Many people upgrade their computers and have their old one
sitting around collecting dust or better yet, add to the ambience of the self
imposed pack rat. There are several
things that you can do with your old computer that can actually benefit you or
someone you know.
Turn your old computer into a multimedia server. Spend a couple of extra bucks for a decent
sound card if you need to and you can turn this old computer into a streaming music
server and have it hooked up to your home theater system. You could store thousands of music files on
it to play back over your surround sound system. If you want to spend a little extra, you
could even possibly turn that old computer into a media center using Myth TV. (See the minimum server requirements here )
Make it a file server.
Again, Linux saves the day as you don't need to spend a lot of cashola
on server software; Ubuntu is free and can be installed from a downloadable CD
image in matter of minutes. You could
then use your old computer as a centralized file server to store all you data
that can be networked to all your other machines. This allows you to print to one central
printer, thus reducing printing costs. Similarly,
you can store all your files into one location, allowing important files such
as vanhalen-illwait.mp3 to be accessed effortlessly by everyone. You could also turn your server into a webhost
using APACHE your ISP allows you to have server capabilities. For the home you could then have control over
your blogs, webpages and online photo galleries to share with the rest of the
world.
Clean off your computer and give it away. Weather it be to someone you know who has a
need for it or to a charitable foundation, you will be helping a need without
waste. Before that decision is made
however you must wipe clean your hard drive.
There is an excellent tool out that will wipe that hard drive baby
bottom clean called Darik's Boot and Nuke.
It is a free download that will wipe away everything on your hard drive
for good. Now after that is done you
may want to load back the OS and any apps you feel would help benefit the next
user. Here are just a few charities you
may consider in giving your old computer away to. http://www.usedcomputer.com/nonprof.htm
Recycle. I really
only recommend this as the last resort as there are just too many stories
floating around that cause harm to the environment when these old computers are
just tossed into some big huge pile in some city in China that is next to a
river or underground fresh water hole.
I'm not the greatest Green-keeper in the world, but I do know that it is
a bad thing for these huge piles of metal and plastic to be eroded back into
the environment in dense areas. So, now
you know. Do you homework and maybe
spend a little extra to have it recycled properly. I know Dell has a recycling program as do
other major computer manufacturers. Here
is a start. http://www.computertakeback.com/the_solutions/recyclers_map.cfm
LAPTOPS
Car DVD Player - I recently converted an old laptop that had
windows 98 on it to a DVD player for the car.
It was an old Toshiba laptop that I loaded a free media player on, VLC Media
Player for Windows . I disabled almost
everything that automatically boots when you start up a computer and created a
fast loading machine that quickly boots into the OS. Then I set VLC to automatically load and
play a DVD when I boot the computer. I strapped the laptop
between the two seats of my vehicle and walaa!
A free portable DVD player for the car!
With just one push of the power button I can have kiddos watching
learning videos in the back seat in less than 3 minutes. I can then continue to listen to Charlando
con la Gringa
all the way home without interruption, ahhhhh!
Any views or opinions presented in this blog are solely those of the author and might not represent those of Strickler & Prieto, LLP. *****Any advice included in this written or electronic communication was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by the taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding any penalties that may be imposed on.
Blogs 
Many people upgrade their computers and have their old one
sitting around collecting dust or better yet, add to the ambience of the self
imposed pack rat. There are several
things that you can do with your old computer that can actually benefit you or
someone you know. 
(2)