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123 Comments
- NervousEnergy, on 06/10/2009, -1/+54Interestingly, this article is almost exactly the same, with a few more added in, as the Lifehacker equivalent: http://lifehacker.com/359389/give-an-old-laptop-ne ...
I'm getting an old laptop to mess about with in a couple of days time. I'm thinking of reformatting the HD and installing a Linux Distro. Then I could use it as a backup drive..or..something. I was thinking of attaching a webcam to it, and making the images upload to an FTP server. I could use it as a remote weather surveillance device.
Ahh..geekyness ftw. - wolfing, on 06/10/2009, -0/+42I just leave it always on with the screen off as a torrent box :)
- blackhole37, on 06/09/2009, -5/+33whiffle ball bat
- webconnoisseur, on 06/10/2009, -4/+30Will it blend?
- mobilebond, on 06/09/2009, -7/+29The coolest thing would be selling it at a price of the new laptop you bought!
- joshuaer, on 06/10/2009, -5/+27Wow really? that article was dumb and worst of all on 2 pages. Here is the run down of the whole thing.
is your computer broken? part it out on ebay or frankenstein it. We all know how much used 512mb ddr ram chips go for. after ebay and paypal take the cut you can buy a stick of gum.
is your computer slow? jam some more ram into it, install a lighter OS, give it away.
repeat above with different words. - bradleyland, on 06/10/2009, -4/+25I took option 4. I dropped Ubuntu on a Sony VAIO (get off my back, it was free), and I've been really happy with it. The customer gave it to me because it was "too slow to use" with all the extraneous crap Sony includes with their drivers under Windows XP. Every time I've upgraded Ubuntu (starting with 8.04) I've seen more functionality from the laptop. I did a fresh install with 9.04 because I had done a lot of learning stuff on the previous releases that I wanted to wipe out. With 9.04, the webcam works, the wireless works flawlessly, and the display resolution works, all right out of the box. I ran the installer and walked away with a 100% working laptop. This is the kind of experience I've only come to expect from Apple, who controls the hardware end-to-end.
- salinemist, on 06/10/2009, -1/+17"not that it's undo-able, just that I haven't had a lot of time to work on it."
Sums up the life of a linux nerd nicely. - Sliver85, on 06/10/2009, -1/+16Cause we know that Windows 7 is sure to run great on an 8 year old machine
- Mszelis, on 06/10/2009, -1/+16I had a friend who had a 3 year accidental damage warranty on his laptop expiring in a month. He called IBM on Skype from his laptop and told them that he accidentally knocked his laptop off of a balcony while listening to music. They said they would try to repair it, and then if they couldn't, they would replace it.
He then proceeded to throw his laptop as high as he could in a parking lot six times. The screen was detached from the base and there was no way someone could look at it and say that it only fell once.
He got his new computer yesterday. - arch3r, on 06/10/2009, -1/+16Beat it with a bat in the middle of a field a la Office Space.
- bigmahlman, on 06/10/2009, -0/+14no computer will last forever! A MacBook Pro has the same hardware on the inside as a high end PC Laptop.
Fanboyism, will not make your hardware magically last forever or get outdated. - LoneWolf01, on 06/10/2009, -0/+10*takes Windows 7 disc away from 9 year old desktop*
- joshuaer, on 06/10/2009, -0/+10Make your child use it for homework let them know how much you had to suffer. Walk up hill both ways as been replaced with, Wait 2 days!
back when i was your age I had to wait 2 days for a web video to load! - thscientist1, on 06/10/2009, -0/+10home made projector imo...
http://www.audiovisualizers.com/madlab/lcd_proj.ht ...
its a fun project - ghostborg, on 06/10/2009, -1/+10Install Puppy Linux for the Kids, well it sounds cool.
- doshindude, on 06/10/2009, -1/+9BONK!
- joshuaer, on 06/10/2009, -1/+9If you go by a new macbook pro right now, apple stated it should last 5 years. 2 years of which it will be under warranty. 3 not. you will need at least a keyboard or trackpad replacement at some point. and in 5 years when you are still using your macbook pro it will be as slow as using an ibook 400 right now.
- CoreyTamas, on 06/10/2009, -3/+10That's like telling someone they should try to lose weight by replacing a piece of bread with a tub of lard.
- kimonokiller, on 06/10/2009, -1/+8Watch midget/tentacle porn?
What else would it be good for? - rwallen, on 06/10/2009, -1/+7Here is what I did with my old laptop :)
http://ryanallen.com/2009/01/painting-on-a-laptop- ...
http://ryanallen.com/2009/02/2nd-laptop-painting-d ...
http://ryanallen.com/2009/06/3rd-laptop-piece-done ... - DarkPilot, on 06/10/2009, -1/+7It will die a horribly, painfully slow death. First you'll think it's just an intermittent problem, no big deal.
Then you'll figure it's a software problem and you'll give re-installing the OS a couple times.
The problem will slowly get worse, until it becomes unusable and you set it in a corner and forget about it.
You'll pick it up every so often hoping it's gotten better, but it's still busted.
Pro Tip: It's the logic board! - Doomsan, on 06/11/2009, -2/+8If it's that old must be really heavy; use it to work out.
- MrZaiko, on 06/10/2009, -0/+5Sounds like a horror story.
I heard if I install software after 12AM my cute little white macbook will turn evil and explode in my face. - aLuckyStar, on 06/10/2009, -4/+9What about putting it in a microwave? Thats always fun.
- MrZaiko, on 06/10/2009, -4/+9Tiny XP the *****
- LostSoul83, on 06/10/2009, -0/+4I've got an old Celeron 1200 that my brother gave me. I use it to buy DRM-free tunes from Itunes, because I don't want to load Itunes on my netbook and have it chew up the RAM by loading the 3+ startup services. I also *hate* Quicktime. This machine's monitor is hanging on by half a hinge and the battery is MIA, but it does its job admirably. Hopefully I don't pick it up one day and have the monitor fall off.
- Smokeydabear, on 06/10/2009, -0/+4An old laptop makes a great weight when making sammies on a stove top griddle.
- 7aji, on 06/11/2009, -0/+4Sounds good, but I can't have pets in my apartment.
- teemingvoid, on 06/11/2009, -0/+4Do it again.. this time with 23% more conviction!
- IllBeBack, on 06/11/2009, -0/+4Wow, a "will it blend" comment with positive diggs? Haven't see that in a long time.
- inactive, on 06/11/2009, -0/+4I think you could get a pack of gum.
- darthfergie, on 06/10/2009, -0/+4It's hilarious to me how people say "My computer is so slow" all the time. When you ask when did you last reformat you get a blank stare. Seriously I can't count how many people who just bought computers and loaded them up with a bunch of junk and after a year or two say "This laptop is so slow!"
- nytel, on 06/11/2009, -0/+4I would take a whiffle ball bat to that article. A laptop as a wireless bridge? Really?
- NoozeHound, on 06/10/2009, -0/+3Try this in the corporate field...
This laptop is really slow NoozeHound
Really? Oooh yes, 8% free disk space. I don't recognise this. Have you installed your own software?
No. Only business stuff.
We don't provide Kodak software. Are you sure?
Well, just that...
Look, I'll get your data off and re-image it back to the latest corp standard. It will fly after that.
Errrr, no.
Well is it slow or not. It will help, really.
No, I'll wait for the next upgrade. etc - inajeep, on 06/10/2009, -0/+3I have 3 old laptops. Two dells and a Sony. the Sony VAIO has screwed up video but can still function as a home machine. I put Unbuntu on the old Dell but haven't touched the slightly new dell. I was hoping for better suggestions. Home monitoring or building a robot control module or something.
- ArthurSucks, on 06/10/2009, -5/+8Install Linux?! It's had Linux on it for years.
- marmotjmarmot, on 06/10/2009, -0/+3Same here, had an old dell with clogged up XP, set up as a dual boot Ubuntu system...then after a few months found out wasn't using windows any more. 6 months ago when I got my new laptop first thing I did was wipe it clean of vista.
- wontstoptalking, on 06/11/2009, -0/+311: turn it into a free, fully-fledged game-packed arcade system using MAME and a $50 usb arcade control pad.
- teemingvoid, on 06/11/2009, -0/+3i politely refuse to get off your back
- wassim2k, on 06/10/2009, -0/+3Turn it into a digital frame? what a waste of energy. How about turning it into a DVR?
- orthodoxDrew, on 06/10/2009, -0/+3I sent my p3 thinkpad to a dude in haiti
- antdude, on 06/10/2009, -0/+2How about a Pentium 1 150 MMX with 16 MB of RAM? :(
- Falldog, on 06/11/2009, -0/+2I turned a super old IBM Thinkpad into a digital frame a while back. Back in the day I just used Window's picture screen saver to display images. I could load images either off either CD (point the screen saver to the drive) or via a wireless network card. Add a nice mat around the outside and ta-da, you just saved a ton of money compared to buying one off the shelf.
In the end I eventually turned it back into a laptop. Electronic photo frames are bloody awful. - nathaniel9871, on 06/10/2009, -3/+5Put it in your bathroom so you can wank off while on the toilet!!
Thats what i did! - zip000, on 06/10/2009, -0/+2When my monitor died on my laptop - the bulb burned out - I just removed the monitor and hooked up an external one. It didn't look very pretty, but it worked, and I didn't have to look at the dead screen all the time.
I thought about replacing the bulb, but decided that it really wasn't worth the money - also, I have no idea how to use a soldering iron. - IllBeBack, on 06/11/2009, -1/+3Ha ha very funny joke.
However, you would be completely, totally incorrect. Most bread that you buy in a supermarket these days has quite a bit of high fructose corn syrup in it.
Lard, on the other hand, has no trans fats and is a normal saturated fat, which the body basically passes without metabolizing most of the caloric content.
Therefore, the tub of lard is actually better for you to eat than bread.
Take a look at all of the cholesterol / saturated fat myths that you low-fat diet-loving people think is healthful here:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=cholesterol+myt ... - westyvw, on 06/11/2009, -0/+2Thats plenty fast for lots of things some from that article:
*Staticpage Webserver
*Email client
*DNS server
*Firewall
*Picture Frame
*Car server for touch screen for mp3's and video with Wireless sync when parked at home
*Security Device with webcam intrusion detection
*Garage or Shop computer - thats what my 266mhz laptop does, it plays music and can display refernce material for the project at hand, internet browsing etc.
*Childs laptop
*Thin client - have your desktop be the workhorse, it just displays, with accelerated 3d depending on your card
*Light controller such as christmas lights
And so on.... my 266 sound card wouldnt work, so I added a USB sound device for $7.00 - NoozeHound, on 06/10/2009, -1/+3Did we mention what a bloated P-o-S iTunes on the PC is?
While we're at it, I'll just call 2001 and Winamp 2 to test your theory. - flyingsquirle, on 06/11/2009, -0/+2Dude, awesome stuff!
Keep up the good work! -
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