All IT professionals have them - those bulky, outdated hard drives that are no good for anything.

I took my lovely 340Mb hard drive, specially bought 8 years ago for its HUGE storage capacity, and put my $1200 investment to good use - holding up my books and other assorted junk on my bookshelf.

What an inglorious end to an otherwise treasured life - it used to be "Oh wow, 340 megs - that's so big - you'll never fill it up..." How wrong people can be. I saw advertisements for an 80Gb IDE hard drive, spinning at 10,000rpm. How long will it be for this equipment to become obsolete? And what will we be using? 20Tb drives?

The mind boggles...

I have a ton of computer parts that are obsolete by today's standards. That tiny 340-megger is gold to someone who needs a computer.

When I fix or upgrade other people's computers, my fee is usually the old parts that are not wanted. I also make them watch me work so they can do it next time. I end up with enough computer parts to fill a house (just ask Yurei, hehehe).

You can take the "doorstops" and create a functional system. After they're up and running, you can donate them to local schools, child day care centers, abuse shelters, churches or even kids whose parents could never even consider purchasing a computer. Imagine how you would've felt if someone gave you a computer when you were a kid! You can help a child to improve his or her self-esteem, education and interest by donating that bookend. It won't be a top-end gaming system, but it can hold freeware games, free internet access accounts, Linux, word processors, etc.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.