{"id":304,"date":"2008-02-24T09:16:44","date_gmt":"2008-02-24T16:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/2008\/02\/24\/give-an-old-laptop-new-life-with-cheap-or-free-projects\/"},"modified":"2023-02-23T17:04:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T22:04:33","slug":"give-an-old-laptop-new-life-with-cheap-or-free-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/24\/give-an-old-laptop-new-life-with-cheap-or-free-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Give an Old Laptop New Life with Cheap (or Free) Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by lifehacker<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like a famed race horse or a classic book, you don’t just throw away a laptop because it’s banged up a little. Even if it seems outdated and underpowered, most any laptop is still small, quiet, and relatively low on power consumption, making it a seriously valuable spare to keep handy-even without a working screen. With some free software, a little know-how and some creative thinking about your home network, nearly any old laptop can find its second wind, and today I’ll run through some of the best ways to get it there.Photo by daveynin<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create a no-monitor, low-power spare system<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So everything on your laptop runs just fine-except the screen, the most important (and expensive) part. That’s not a death knell, just a chance for re-purposing. Set your laptop up somewhere near your router, connect it with network cable, then read up on how to set up your system to run “headless” with any OS<\/a> and only when you wake it up<\/a>. That way, you’ve got a computer that uses a bare minimum of power and doesn’t neeed no fancy screen to convert a file, download a big file, or serve as a temporary backup box. But if your system lacks Wake on LAN abilities, or you’re just looking for more use out of that laptop, you could always …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convert it to a home server<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\"torrentbox_cropped.jpg\"The idea of a “server” usually conjures images of rack-mounted, temperature-controlled boxes, or at least a desktop system, but a laptop’s power-scaling abilities, small size, and built-in screen can actually make for a quietly-great unit. You could put it next to your printer to allow printing from anywhere<\/a>, use a browser to get it grabbing BitTorrents in Windows<\/a> or Mac<\/a> systems, or set up your own web server<\/a> for grabbing files or hosting things like your personal Wiki<\/a>. Oh, and don’t forget your multi-purpose media server<\/a>, if you’ve got the hard drive space. Once you’re set up and have enabled outside access<\/a>, the world-or at least your files at home-is at your fingertips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make a better digital photo frame<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\"lapframe_scaled.jpg\"Unless you avoided the big stores entirely last holiday season, you’ve probably noticed the boom in digital picture frames-those small $100-and-up devices with not-so-amazing screens and a canned slideshow ability. If you know your laptop isn’t much for getting anything done these days, consider bending it over backwards to make for a sizable, attention-grabbing frame that can show whatever you want and possibly even grab photos as they’re dropped on a main computer. Instructables has a highly detailed guide<\/a> to taking apart a MacBook to get started, while Popular Science shows an alternate scheme using an old ThinkPad<\/a>. To keep your spare laptop from becoming a power draw (or running long and hot), consider setting up timers to run your “frame” only during your waking hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make it fly again with lightweight Linux<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you’re shelfing your trusty road warrior mostly because it just runs … so … slow, consider that it’s not always the laptop’s fault. Most modern operating systems aren’t designed to give you only the web, email, document handling, and a little multimedia, but there is an entire OS realm that is that can make your old system seem new again. Here are a few free, open-source recommendations and what an old laptop might get out of them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n