They support residents in 50 homes throughout the county and have 40 computers in their offices. Holiday Park Senior Center computer lab gets Windows 7 computers One of the popular ongoing program groups at Holiday Park is the Computer Learning Lab. With the help of Phoenix, Windows 7 computers are being prepared to replace the older computers. Working together, a customized set of programs was selected to facilitate the course work and make maintaining them easier. Jubilee Association and Phoenix partner to upgrade computers Jubilee maintains community based group homes and the computers in each serve both the staff and the residents. Phoenix provided the computers for the group homes as well as those that served the office. Project ReDirect DC partners with Phoenix to provide computers Project ReDirect obtained computers for the residential and home based support services that it provides to clients with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. The Jewish Council for the Aging partners with Phoenix JCA and Phoenix are working together to provide training for older adults. Seniors are given the opportunity to learn about computers and the process of refurbishing them while at the same time contributing to the community and other seniors. Phoenix Computers is approved to offer Microsoft Office on refurbished computers When purchasing a refurbished computer, clients can now choose to have Microsoft Office installed while they wait for only $25. We are now offering Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010. Phoenix Computers joins Montgomery County Volunteer Center Being approved by the Montgomery County Volunteer Center means that people interested in helping can easily find positions listed for a variety of tasks at Phoenix. And also with this approval came the ability to provide Student Service Learning credits for students, a statewide requirement for high school graduation. Phoenix Computers opens for business November 26, 2012 was the day that we started receiving clients. The response from the referral agencies was very encouraging and since that day, the number of clients has continued to grow as referral agencies learn about what we offer and our friendly service. Windows XP ends With the release of Windows 8 in October 2012 and the termination of security patches from Microsoft for Windows XP in April 2014, Phoenix Computers has stopped using Windows XP on our refurbished computers. We only install Windows 7 as the operating system on all refurbished computer. Phoenix Computers accepted into Microsoft Registered Refurbisher program The Microsoft Registered Refurbisher (MRR) program allows refurbishers to preinstall genuine Microsoft products onto refurbished PCs at a reduced price. Phoenix purchases its operating system licenses from Microsoft. These licenses are called Citizenship licenses and are available to be used only for certain customer groups such as educational institutions, non-profit charitable organizations and other approved recipients. A new beginning - Phoenix Computers is born July 2012 marked the start of a new non profit serving the Washington metropolitan area. And with the new beginning came a new location but with the same skilled volunteers working to refurbish computers. With the expert assistance of Ballard Spahr, Phoenix Computers was incorporated and granted 501(c)(3) status by the IRS. The move to our new location began at the beginning of October and within 6 weeks we were ready to provide computers to our clients. We are quite pleased with our new facility. It is well located for our clients, easy to find and can be seen from Parklawn Drive. It is larger than the previous location by about 50% and we anticipate being able to produce in excess of 2,500 computers annually. Inside it is clean, bright and well organized. With the assistance of dedicated volunteers, private, municipal and corporate donors as well as the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Solid Waste Services, at the county's transfer station, Phoenix Computers has the potential to save over 18 tons of e-waste from the waste stream every year. Over 400 agency offices throughout Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia have partnered with our volunteers to refer their clients of low-income and those with disabilities. Montgomery County's Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Solid Waste Services has been extremely helpful in setting aside computers and parts at the county's waste transfer station. This has enabled Phoenix Computers to maintain an adequate inventory of computers to be refurbished as well as benefit the environment and our clients. Suburban Hospital Partnership 12/2010 and 4/2013 When Suburban Hospital began upgrading their computers, our volunteers recognized an opportunity to help the hospital as well as some of the needy in the community. An agreement was reached where the computer hard drives would be wiped in a secure location within the hospital. The hard drives were wiped clean to Department Of Defense (DoD) and The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) standards. They were then randomly inspected by the hospital IT staff to ensure that there was no recoverable data. This partnership resulted in almost 700 needy families receiving refurbished computers. Many thanks to the community spirit and environmental stewardship of Suburban Hospital.
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Windows 10 has arrived Windows 10 has been released and Phoenix has begun installing it on a limited number of computers.  Although Windows 10 is now available as an upgrade to Windows 7 we recommend that clients wait for a few months to upgrade their computers to Windows 10. The reason for this is that not all of the hardware on the client’s computers might be compatible with Windows 10.  Plus, we feel that Windows 10 is still a work in progress and there will be many security patches and fixes released over the next few months. VA Certificate of Appreciation for Community Service to Veterans Phoenix received an award for their partnership with the Veteran’s Administration helping their Community Outreach program.