HexxWorld Blog

The year 2009 was a fun year for learning and experimenting with various technologies as a hobbyist. I worked on a CarPC project using my EEEPC 2G surf as my CarPC which was fun. Along with that project came development of bluetooth solutions for internet connectivity and integration with my Wii remote. I also starting a new CarPC project which involved building a small footprint, mini pc system from scratch and integrating it in my Car. This project is still on going but I have learned a lot from it. This year I also repurposed an old Pentium II 333 mhz machine from 1998. It has been successfully running Ubuntu Linux 9.04 hosting Apache webserver, Tinyproxy and Dansguardian web content filter. The Pentium II is also hosting my files, pictures and music. I enhanced my home LAN by implementing a network based system backup using Secure SSH. My latest project involved optimizing my websites for the mobile web and smartphone devices. These are all just a few of my ‘Geek’ projects from this year, 2009.

Next year for 2010 I plan on working on the following projects and I’m sure more will be added as the year progresses. (continue reading…)

Since my EEEPC is no longer functioning I decided to start recycling some of its parts. I am going to start with the Atheros Mini PCI Wifi Card to use with my CarPC project. However, I will need a Mini PCI to PCI adapter for my Intel D945GCLF2D board. At least it will put the PCI slot into use because otherwise I was not going to be using it. I found the adapter card displayed below at embeddedworks.net.

So if you read my previous post I was gutting my old HP Pavillion Pentium II Tower. Yes it’s an old box from 1998. In the spirit of being “green” I decided to recycle this machine by repurposing rather than throwing it away. So I finally decided how to use it.

I dusted everything out and reinstalled the motherboard, PSU and memory. I also had to take an old but more recent Ethernet card from another PC and install it because in 1998…dial up was the thing. I installed a 60GB HDD with Ubuntu 9.04 as the operating system.

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If any of you are like me, you probably have a nice pile of old computer parts due to constant upgrading. Everyone is more concerned about the environment these days and with that in mind I figured its time to do something about those old PC parts I have collecting dust. Rather than throwing it out (not environmentally friendly decision), I decided to dig them out of the closet, refresh them and reuse them for other computing purposes.

These are a few pics of my old HP Pavilion Pentium II from 1998 being gutted.

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