Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday!  This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which have changed as we've proceeded. (As things have settled down to a nice steady conversational pace, for example, I've deleted the rules about only one tip per person per week and about limiting the length of comments; I was worried early on about people flooding the forum with too much too fast, but I think we're past that risk.)

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

Re: Linux for old and slow computers

[(Anonymous)]

I really liked the NUC as Intel's answer to the Mac Mini. You might not know that Intel got out of the NUC business last year. Some of the technology was licensed to Asus.

Over time, these machines had become a lot larger and less cute. Some were even big enough to put in a full-size gaming video card. This gave gamers a lunchbox size machine to take to a party, but ended the "not much bigger than a deck of card" form factor of little computers you could hang on the back of the monitor.

Raspberry Pi's a wonderful platform for tinkerers. But rather fiddly for someone who wants a machine that just plain works and has plenty of mainstream help available. Any answers for a Pi start with, "Oh, I didn't realize you're talking about a Pi. Hmm, let me look up how that's different..."

Availability of Pi components is extremely poor if you ever need a spare machine. If your mainstream PC or Mac conks out, repairs and rentals are easily available anywhere. If your Pi conks out, who knows when you could get one from the next batch? If you have work to do today, can you wait a year?

Apple still makes the Mac Mini and it's still a pleasant little computer, with about the same chips and power as a laptop. Compared to a laptop, it's a little less money for the same computing power, since it's not in a mobile case with screen, keyboard, trackpad, speakers and mics, webcam, and battery. About as compact a desktop computer as you can find in a post-NUC world. But, not an all in one rig you can take along in your bookbag, or slide out of sight in a desk drawer.

Debian is still going strong. It's the basis for many distributions built on top of it, including my favorites of MX for not too ancient machines and antiX for very old, limited hardware.

Without getting too geeky I am very impressed with their balance of up to date functionality and engineering choices that work well on older hardware, such as SystemD being optional - which most people shouldn't have to care about, but could prevent some hard to troubleshoot bugs. I also like their friendly troubleshooting help forums.

After using computers since before the original IBM PC, I now think for anyone who can afford $1,000 to $2,000, and aren't involved in extremely demanding computer uses like heavy duty programming, video production, or the latest hot AAA games, the Macbook Air series is the way to go. Simply pick mobile screen size preferred, knowing a big screen can be added at a desk.

Apple's M series chips have astonishing battery life, full day for almost everyone, two full days for some users in this no-fan silent machines.

There are now ways to run Windows and Linux on these machines for those who need software not available on Mac. In general, Mac has occasional weirdness but still tends to just work and minimize confusion more than other platforms. Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't make it outrageously difficult to install a machine without an advertising push account, and they don't hijack the machine for enforced OS upgrades.

C from C

Re: Linux for old and slow computers

[(Anonymous)]

Along the Apple theme--
At the local cellphone repair shop, they have used Apple iPads for sale for a few hundred dollars. Apple hardware eventually becomes incapable of getting an operating system update, but for the iPad I got, the repairman estimated 7 to 10 years more of being able to be updated.