Once you shove your slow, beat-up laptop aside for a newer model, you need to decide what to do with the older machine. While it’s tempting to take a baseball bat to the laptop, as the guys in the movie The Office did to the copier, there are plenty of useful functions for your digital ex.

Gizmodo suggests five potential uses for the old machine, issuing a step-by-step guide for each of its ideas:

*Turn it into a home server. Back up your files to the old machine and stream files without having to waste your new computer’s precious hard drive space.

*Transform it into a digital photo frame. Rejigger your screen into a frame, hang it on your wall, keep it plugged in and let your Harry Potter-like picture frame cycle through slide shows.

*Make it a wireless bridge. Extend the range of your wireless router by sticking the computer in a dead zone.

*Transform it into an external hard drive. Rip out the hard drive, insert it into a casing you can find online for cheap, and voila — extra storage space.

*Use it as a second monitor. Play a computer game while watching a movie, or IM while writing without having to click back and forth between applications.

How many laptops have you gone through in your life, and what have you done with the old ones?

Five Things to Do with Your Old Laptop [Gizmodo]

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