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what will you do if you are me ?

glow worm

glow worm

Newbie
i have a spare lap top sitting around doing nothing. its a quite decent lap top in my opinion. its neither fast or slow..

i have no uses for it. i already have another lap top and a desktop.

so what can i do with it?

please give me all your ideas.

;)
 
Are you into Linux yet? If not stick Ubuntu on it and get learning :)

Otherwise, what's the graphics card like? If it's half decent then PVR/Boxee type thing for the TV?
 
Get big external hard drive, put ubuntu on it, set it up as a file server to store all your music/pics/movies/etc. Then you can access your stuff from any computer on the network and free up space on the other computers hard drives. After this you could mess around with setting it up with other services, maybe learn to make a webserver/website if you wanted. If you keep it close to your tv you could also do like mentioned above and put Boxee on it so you could play all your movies/whatever from it on your tv.

There are so many uses for old computers. It annoys me when I see people throwing them out.
 
Zenze said:
Get big external hard drive, put ubuntu on it, set it up as a file server to store all your music/pics/movies/etc. Then you can access your stuff from any computer on the network and free up space on the other computers hard drives. After this you could mess around with setting it up with other services, maybe learn to make a webserver/website if you wanted. If you keep it close to your tv you could also do like mentioned above and put Boxee on it so you could play all your movies/whatever from it on your tv.

There are so many uses for old computers. It annoys me when I see people throwing them out.
Click to expand...

If you download a lot of "stuff" you can setup the machine to be a dedicated server/downloader.

Just hook up a gigantic USB drive to it.

The benefits of this solution are:
1) Freeing up resources on your other machines.
2) Low power usage (my Core i7 has a 750W power supply, the laptop runs at 65W max (+10-20W for the USB Drive)).
3) Small form factor (you can stash the machine closed in your basement).
4) Learning how to set up a server can be a valuable asset (depending on your trade)

-Mike
 
Or you could always sell it or donate it. I have a old one that I'm gonna give to my 6 year old and 3 year old nephew's once I get a Windows Key for it.
 
i agree with the Linux suggestion as well.

I dual boot Win7 and Linux Mint on my laptop.

Really enjoying Linux. Only time I've booted to Win7 was to play Starcraft2 Beta or Need for Speed: World beta...basically just gaming =P

Still learning command-line in Linux...love it though. Just have to associate the commands to similar DOS commands that I used so much in the early-mid 90's.
 
Take it apart and mod it into a photo frame with some speakers. Then just remote into it and upload new pix, play music, videos, etc. :)
 
glow worm said:
i have a spare lap top sitting around doing nothing. its a quite decent lap top in my opinion. its neither fast or slow..

i have no uses for it. i already have another lap top and a desktop.

so what can i do with it?

please give me all your ideas.

;)
Click to expand...

Here's what I have done in the past:

I don't mention to any one that I have an extra computer/laptop. As I talk to friends or family it will usually come up that so and so or a co-worker is financial strapped blah, blah... At this point I start evaluating possibly donating the computer depending on all the different factors. The last one I gave away (laptop) was to my girlfriend's co-worker who has two kids in school and doesn't have a computer at home. Her and her husband work hard, don't expect any handouts, and are just trying to get by. She greatly appreciated the computer and starting crying over the whole thing. She still thanks my girlfriend every now and then at work. :)
 
Use it for all of your pirating (music,dvd) and porn downloads.

This way you don't care if you get some viruses/worms/Trojans/spy-ware here and there.
 
If it has a cpu with atleast sse3 extension, try out osx86. It's fun to mess with and port programs with. Other than that, you can make it a small folding machine. That's what I've done with old machines we don't use.
 
Without a doubt, slap on Linux on there. Then you have endless possibilities. Webserver, mail server, DNS server, Torrent box, folding box, and all the other things you can play around with.
Since it seems to have decent hardware, tweak an Ubuntu install and show off your desktop to others and spread the word :)
 
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