Third-world iAppliances

With technology advancing at a breakneck pace, we always find ourselves replacing old hardware with newer ones in order to keep up with our ever increasing information technology demands. The idea of old hardware considered out of date and sent for destruction seems to be a waste of resource.While there are ecologically friendly, charitable ways of disposing your PC, we can do better by giving it a new lease of life through the use of open-source software and some technical know-how.

This form of repurposing would involve putting on a less-demanding operating system than the latest version of Windows. While a 486-based PC won't run the latest Windows software, it will do just fine with Linux. Linux is a much different beast from Windows, and is still not as user-friendly as desktop operating systems from Microsoft or Apple. It definitely packs more punch with less resources though. In fact, there are technical organizations in these countries that help setup and support repurposed computers in poorer district schools and government offices.

Now, instead of just repurposing some computers for office-related use, why not turn our x86 PCs into simple wireless internet appliances for use in third-world nations? Start thinking of applicances such as a cheap web server or an internet access router!