Interesting uses for old laptops?

My sister graduated from college this summer, and now the XP-era laptop (Pentium M, 512 RAM, etc) she got when she entered college just sits on the bookshelf gathering dust since she no longer needs mobile computing.

Anybody got good suggestions on how to repurpose this laptop into something more productive than a bookshelf divider?

 

depending on the machine, make a home built projector and use it for a portable movie projector. Makes a GREAT router with a linux distro. tear it apart and turn it into a digital photo frame. toss a fresh copy of XP on it and use it for OLD games while on the road. heck I seem to turn them into all kinds of crap

 

Paperweight Mode.

 

Found this from digg.com:
(led to techradar.com)
Basically the same as OP's above:

10 Cool Things To Do With Your Old Laptop

Cin...

 

I use my old machine as my bittorrent box. Works well.

 

Use a 12.7mm sata-to-pata optical bay caddy, put a 2.5" 500GB-1TB HDD into it, load Ubuntu 9.04 + XBMC on it and make it a fileserver/media centre. Should have a pcmcia/USB slot so can get better wifi/gigabit lan if needed too.

 

My old laptop Penium M at 1,6GHz and1GB RAM from 512MB originally is now running as a little webserver.
I suspect you could use an old latop to set up a home server too.

 

I guess what I am going to post is connected to this in the sense that I am looking to set up a network of machines - but not necessarily with the laptop.

I am looking at something like this" http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859321013&Tpk=acer%20windows%20server

The set up I am thinking about should, optimally, work in the following way:

My partner and I have 2 independent laptops. I am also getting a Netbook. At work I will be given a desktop, which I shall promptly throw out of the window since I cannot use desktops (don't ask why...that's a whole different story and totally unrelated - workplace says yes, it is OK to refuse to use their provided machine).

My partner does the following with her laptop: (1) storing/ editing Pics (naturally!) as she is an artist (2) web surfing/ email (3) small video clips of her performances and related stuff (4) she is also working on some research, so that means documents. She is running Win XP Pro SP3 (soon to upgrade to another machine with Win 7 - I am going to convinve her to go for either an ultra lightweight laptop OR a netbook)

I do the following with my laptop: Everything - including very large (300-400 page docs with embedded pics and videos), some music, a lot of documentaries and video clips, but basically simple stuff.

Collectively, our data that we ae storing on our HDDs and mobile HDDs is coming to somewhere around 700+GB.

What we want to do (pardon the lack of appropriate terminology):

(1) Have a central database/ file station on which we can store docs, pics, videos which should be retrieveable on demand - within our home (using wireless - we always use wireless) AND remotely (that is to say, when we are not at home - broadly understood, including outside the country etc.)

(2) Keep our individual machines with very low HDD space - maybe even opt for SSDs for fast response time. Yes, I will be moving to Win 7 too.

(3) Both of us prefer the Windows ecology - simply because I am not good with computers (enought to play with Linux - tried Ubuntu with disastrous results - but that was a while ago); the partner is even worse than me.

(4) Eventually (within the next 6 months or so) each of us may want to have our own website with independent domain names. Perhaps this can be incorporated into the setup - costs aside for domain names etc.)

The base station (or however you term it) can be/ should be on 24/7/365 and would be online all the time - I am guessing here, but logically seems to be the necessary case. So, I am assuming some sort of protective/ defensive systems should be in place.

Would this be the way to go? While we are getting (within the next few months new laptops and/ or netbooks), we will be left with 2 laptops - one with around 160GB HDD and the other with 250GB HDD. The former running, as I said, Win XP and the latter Vista HP. So, how to integrate this all this to do what I mentioned above with the least hassle? And, do remember, I am not as well up as most of you guys with computers.

Thanks

EDIT: Mods...if this in the wrong place and at the wrong time, please do the needful. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Thanks.

EDIT2: To answer the OP's question: My last laptop (Sony Vaio) died on me. I retrieved as much of the data I could - never used to backup then (2 yrs ago!!!!) - and trashed the HDD, friend lent/gave me a smaller HDD which he loaded up with a version of linux (sadly some of the buttons on the machine did not work). I then gave it away to a local non-profit outfit. They seemed to be happy with it - but then again, they also seem to be much better at handling machines (and linux) than I am!

 

May be the wrong place for this question - but I'm pretty sure you'd like a Windows Home Server

I haven't got one, but would like one...

 

Yeah...sorry...you are probably right...I would request the Mods to remove it or kill it or do whatever they think best.

But that machine that I linked to in my post does come with WHS does it not?

 

Yes, it is a Windows Home Server. Which IMO is perfect for your situation.

 

Didn't originally check...
One modl of it does, yes

Well, its not totally off a home server is somethng the OP could do with his spare laptop, but he may end up with reduced performance dur to interfac limits.

 

I think I am going to buy it! Better than having multiple mobile HDDs floating around! And 1TB of space should be OK to start with and then, it appears that it is expandable. Worthwhile investment you think? Especially since it comes with WHS?

 

You may be able to build one yourself cheaper - I think davepermen built his own.

Else - any home server will be a good investment

But possibly get more space - the idea of a home server is redundancy - i.e. 2 500GB drives give you 500GB of redundant data storage - 2 copies, 1 on each drive.

 

Errr...I am ignorant about these matters. Building one will be difficult. Daveperman did share some pics and info about his rig, but then he must be well up on this kind of stuff.

But about the expensive part - I was thinking the same - I could easily buy a desktop box without the screen etc. and add the space. But I think the most expensive thing will be MHS.

 

In the UK on Amazon I think just less than 80 Pounds for an OEM copy.

So less than 100$ for you.

 

Hmm....I am in neither of those two countries. I will check with a local reseller local to me and see what price I get...but it may end up by being cheaper anyways, since I can get the box custom built.

 

I think most ready built homeservers only have 4 HDD slots - so realisticly 2TB storage (4 1TB drives) - if you build your own you can allow for more capacity

 

Hmmm...thanks...so that takes care of the redundancy factor. Anyways, I am not going to build it, but as a local guy to build it...but I guess, it will conform to a standard layout such that it can be worked on in any country hopefully...or am I dreaming too much!

Placing the call to the reseller now!

BTW, can the old laptops be used like 'thin clients'? What I mean is that can they be hooked up to the server with only a browser to allow 'guests' to access the Net etc. when they visit us but little else? Or maybe even provide them with a small storage space where they can save their files and use their USB drives to update their work etc.? Since the laptops already have Win XP and Vista, I can limit their access as 'guest users' and not as Admin - at least for the Vista machine this can be done - but there must be some way to do this in XP.

 

You can use old laptops for just about anything. Test rigs for installing OS's on if you don't want to use your main rig, servers, torrent boxes. Hell, you could probably install Server 2003 on it and have a play with that, (doubt that 2008 would run).

 

2008 would possibly need a bit more RAM.

I think its the 2008 version, its definitly not 2003 - Web Server which I run on a 1,6GHz Pentium M and 1GB of RAM.

Unless you do computing on a server any laptop would possibly do.

 

use as a router

 

I think in most cases a dedicated route would be a better idea.

 

Yes. Microsoft's Steady state is what you need.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx