Ben Hovinga

So up until yesterday I have been using my laptop (with Boxee Media Center installed) connected to my TV via HDMI for watching my movies. This was a pain in the butt if say my mom wanted to watch a movie but I needed my laptop for work (aka play games). So set out to find a way to for my mom to watch her movies an I can still use my laptop. The result a laptop (other laptop) server.

I could have put together a bunch of parts from old broken down systems that I have sitting in the basement to make a cheap tower server that would be loud and take up a bunch of space. But that was just the problem. I don’t have much space for it and my parents would complain about the noise, trust me I have tried. Then there would be the issue of network wires to get to the server.

I remembered that I had a old laptop that nobody would use. In fact it was so old it wouldn’t be the effort to sell. Just clean it up with a new OS and install some software, it was perfect.

Now it is small, it is quiet, it has WiFi and built in battery backup. I can store this thing almost anywhere. Under or behind a couch, under a bed, behind the TV, strapped to the underside of a table behind your current computer. The options go on and on.

My Setup

• Old acer laptop that took 5 minutes to load Windows
• External 320 GB HDD
• xubuntu
• wine
• utorrent (with web gui enabled)
• PS3 media server (because I have a PS3 connected to my TV)
• SSH

I hid mine behind the couch and also decided to put the rest of the network gear there so I can free up some space on my desk.

My hidden network

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Photo by: normalityrelief

So many people that actually know me will know that I have a bad sleep schedule. For the longest time I would not go to bed until 5-6 am and wake up until 2-3 pm. I did not know why I was doing this. I was trying everything to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier and nothing worked. I then figured out that it was caused from sleeping in the basement. I only noticed this after me getting my laptop. Yes my computer saved my life. My brother needed a computer and because I got my laptop I don’t need the old computer and I also don’t need the space of a basement. We both switched rooms so he has the whole basement and I have his old ~100 square foot room.  Because of the big window above my bed the light helps me wake up earlier and also helps give me lots of vitamin D when I’m in my room on the laptop. In the two weeks that I have been in this room I am waking up almost 4 hours earlier and continuing to get up earlier each day. I believe if I had the East facing room I would wake up even earlier without any extra influence because of the sun rise. Now I know my brother will start to go into the same late night routine as me but by the time he needs to get up earlier I will have moved out.