Turn that old Laptop into a Server

I recently was able to replace my old Toshiba Satellite Pro. It is a 1.6 GHZ P4 with 1 GB of RAM, and running XP. Not exactly state of the art but with plenty of power to do server duty for my family.

To get it ready for server duty make sure your server is hooked up to your router. The best way for your server to be hooked up is with an Ethernet cable. The next thing to do is to go into the Control Panel and select power settings. I made sure that the laptop didn’t go to sleep when hooked up to power and that the LCD turned off when the lid is closed. This way it stays on and doesn’t get hot having the screen on when closed. I also have it sitting on a cooling pad so it doesn’t overheat.

The first task that I gave my new server was printer server duty. I hooked up the old HP LaserJet 1000 to it. I then shared the printer so anyone could print to it. This is how it’s done:

• Open Control Panel.
• Select Printers.
• Right click on the printer you want to share.
• Then select sharing.
• Select share.

Now other computers on your network can find the printer and print to it.
This is how the other computers find the printer. On the other computers:

• Open the Control Panel
• Select add a new printer
• The add a Network Printer and follow the prompts.

It may be a little different depending on which operating system you are using but the process is about the same. You should now be able to print to the shared printer from whatever computer you are using.

The next task I gave this computer was to turn it into a phone. We recently got rid of our landline because it was an extra cost we just didn’t need. We have cell phones and how many phones do you really need to have. I instead loaded Skype on our server, Skype allows you to make free calls to anyone else who has Skype for free, but for a small monthly fee it can be also used to call landlines. We pay $2.99 per month so my 11 year old son can call out on it when he’s home alone. You can get a Skype phone off of Skype’s Web site or on ebay. This way you can call anywhere in the country, or mom and dad just like having a landline without the cost.
One note: I did have to plug in the phone into a USB 2 port for it to work well. I had already added a USB2 card in the PCMCIA port at an earlier time because this computer came standard with USB1. There are various Skype phones and high end ones can be connected wirelessly to your access point.

The next thing I did was turn the old laptop into a file server, as we needed a place to store all of those pictures we have so anyone could access them. Even though my old computer only had a 30 GB hard drive it wasn’t a problem. Hard drive space is cheap these days and I easily added an external 1TB hard drive for plenty of storage for under a hundred bucks. To share this drive you go into My computer right click the drive and select share. The system may give you a hard time about sharing a whole drive, but tell it to “just do it will ya!”
To access the shard drive from your other computers, open My Computer or Computer and select Map Network drive. Now this drive will show up as if it is located on the computer you are using.

So there you have it, a new use for you old laptop, and a way to make your home network more useful.
Dan