Practical Powerbook ideas
If you have a an old Powerbook G4 laptop in your home, you may still be able to put the computer to valuable use! Here are three things to do with an old Powerbook G4 laptop that you may not have thought of.
First off, having a Powerbook G4 on at idle uses 21 Watts per day which will cost you .04 cents per day or $16 a year. So there's very little cost to having the computer plugged in.
Record your morning radio show
During your morning commute, have you ever heard of a joke that you would like to hear again. What was that song you heard for the first time? Was there a time you wish you could replay that broadcast? Well now you can.
Using Audio Hijack Pro and a simple audio cable hook up to your radio, you can set it up to record your radio show that you listen to every morning. You can set it up so that it only keeps a week's worth of clips. Basically set it and forget it. You can get the clip that you need when you need it and not have to worry about running out of disk space.
Advanced Macintosh users can even set it so the audio file is emailed or placed in a dropbox folder to access when your away from home.
Maintain active backups of your files
Don't waist valuable space on Dropbox for common files that you use at home! Put some common library files on your Powerbook and keep it on the network. Some common library files may include manuals of appliances in PDF, Microsoft Word letter templates and others.
This is great way to keep a single resource for the entire household. It's better than a shared drive since you can encrypt the drive and perform some productive actions. For example, you can set up a folder action to convert any Microsoft Document to a PDF file.
Archive your CD collection
If you still have a large collection of music CDs around your house, keep a digitized version on your Powerbook. This will make it much easier to find your favorite music collection. Why keep Christmas music on your main computer all year long?
Using the Powerbook G4 as your central music hub is great for playing music on the network tv too.