Low-Cost $200 Computer

If you need a second or third computer but money is tight, you don’t need to buy a full system. You can build a surprisingly speedy Linux PC that will excel at everyday tasks, and cost less than $200. I highly recommend this with young children in the home, or for use as a dedicated banking computer. Why?, because you will NOT have to deal with it getting infected with a virus to boot.

No one who expected the languid economy to have fully revived by now can be cheered by the way things have gone this summer; the volatile stock market alone has been a constant dispenser of heartache. So if you’re in need of a computer, even just a small one to do basic, everyday things, you may have put it off because of the uncertainty currently surrounding, well, everything. But it’s possible to build a PC yourself for an obscenely low cash layout—less than you’d spend on pretty much any full system on the market.

In fact, you can even do it for as little as $200. And no, that’s not a typo.

 This was written about last year , back when it looked like the economy’s most turbulent days were behind it. But because money issues have persisted, and because relative luxuries like technology are usually the first line items to be cut from most home budgets, we wanted to revisit the notion. We started browsing our favorite Web components outlet, Newegg.com, with the intent of answering three questions: Could we do it again? Could we build a better computer this time around? And could we do it for significantly less than we had the first time?

The answer to the first question was a no-brainer: absolutely. Even as recently as several years ago, the PC industry hadn’t yet advanced to a point where a threshold this low would result in a complete PC of any recognizable kind. As hardware has improved, that quality has slowly filtered down to the lowest price ranges, making good components both cheaper and easier to find.

It was also obvious that our new desktop would be superior in terms of performance. We didn’t want to build exactly the same system this year, but we’d been concerned that the final product wouldn’t be different enough to justify a second attempt. But once we started shopping, it didn’t take us long to discover that prices had fallen enough in the last year for us to get some more impressive parts. You’re still not going to confuse this PC’s capabilities with those of a more expensive desktop, but even in just a year the possibilities have considerably expanded.

As for whether we could spend a lot less this year than we could in 2010… Technically, yes. But that would have violated our most important precept: This had to be a computer we could really use. Building a system that costs this little already requires major compromises in some areas, and shaving off too many additional dollars would have seriously hobbled usability and upgradability. We could have put together something for closer to $150, but we didn’t want something—we wanted a computer we could feel good about integrating into our lives right away, and feel comfortable about tweaking and expanding in the future.

What follows is a look at how we accomplished this: the parts we chose, why we chose them, how we put them together, and what we gave up along the way. We’ll also run through a list of some “budget-busting” items that we couldn’t include if we wanted to stay below our $200 ceiling, but that we’d definitely investigate if we had another few bucks to rub together.

We understand that building the least-expensive computer possible isn’t something that will appeal to everyone. As we said last year, this is as much a thought experiment as it is an actual build project—you can do it, and get great results (we still use our original sub-$200 PC regularly), but under most circumstances you would make different, more expensive, and (we admit it) more exciting choices. What it proves, however, is that you should never feel constrained by your bank account, even if it’s as empty as a politician’s promises. When you’re building computers, almost anything is possible at any price, and with a little bit of research, a little bit of thought, and a little bit of sacrifice, you can get what you need without courting bankruptcy. In economic times both scary and spirited, that’s something worth remembering.

Once you remove Microsoft from the picture, you start saving $100′s of dollars. How, you may ask? Well you can obtain a complete OS like Linux Mint online and download a full office suite like LibreOffice for $0.

$9.99 Internet Service

Comcast rolled out its Internet Essentials program nationwide recently, offering low-income families in its service territory $10/month Internet connections and access to $150 computers.

Any family with at least one child who qualifies for the free lunch program at public schools can subscribe to a low-speed (1.5Mbps) Comcast Internet connection for $9.95 a month. Comcast guarantees that it won’t raise the price and offers the plan without equipment rental or activation fees. Subscribers also cannot have “an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment,” and they can’t have had Comcast Internet in the last 90 days.

Comcast has agreed to sign up families to the program for at least three years, and it also promises to provide free Internet and computer training to those who need it. Obviously, this will be Windows only.

Internet Essentials has been rolled out in cities around the country throughout the year—it came to Chicago back in May—but the DC launch today was used to “officially” launch the national program. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski was on hand to praise Comcast for helping overcome the “digital divide.”

“Students increasingly need to go online to complete their homework assignments,” he said. “But one-third of all students and a majority of low-income children can’t. It’s not because there aren’t countless kids trying to do their very best. We heard about a high school girl in Florida who does her homework in the parking lot of the local library each night, because the library’s wifi hot spot is the only way she can get online.”

Every student in the US needs to be “digitally literate,” Genachowski said, because it’s their “ticket to a new job.”

What kind of job, you ask? “I was recently in Indiana to announce the creation of 100,000 new jobs at customer service centers. These workers aren’t just talking on the phone any more. They are processing transactions; accessing records and information; e-mailing, live text chatting, and managing accounts. These activities don’t require advanced degrees, but they do require broadband and digital literacy.”

This isn’t exactly “you can do anything you can dream!” rhetoric, but perhaps it’s fitting for the Age of Recession. Still, Genachowski is certainly right to note that even entry-level jobs increasingly require at leastsome familiarity with computers and the Internet, and that job openings and applications are increasingly available online.

Though Comcast no doubt loves children and cares deeply about the digital divide, its Internet Essentials program was also a part of the conditions under which it was allowed to buy NBC earlier this year. The company pledged to reach 2.5 million low income households with high speed Internet for less than $10 a month, and to sell some sort of computer for $150 or less.

If Comcast were smart, they would deploy a decent Linux distribution instead and still offer 1-hour of free training. In doing so, the customers would not have to worry about the being infected with malware. Yes, Windows 7 is capable of being infected and so will Windows 8, when it rolls down the hill.

For an alternative point of view, the launch isn’t exactly new, and it was a provision of the NBC/Comcast merger. Nevertheless, it has gotten more attention than usual in the past day or two. Here’s an alternative viewpoint, heavily biased against Comcast but still worth reading: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Highlights-10-Broadband-in-DC-116216

From the FAQ:

“What type of computer is included with Internet Essentials and what kind of software does it have?

Internet Essentials participants have the opportunity to purchase a netbook-style laptop computer. This computer supports wired and Wi-Fi Internet connectivity. Every computer shipped includes Windows 7 Starter operating system and Internet browser software. Additional productivity software may be included when available.”

http://www.internetessentials.com/faq/index.html

What ever you do, DO NOT use the Constant Guard software, use ESET NOD32 instead: http://www.eset.com/us/home/products/smart-security/netbooks

$99 tablet computer

Hewlett-Packard is offering a fire-sale on it’s TouchPad tablets, that it just released months ago. HP has confirmed plans to stop making PCs, tablets and phones, in order to refocus on software. Hewlett-Packard, the world’s top personal computer maker, announced Thursday it is exploring a spinoff of its PC unit in a historic shift away from the consumer market.

“HP is recognising what the world has recognised, which is hardware in terms of consumers is not a huge growth business anymore,” said Michael Yoshikami, chief executive of YCMNET Advisors.

“It’s not where the money is. It’s in keeping with the new CEO’s perspective that they want to be more in services and more business-oriented.”

On the sale of its PC business, HP said it “will consider a broad range of options that may include, among others, a full or partial separation… from HP through a spin-off or other transaction”.

Now this may be a hard deal for many to pass up, even though HP is discontinuing webOS and its hardware products. But HP will begin selling the 16GB TouchPad for $99 starting tomorrow. Likewise, the 32GB model will sell for just $50 more.

The Touchpad uses a proprietary operating system called webOS, and is based on the Linux kernel.

Got my 32 GB model w/ Wireless Keyboard, Case, and TouchPad Charger Stand for $260 (normal price $700, so 63% off), including tax, direct from HP.

I figure I’ll use webOS until it EOLs then pop the Ice Cream Sandwich source on it (which should be out by then).

I can smack down your $500 iPAD with my $200 laptop

Everywhere I go these days, people are slamming laptops. They tell me my computer of choice is a dying breed and sing the praises of their new, “post-PC” Apple iPad.

They carefully pull out their Apple device. I admire it and then say: “So where do you insert the DVD? How do you bang out a long e-mail on a touch keyboard? Oh, and guess how much less I paid for my little ol’ HP laptop than you did for your iPad.”

I recognize that the iPad is thin, light, and easy to travel with, and I understand the advantages of portable entertainment. But if you don’t need the prestige of having the latest-and-greatest tech, I believe you can get all that and much more for much less than the cost of a new tablet. All you have to do is tote around another measly pound or two.

If you’re willing to take a chance on used equipment, you can find slightly older laptops on Craigslist starting at about $200. Granted I do not run Windows on my laptop, but that is a security and costs savings in itself.

Here are the top reasons that I think my used laptop–which I paid about $200 for–crushes your iPad 2, which new, starts at $499 and can run more than $800, depending on the configuration. (Of course, a used iPad 1′s price would be lower; on Craigslist, prices started at around $400 on the day I checked.)

My HP has a CD and DVD player/burner: If you’re into permanently saving photos, music, or movies, or if you’re serious about backing up your hard drive and programs, you probably need to burn discs occasionally. Your relatives in Indiana need a copy of the video of cousin Paul’s drum recital, or they’d love to look at a CD containing pictures taken during your night trip to Alcatraz. You can’t cram everything onto Facebook.

It has a physical keyboard: Most iPad users readily admit typing data-intensive text on their tablet’s touch keyboard is difficult. I’ll go further: I detest typing on a touch keyboard. As PCWorld reviewer Jon L. Jacobi sarcastically puts it: “Overpriced pads: Touchscreens without keyboards. How innovative.” Flimsy, add-on keyboards don’t cut it. Give me a solid, built-in board like the one on my HP. It’s one of the best laptop keyboards ever, and I still like the old-school Trackpoint eraserhead cursor control.

It has lots more storage space: If you want to download and store tons of decent-quality movies, TV shows, videos, music, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, and the like, the iPad 2′s maximum 64GB of storage falls short. Even the 250GB of storage on a decent laptop fills up faster than you might expect. (I do grant you that you can easily back up almost anything to external storage or to a cloud-based service.)

It has useful and versatile ports: No USB port on an iPad? Sure you can buy a pricey adapter, but what if you want to plug in a mouse, digital camera, and/or printer? So much for the iPad’s smooth lines and ease of use. Being able to insert a USB device or a thumbdrive into my laptop is essential to me.

As for Apple’s iPad, here are a few of my least favorite things about it.

The iPad doesn’t support multitasking: As a result, I can’t listen to sports talk radio online, check to see if little Charlie has bitten anyone else’s finger, and type my blog, all at the same time. Such versatility is why I love mobile computers–and it alone will ensure my allegiance to laptops.

It is confined by the limits of iTunes: Jared Newman, a PCWorld blogger, summed it up: “Even if you never sync a single piece of media from a computer to an iPad, you still need iTunes on a PC or Mac to keep the tablet’s software up to date. This needs to change,” he wrote in the Today@PCWorld blog. (For a longer look at the iPad 2′s limitations, check Jared Newman’s list of 5 Disappointments With Apple iPad 2.)

Its battery isn’t replacable: I know the iPad has respectable battery life, but if you ever have to work on a long plane ride and in a café with no available power outlets, you need excellent battery life and a back-up cell that is easy to install. This isn’t possible on either model of iPad. As on all other Apple mobile devices, the battery is sealed and nonreplaceable.

I’ve yet to see someone use an iPad other than as a fancy e-reader that’s hard to type on, a giant ipod, etc. In other words, yet to see someone other than a sucker who’s got nothing better to do.

‘A fool and his money are soon parted’

Revive an old computer with Puppy Linux

There’s no doubt Canonical’s popular Ubuntu Linux distribution gets the majority of attention in the Linux world these days, but there are myriad others equally worthy of consideration.

I looked at Linux Mint long ago, as well as a few key Ubuntu derivatives, but today I’d like to focus on Puppy Linux, a new version of which was just recently released.

Puppy Linux began life as a really cool small-sized Linux distribution designed primarily for lower specification hardware while still providing most of the amenities that make Linux fun and usable. It included lots of original utilities and tools for completing tasks and configurations without a lot of resource overhead. Best of all, it was blazing fast. Well, the little puppy has grown up some and branched out, but is still that same light-weight wonder in spirit.

The latest release, 5.2, codenamed Lucid Puppy, is a result of branching out of the project in new directions. In late 2008 Puppy developers designed a new build system, Woof, that can take binaries of other popular distributions and incorporate them into new Puppy builds. One of the most commonly used, and probably most popular, is Ubuntu. Underneath, the foundation is still the independent Puppy we know and love, but many components come from Ubuntu such as shared libraries and some applications. As a result, Puppy Linux 5.2 is compatible with many other Ubuntu packages. Whether this has increased Puppy’s popularity could be debated, but according to Distrowatch.com‘s Page Hit Ranking, Puppy has been moving up the chart each year with the biggest jumps seen since Woof has been used to make Ubuntu compatible versions.

Small and fast

Puppy Linux’s primary distinguishing feature is that it’s tiny, taking up roughly 100MB of space. Also remarkable about it is that it loads into RAM, making it extraordinarily fast. Boot time is 30 to 40 seconds on most systems.

Similar in some ways to Damn Small Linux (DSL), Puppy is ideally suited both for older hardware and for usage situations where minimal resources are available. Whereas most LiveCD versions of Linux must go back and forth to the CD, Puppy’s RAM-loadable size means that applications are lightning fast to start and to respond to user input.

The full-featured but free Linux distribution can boot off LiveCD or DVDs, floppy disks, internal hard drive, zip disk, LS/120/240 Superdisk, flash drives or any USB memory device. In fact, it can even use a multisession formatted CD-RW/DVD-RW to save everything back to the CD/DVD with no hard drive required at all.

Booting from DVD or CD, Puppy can save all work back to the same medium. Booting from USB drive or other flash media, Puppy will minimise writes to extend its life.

In short, if you have a PC with a broken hard disk or that will no longer work with newer technology, Puppy Linux on a CD or USB is a way to keep that PC productive. Not insignificantly, it’s also a perfect example of a Linux distribution that can be used to rescue a Windows PC infected with malware.

Compatible with Ubuntu 10.04

Like both Ubuntu and Linux Mint, Puppy is extremely easy to use, it automatically detects most hardware, for example. Included with it is also a wide range of applications for productivity and other purposes.

Lucid Puppy 5.2 adds to the popular Lucid Puppy 5.1.1 distribution with a raft of upgrades and improvements to all of the main programs as well as many of the other programs in the menu and system. Based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS “Lucid Lynx” binary packages, the latest Puppy is also compatible with Ubuntu 10.04 repositories.

Included in the latest release are QuickSet for point-and-click desktop configuration, QuickPet for updates, diagnostics and package installs and several alternative window managers available through the package manager, including Xfce and Fluxbox. The software features version 2.6.33.2 of the Linux kernel. Language packs are available for 11 different languages.

No commitment

A fuller list of the version’s features is available on the Puppy Linux site, where it’s also available for download as a 127MB .iso image file. Meanwhile, you can find a testing video of the release below on YouTube.

Perhaps the best part of all, of course, is that as with most Linux distributions there’s no commitment involved in trying it out. Particularly if you have old hardware lying around, it will be worth your while to take Puppy Linux for a tour.

Specifications

• Compatible with Ubuntu packages
• QuickSet for point-and-click desktop configuration
• Quickpet for updates, diagnostics, and package installs
• Alternative window manager
• Language packs for 11 different languages

So if you have an old computer setting at home not being used, or know of someone tossing one out that is still usable, then try out Puppy Linux on it. You will be amazed on how fast it works. There is no good reason to toss out a 5-year old computer, just because it is slow from using Windows.

Computer Innovation

As we roll into the 21st century, everyone is scrambling for iPADs and Tablet PC’s with touch screen interfaces. They create a new vertical market of personal and business computing, that compliment netbook and laptop computers. But what about desktop computers? The design and size have not changed greatly in the past fifteen years.  This should change in the coming years as Keyboard PC’s become more evident to consumers.

The prices are very reasonable for a starting at $50 and topping out at $600. I think $600 is a bit much, but thats my opinion and I am a frugal computer user these days. Two models mention the following specifications:

• Intel Atom N270, the EeeKeyboard gets 1GB of RAM and 16GB SSD. It has a 5-inch LED-backlit multitouch LCD display, integrated keyboard, VGA out and HDMI out. Bluetooth and WiFi 802.11b/g are supported.
• Intel’s Atom 1.6GHz processor and NVIDIA Ion graphics, the Cross PC has 2GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive. The U510 comes with a 5-inch touchscreen display and a stylus. It supports WIFI 802.11n connectivity.

Here are some images for review:

Not everyone needs a 1GB video card, or a i7 quad-core CPU with copious amount of memory to browse the web, read email, skim through Facebook, or run iTunes. Now that I think about, one doesn’t even need Windows for that, but I digress.

Computer prices for consumers have readily come down and will continue to fall. In time, your computer (digital appliance) will be as ubiquitous as the microwave or toaster.

Later in the week, I will write about surface computing devices running Ubuntu and integrated surface computing for the desktop, tabletop, wall or countertop of your home.

Prediction Google Chrome OS notebooks will be introduced at under $100 in mid-2011

Google in December unveiled a beta version of its Chrome OS notebook, dubbed Cr-48. Google plans to release two, Intel-based Chrome OS notebooks from Acer and Samsung in mid-2011, with Verizon Wireless providing cellular connectivity. No pricing information was released for the upcoming Acer and Samsung devices; Google said its partners will hold their own launch events in the future with more details. Google has announced that it has partnered with Verizon Wireless to provide 3G wide area network (WAN) coverage on every Chrome OS device. Each device will receive 100MB of data for free each month for two years. The Cr-48 has a 1.6 GHz Atom – 64-bit instruction set and hyperthreading but no virtualization bits. Rumors are that the production units will be true dual-core, not hyperthreaded. A machine like that can run a lot more than a browser!

My prediction on pricing will be under $100 and probably about $50.

The reason is that Google can come in below the price of the Amazon Kindle and under the price of many netbooks and most Android tablet PCs.

I think Google will subsidize its hardware partners because it is a thin browser that looks in Google search and advertising. If they can make $10 per month, then a $50 subsidy makes sense.

Google will be able to do the locking of search and browser because it is a dedicated device for that purpose and not like Microsoft Internet Explorer was a locking after the fact to a monopoly OS.

You will be buying a locked in situation and you will know that from the get-go to devices that start with no market share.

Why is there Google Android devices and Google Chrome devices

There are two because they serve different purposes. Google Android is a thicker and more flexible and more open software which is to compete with Apple iPhone and Tablets by using many hardware and software partners.

Google Chrome can go thinner, more closed, better security, less to hack but able to deliver to Google search and advertising domination. Chrome can also require more leverage of the Google cloud solutions (Gmail, Google Docs etc…)

Google can then subsidize based on estimate of the per seat revenue they expect each month or year from another person just playing with Google’s stack.

I think Google will not go totally free right away because there will be need to ramp up production and to not have it perceived a free and disposable.

Cheap Google Chrome OS notebooks could also eventually compete for the $10-20 netbooks for the developing world.

How to Set up a Computer for Under $200

Does your family need an extra PC? Educator, Mac expert, and Linux enthusiast Phil Shapiro explains in this video how, for less than the price of some operating systems, you can configure a useful, virus-free computer with a 23-inch LCD monitor ($150 refurbished) and a Wi-Fi wireless adapter ($15). This project is easy to do and should take about an hour.

Operating Systems: Ubuntu Linux – Windows 7 – Windows XP

Case: 100% aluminum Die cast body

Dimensions: 4″ x 4.5″ x 1.05″

Weight: 13 ounces – including hard disk

Operating Temperature: 0 – 45 deg C with hard disk

0 – 70 deg C with SSD

Power: 12V single supply 8-15V tolerant

Power Consumption: 6W at low CPU load

8W at full CPU load

<1W at standby