cool things to do with my laptop

Hi im 13 and have a hp g4 laptop as my main computer. I want to do something cool like a server or something
Ideas?

 

First, homework.

 

I have please answer

 

If you want to set up a media server, try downloading Subsonic, which is a fairly flexible client for such things.

 

How about using it to teach yourself programming?

 

Did anyone else have a good chuckle at reading this.?

If you want to do something cool, check out Gary's for Steam. It is kinda like the loading program for the matrix... Start a server and invite friends on.

Google "folding" and what it is on a computer. (I'm serious). Tell your science teacher about it and ask if they have heard about it. Who knows, maybe you can get your whole school to fold.

The most important thing to do is, learn how to use the computer to LEARN. You live in a great time for this type of thing, so soak it all up. Buy, or if you can not afford it, download rosetta stone and learn another language. Once you know language, show your parents and convince them to buy the software sure you.

 

First off we need to know what O/S your using and what kinda server/networking your trying to setup. Also what hardware do you currently have and do you have a second computer to use for the network and its specs? There are some critical hardware and O/S you need to have first before we - if we can even begin to know what your going to do or need. Also you as other mentioned would be best to get a book and also read up on networking as well to grasp the concept of server/networking/client installations.

As in what have you studied up on???? That doesn't help to give you help with to start?

 

It would be very helpful if you told us what you plan on doing with your computer (media server, game server, etc?).

What are you trying to learn to do?

 

I want to do something like coding or like a small server

 

A server can be anything. What exactly do you want to do? Just install Linux and go crazy. There's a learning experience for you.

 

Coding doesn't require a server, just a text editor and complier, or (more convenient) an IDE like Eclipse (Java, with plugins for C/C++, PHP, and JS), Visual Studio Express (Visual Basic .NET, C#, and other lesser-used languages, Windows-only though), XCode (Objective-C, OSX-only though), and other IDEs. If you're more daring, you can use a simple text editor like Notepad/Notepad++/gEdit and a command-line compiler like gcc (C), g++ (C++), javac (Java), etc. There are also scripting languages that are a bit easier to pick up (like Python, Ruby (and Ruby on Rails), JavaScript, R, etc.) that don't have to compile and are generally *very* portable and don't require compiling.

Once you learn one language (whatever it is) and get the basics of programming down, learning other languages is nothing more than learning the syntax (essentially the same as human languages). I originally learned programming in Visual Basic .NET, but quickly picked up C, C++, MATLAB, R, Java, and right now I'm picking up C#. The easiest way to go about learning a programming language would be to learn the basics, then work your way up. So start with learning about variables (int, char, string, etc), Basic IO stuff (like printing "Hello World"), more advanced data structures like arrays/vectors/etc., functions/methods and how to make your own, advanced data structures like structs/typedefs/classes, so on and so on. One of the biggest differences between languages (as I've seen so far) is if they allow the programmer direct access to the computer's memory (eg: pointers and pointer manipulations); lower-level languages like C allow for this, though more abstract languages like Java, Visual Basic .NET, etc. don't allow for this. Though I'd leave pointers to the side until you're comfortable with programming after a while since messing with pointers can lead to hours of frustration.

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The problem with the server ides is that generally, you have other computers connecting to the server to send/receive some sort of data (media, email, etc.), which is hard to do when you only have one computer. Just having the server by itself doesn't do much. But learning how to set up and maintain a server and get it working with other computers is a good skill to learn.

But whatever idea you do, I'd second HTWingNut's suggestion to install Linux and go crazy with it. If you're uncomfortable with wiping out your laptop's current OS, install it in a virtual machine (such as VMWare or VirtualBox) and it won't touch the base OS. Though reinstalling an OS is pretty easy to do these days.

 

Try code academy to start to learn how to program. Learn to code | Codecademy

BTW, I tought myself programming when I was in high school.

 

is it weird that im 13 and want to do this?

 

Not at all man. Do what your heart wants to do. Learning programming or learning how to operate a server is certainly more constructive than what I've seen a lot of other 13 year olds do with their time.

 

Weird to do something you want? No. Seems Bill Gates was interested in programming about the same time as you. Sure worked out great for him.

 

Nope. I started when I was about 10 years old, and that was when computing was only for the total nerd, oh back in early 1980's (yes I'm old). Unfortunately I learned PASCAL, FORTRAN, and C in the early years, and never continued with the latest C++, Java, etc. But it is good to want to learn this stuff.

If you have a decent amount of RAM for the PC you can mess with servers in virtual machines. I did that with Server 2003. I had three clients and a server running on one PC, all networked together to test some DHCP and various networking problems.

 

As an added possibility, check out if your middle school has a FIRST FLL team (middle-school robotics, using LEGO Mindstorm kits) and/or FRC (typically high-school, using raw materials and C++/Java). That'd be a great way to challenge yourself in programming whenever you get the hang of it (at least FRC will; Mindstroms is very basic to program, but it'll still teach you program design and such). It's also a great way to introduce yourself to other concepts, if you wish, such as CAD (FRC), mechanical and electrical engineering stuff (FRC), marketing, and volunteer service. I was in a FRC team back in high school and overall it was a pretty valuable experience to me and helped me discover that Computer Science was the way to go for me (I originally went into college a Computer Engineer, but decided later on that I'd rather do software than hardware).

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