It’s a new year and I spent a couple of days sorting my olf stuff and I found this, Compaq PResario B1900 series laptop. 4 years ago it was the main machine I use everyday. It has Intel® Core 2 Duo 1.66GHz with 2GB of RAM and 160GB of HDD. But I hardly use it now as several of its components worn off over time. Wireless Card is not functioning anymore (as you can see that I have to use SMC USB wireless dongle). LCD broke and instead of paying $3000 to fix it at HP service center, I paid $250 at a repair shop in my neighbourhood. It’s fixed but the backlight can no longer be turned off. Well, that’s fine with me. Battery life is out of question. It’s 4 year-old. Now, it can’t live without AC power.
Now I have to decice whether to trash it or try to find a way to use it for something. Then, I come up with the idea. Why don’t I try to use it as a media server at my home? Lately, almost everyone in my family has got personal tablet (both iPad and Android). It would be nice to have the media server that can stream movies or TV shows on demand to any tablets or smartphones in my home. More importantly, the setup must not be complicated.
