Apologies for starting the title with “and,” it’s a pet hate of mine and one I loathe to use, in my defence, I have enclosed it in speech marks (in old money, in new they are inverted commas).
I, along with many others, have the envious skill of being able to get many things completed, whilst looking like I’ve done absolutely nothing.
To the naked eye, I’ve simply packed away an old wii machine I was hacking to play simulated games on, moved an old TV I was using as the screen to view said games, messed about with a few odd wires, wiped clean the inside of an old computer and then cleaned off my desk, dusted and plonked the now clean old computer under a monitor.
In reality, I’ve managed to put away the wii machine complete in it’s box (no mean feat!), taken apart the old computer, stripped down the fans and casing, cleaning out all the moving parts, inside the casing and also cleaned over a years’ worth of gunk, dust and dirt from the cooling fan assembly, then put it all back together again (without breaking anything) and then cleared off my desk, placing it under my monitor, so I can use the same monitor for both the old and the cleaned PCs.
Being poor means no two monitor display, so two old PCs must share the same monitor, with a bit of jiggery-pokery, both are running independently of each other.
This involved considerable searching skills, to locate in the box of spares, a spare adsl cable to run from the router (for internet as no wifi card), an old DVI cable, which had to be switched with a HDMI cable from another computer, as my old monitor doesn’t take DVI cable, but will take a HDMI cable, so both machines can continue to work.
In addition, I had to find a power lead that was long enough, longer than the standard one (and yet another spare that was under threat of being chucked away, but was kept as “I might need it!”), an old keyboard and an old wired mouse, chucked in the spares box when one of the sprogs picked up a new funky corless mouse, many moons ago.
With all the hunter gathering complete and all the wires / leads / peripherals collected, I completed setting it all up on my existing 15 year old desk.
With both machines running, I can flip between them simply by changing the keyboard and mouse over and then changing the input on the monitor, from VGA to HDMI, easy see?
When I need the old machine again, with a different operating system on it, I switch the display and we are back in the room!
Why would you not just move everything to the more modern of the computers and just have one running, doing it all?
A fine question indeed. The very old one has a broken case, which accumulates a lot of dust, so has to be stripped and cleaned every 6 months or so. It also has lots of information and old programs stored upon it, one of them being my old outlook email program, which is set up to receive my emails. (I don’t like using the new microsoft email client, as the one new email I have for work has stopped working on it, despite being set up purposely for it and it was working fine for three years, until after “an update” – I suspect as the new update took into account that the old outlook program was no longer being updated, microsoft are upto their tricks again and causing old programs to magically fail, to “encourage” users to use the new program outlook365 instead). They’ve done it before with updates, took away standard features that people have used, to “encourage” people to upgrade to new operating systems.
Remember those car head units (radio/CD players to many) where the facia panel was taken off to stop thefts?
Well many years ago, when they were all the rage, you could burn DVDs or CDs that they could play back.
The good news is, they still do.
The bad news they don’t want you to know, is that whereby you could use the folder option on windows XP to do this, the folder option vanished in a “windows service pack update”
So 3rd party software was used with windows XP and the DVDs (with mp3s on them) played in the car stereo just fine.
More bad news… microsoft started patenting Intellectual Property Licenses (IPLs) to which the corporate manufacturers of in-car audio equipment started to pay microsoft for.
As if by magic, the DVDs burned on a windows XP computer, no longer burned on a windows 7 computer!
This rendered hundreds of thousands of in car stereos to just being glorified rcar radios!
People then had to go out and buy new equipment, yes you’ve guessed it, that could play mp3s from usb sticks and mobile phone subscriptions…
The manufacturer (read: corporate) sold more stock of new head units, microsoft pocketed vast amounts of wonga from their IP licenses and the customer got parted from their hard earned cash!
The head units continue to play mp3s and wav music files to this day, if you use an old laptop or pc running windows XP, to burn your DVD (fits around 3000 tunes on a single DVD disc).
Next time you hear from an electrical manufacturer in the field of car audio, or microsoft, making claims about how “green” or “climate ready” they are, just picture a mountain of hundreds of thousands of in-car stereos, most perfectly working ones, that they rendered completely useless, in the name of generating more business and profits.
The old PC runs windows 7, a much better operating system to windows 10, no need for many apps to be running in the back ground, taking who knows what information.
I’m gradually deleting all the stuff I have amassed on the old windows 7 PC, eventually it’ll be turned off for good, but not just yet, just in case.
In addition to all the techie wizard jobs I’ve done, I am also deleting files and folders from the old hard drives, when it will come to the point where I can just format the newer SSD drives and then copy the existing SSD onto it (more memory space) and then we’ll be down to one single PC.
I have things like old printers and joysticks for playing games that may not work on the newer windows 10, I’ve come across this issue before as well.
As an added bonus, the computer cleaning and installing has freed up space on the dining table, so much so, that we can actually see half of the table now!
On the other half of the table are several old cook books, which were obtained as payment for fitting a neighbour’s new toilet tank, cistern and pipework when her old one conked out. Such was its age, that being ex council around 25 years ago, parts were simply unavailable to repair it.
After three failed attempts to sort it out, by resident handymen, I gave up a day for plumbing and sorted it all out once and for all.
As the lady was disposing of huge piles of old cookbooks, I refused cash and opted to be able to look through the books and take what I would like as payment. The trade worked well for both of us I think.
The lady got a brand new toilet tank/pipework and cistern fitted and I got the unwanted books.
I like cooking, I collect older cookery books, win/win.
I collect older books as they have more traditional ways of cooking in them and the added bonus of an occasional old favourite recipe to be found, buried amongst the pages.
My best haul to date, was an old BeRo book (cookery people will know) from the 60s, not only was it in good worn condition but amongst the pages I found six personal recipes that a former owner had saved and used, which I now use.
It’s like buried treasure within a book!
Hmmm I wonder if I can squeeze some bookshelves up in the utility room for all the cook books I’ve amassed, so they’re all in one place? They’d also be right next to the kitchen and all in one place, I would have to go “looking for them” which would take another half a day or so.
Don’t want to be accused of doing nothing again…