Stuff to do with an old laptop

[wolfman18336]

Hey,
I just got a free laptop that boots and runs just fine. It's got WinXP, 256mb ram, 30gb hdd, and I'm not sure if it has wireless capabilities. It also has a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. Only problem is that the screen is shot and will not work. Not to fear for it has an s-video jack and I have one on my family room TV. Now I'm stuck with a working laptop that won't do anything portable but I could use on a TV. Any ideas on what I should do with this oversized paperweight?

[tokenuser]

Install Ubuntu, and get Boxee on it.

[xcorvis]

Yah, it has some advantages as a set-top box. Quiet, flat, low(ish) power.

You could use it as a file/backup server and tuck it under your router. Maybe attach an external drive too. No RAID, but still...

[computoman]

The only limitation is the imagination. you could always run vnc and view the screen remotely. even if it does not have wifi built in, the unit sounds new enough that you might be able to install a pcmcia card to do wifi

Sometimes also people think laptop screens are bad but they are just set to work with the outbound vga -port only. You might check and see if this is the case. there should be some marked keys on the keyboard, for changing the location of video output. Bios could be checked also.

The laptop could also be a good start to a mame-box, music server, web server, or all kinds of things. Traditional tv's should be real cheap very soon.