TIPS: Putting old computers to good use

I always enjoy my weekly jaunt to Cash Generator (A pawn shop) because they usually have a plethora of old computers ranging from fairly modern dell Intel 'core 2 duo' computers right to old lumps of beige magic from the early 2000's, and the price? £10. Any computer, just £10. They are all sold as 'spares or repair' but that isn't to mean they don't work, they just need some TLC. In my home office I have 5 computers stored, all bought from Cash Generator, ready to be my next project. 

When our computers get old most of us either throw them out, sell them or store them in a cupboard to be forgotten until you decide to have a bit of a clear out, then you find a dusty old relic from years ago that used to be your pride and joy. If the latter applies to you then you should dig it right out now, because I am about to unleash 3 top uses for your old computers!

1: Home Server

Do you have a large amount of music, pictures and films all stored on your main computer? Imagine if your computers hard drive were to fail and all of your data to become unrecoverable? This would of course reek havoc upon your life surely, so why don't you back this all up with a home server? 

Step 1: Go and dig out that old computer you have neglected, I presume in a cupboard or a spare room? 

Step 2: Dust it off, go on don't be shy! I'd also advise cracking the side panel off and getting a hoover in there to get rid of all the dust clogging the fans, it's not healthy!

Step 3: Determine if the hard drive is big enough for all of your files, if not then you may want to order a hard drive online. There are 1TB hard drives going for £50 if your computer accepts SATA. The hard drive will have a plug that looks like this on it:

If your computer doens't have one of these connectors then your hard drive is a PATA hard drive, this means that you may be limited. PATA hard drives on the market at the moment (trust me, there isn't many left) generally come in a maximum size of 160GB, so if your data to back up amasses this, then you may want to reconsider this use of your old machine, still 160GB is a lot of photos!

Step 4: Re-Install Windows onto your old computer, if you don't have a license for Windows then Linux is always an option.. (I wont explain what Linux is, but it's a really neat! Free operating systems!)

Step 5: If you are using Windows then enable home sharing, or home-group and configure your computer to share Music, Photos, Documents and Video. There are tutorials all over the internet for doing this, if not then leave a comment and I will help you!

2: Media Center

Have you always wanted your media collection to be streamed through the big TV in your living room? Well this is a potential use of an old computer. 

Step 1: Assuming the computer already has Windows on it, download Xbox Media Center, this is a free media center application that runs on windows, don't worry... You DO NOT need an Xbox.

http://mirrors.xbmc.org/releases/win32/xbmc-12.3.exe

Step 2: Once you have followed the onscreen instructions to install XBMC you will want to connect your computer to your TV, most TV's have a VGA connector on them, so you can use a standard VGA cable to connect your PC to your TV. Configure your screen resolution to match that of your TV for comfortable viewing, you want at least a 720p resolution if your TV is a 1080p resolution TV. If your graphics card cannot do this, you may want to consider a cheap upgrade. 

Step 3: Connect some speakers to your computer, not your TV and load some media onto the computer. Load up XMBC and give it a try, make sure you set in the preferences the location of your media files so that XMBC can find your media. 


3: DOS Box

Ever lust over your 90s years playing games on windows 3.1, 95 or 98 and can't relive them because your flashy new windows 7/8 computer isn't compatible? No worries because you can now relive your Quake or Doom days with your old computer at hand! 

Step 1: Get yourself an old operating system! Now I'm not suggesting ~pirating~ windows 95/98 but there really isn't any other way of obtaining those now obsolete operating systems. 

Step 2: Install your chosen OS onto your old computer, and whack on some of your old games. 

ALTERNATIVELY: Install a newer operating system like Vista/7 or 8 (if it is capable of that) and install a nifty program called DOS BOX Available here:

http://www.dosbox.com/

Install this and you can then run your old games as if your system still supports them! 

I hope you find some of these suggestions breath new life into your old computer! 

Joseph Wright - SCOTech

HOW TO: Programming: Episode 1 - Basics

Programming. Give it a go!

In this tech savvy world, it's hard not to encounter a computer in your daily lives, and indeed if you are reading this blog... Well, you are using a computer right now (obviously!). Many of us go about using 'applications' without even a thought to the work that goes into producing them for our enjoyment. Programming may seem like a daunting task, but really it's very fun and simple to get into!

If you've read this far then I'm going to assume that you'd like to know more about programming, maybe you might want to give it a go yourself? If you do, then you're in the right place because with the miracle of the internet you can give programming a try without even needing to download anything to your computer. 

http://ideone.com 

IDEOne is a wonderful website that allows you to program online without needing to download any software onto your computer's hard drive. It is an online 'Integrated Development Environment', all this means is that it's somewhere you can write code and it will produce an output from what you typed into it. 

Once the website has loaded you should see this on your screen. Immediately you will notice that there is some strange writing inside of the IDE box. This is JAVA, a very popular programming language, but I am not going to start you off with JAVA, I want to start you off with something called Visual Basic.NET. To change IDEone's environment to Visual Basic.NET you need to click on the button that says 'Java' underneath the programming window where the 5 buttons are. Clicking on this shall bring up a box with an array of programming languages to choose from, but we want to select VB.NET from the list, which is on the second column at the bottom:

Once this has been clicked on, the JAVA code that we witnessed earlier will have been replaced with sample code from the programming language 'Visual Basic.NET' commonly abbreviated to 'VB.NET'.

Let's break this code down:

Imports System - This is a short piece of code that will import a 'library' into the IDE. The 'System' part of this code is telling IDEone that you want to import the 'System' library, which is the core library of VB.NET. Libraries are sets of preset instructions that you can write which are then expanded ~behind the scenes so to speak~ into larger pieces of code. 

Public Class Test - Without getting into to much detail, VB.NET is an 'Object Oriented Programming Language', this means that it works with blocks of codes called objects. Objects contain two main components: The code and the data. A class is the top dog, defining the parameters, variables and events of an object. Once a class is defined, as many objects relating to that class as you want can be created. 'Public' means that the program in its entirety can access this class, and the 'Test' part is simply the classes name. 

Public Shared Sub Main() - 'Sub' unfortunately doesn't refer to the sandwich, but rather a shorthand way of saying 'subroutine'. This is where any code that you want executing should go, inside of a subroutine. Subroutines perform the operations that produce outputs but shouldn't be confused with 'functions' which actually produce the outputs. A subroutine can be as long or as short as you want, containing mathematical code or simply text for output. The parenthesis are there for something called 'arguments', but don't go writing swear words in the brackets, I will leave explaining arguments for another time. 

End Sub/End Class - 'End' statements are simply to mark the end of some code, simply book ends!

EXCITING PART! - Now to actually write some code of your own!

Imports System
Public Class MyFirstProgram
Public Shared Sub Main()
Console.Writeline("PUT ANYTHING YOU WANT HERE!")
End Sub
End Class

Once you have copied and pasted that, you may click on the 'RUN' button:

Or... You could personalize this code. Where I have written 'PUT ANYTHING YOU WANT HERE', change that text to anything you want, but leaving the 'Console.Writeline("") intact, only changing the text inside of the speech marks. Once you click run you should see the screen change and your text output!

Now you have written your first program and taken your first steps into the wonderful world of computer programming. Well done. I will do another lesson next time on doing simple maths within VB.NET.

Thank you for reading, 

Joseph Wright: SCOTech.

IDEONE suggested by Harrison Taylor. Thanks!

Welcome

Welcome!

Ah! Hello. Like many, you have probably got lost somewhere strange on the internet in bewilderment and have found my blog. I'd like to welcome you, welcome! My name is Joseph Wright and this is my blog: SCOTech. On my blog you will find me writing regular articles about technology and the world of computers, so if you happen to like those things then please stick around... Maybe even add me to your favorites so you can keep checking back? I don't bite. 

I love technology as much as the next person (unless you're a technophobe, don't worry though... I cater for you too!), so on my page you will find many stories about technology, new and old! Useful tips will be a'plenty also, with help finding your way around computers and mobile devices. 

I can be a rather opinionated person, so I will keep my opinions short and sweet, and preferably in a section away from 'How-To's' and the like. 

I hope you enjoy my sweet, tech saturated blog! 

Thank you for reading.

~Joseph Wright: SCOTech.