Am I cheap or creative?

N2IT

So I have a little downtime today and thought I would throw this out there.

So...... My daughter has made it to the 6th grade, obviously the home work becomes more and more intense which results in the a need to a laptop or desktop to complete her assignments.

Well about 2 years ago I bought her a Lenovo Netbook (Atom Processor, 2 GB of Ram and 5400 HDD). Junk to say the least, not to mention it came with the Windows 7 starter with a ton of bloat wear. About as slow as you can imagine. Anyway I have been throwing around the idea of picking her up a chromebook but even for a weak one, almost the same specs except with a SSD (16 GB) the specs were around the same. Some came with a dual core processor but most came in with a whooping 2 gb of ram (Systemboard wouldn't/couldn't handle anymore Ram either).

So this was my approachFirst take my spare SSD (it's one of the first ones 3 GPS instead of the 6 GPS, which I have in my desktop). (Free it was not in use)

Then I installed 32 bit cinnamon Linux. (Free)

Believe it or not the netbook has a VGA output so I gave her one of my spare 24 inch monitors which surprisingly works well, as long as you close the laptop before it completely boots up. (Not free but not in use I am currently using two 27 inch Samsungs I have no need for a 24 inch monitor.

Add an external keyboard and mouse Keyboard was a left over wired and the mouse cost me 16.99 (logitec).

I'll tell you what I managed to turn a weak arse netbook into a decent desktop. They use Google docs at school so no need for Office or any other MS products. Email is web based as well. I'm really proud of myself for salvaging together a system It was fun making it all work and now the end result is a happy and more productive kid.

Sorry just thought I was share, as I sit here now I am still chuckling.

DoubleNNs

As long as she doesn't think you're cheap, I call that creative. haha

Jon_Cisco

Cheap is when you buy sub par gear and hate it.
I would call that creative.

But at her age it's all about what the friends think right.

N2IT

Right! And I live in an area where most families make ~300,000 - 400,000 combined, together my wife an I are at more like 120,000 so needless to say she doesn't have all the happen toys. She does have an iPod 5 and a netbook which I described the configuration. Her Kindle is gone now so, while she isn't spoiled she isn't hurting.

MTciscoguy

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What did you expect? You know when you ask a question like this, there are going to be those that say you are cheap! LMFAO!

N2IT

It's cool I can take it

I've been called frugal, thrifty, cheap, you name it I've been called it!

I still drive a Toyota Camry with 151,000 miles. Hey it's been paid off for 4 years! My wife has a new car but still relatively moderate in price. Ugh 4 more years to pay on a 6 year loan, but at 1.3% interest why not extend it one more year.

My bachelors is paid off and my Masters is from WGU. I only have 9,000 left to pay on it! Sorry for the random thoughts!

I just hate owing a lot of money.

Raisin

The SSD upgrade and replacing Windows with Linux should buy you some time. Unfortunately the Atom chip is total garbage, and there's no getting around that. Although if the only thing your daughter is using the computer for is Google docs then you should be good for the school year.

As far as being cheap goes, at least you didn't try giving her a Raspberry Pi

Repo Man

Eh, I see nothing wrong with that. I have a bunch of older/cheaper laptops and a really good Desktop. Most of my time I use teamviewer to work directly off of my good PC.

xnx

No, not cheap just because you didn't buy your kid a iMac or ipad..

UnixGuy

I'm cheaper than you, I don't own a car => Public transport FTW.

And back on topic, I'm not a father yet but I think buying expensive toys to kids is a bad idea. Get them out there and let them have some real fun outside..swimming, martial arts, dancing, basket ball, ...etc.

N2IT

Oh you have no idea. After work on Friday I spent 4 hours at a Volleyball tournament got home at 10 pm. Then had to bring her up to the tournament again at 12 - 3. Sped off from their to take my son to a birthday party. After that it was haircut time and then of course we had to find time to finally eat. Got home at 6 pm. Luckily today my wife didn't get called into work (she's an RN) and was able to go for a 7 mile hike this morning with a close friend. That was awesome, nothing better than getting those endorphines kicking on a Sunday.

Of course had the regular house chores etc. Cleaning a 2,800 square foot house is a pain.

Luckily for me the son only does Krav Maga on Saturdays, he missed this week. He will have to make up the time 2 times next week, they are really good about that.

Oh well it keeps me in shape and young. With the hike I burned over 5,000 calories today lol.

On a side note just bought fitbit flex and it's such an awesome app / wrist device. Love it.

UnixGuy

That's pretty amazing! I've been wanting to try Krav Maga, but every day of my week is busy (with non work related stuff). Great dad!

ccnxjr

eh, I won't call you cheap, but until you fix (or find a patch) for the VGA issue, I wouldn't call it creative ....
Close!
But no cigar....

N2IT

@CCNXJR Hehehe - It's hiliarous going into her room and seeing this 24 inch monitor, keyboard, mouse and printer all connected to a Lenovo netbook. Call me weird but I actually like it. I wish the system board could handle more than a 2 gb stick. I'd love to drop a 4 gb stick in there. It would help out a lot. Of course that ATOM processor is really weak. It's very easy to fully throttle that processor to a 100%.

@ Unix My daughter did it for ~ 4 years 3 days a week and really learned some amazing skills. She throws extremely hard elbows and knees, her punching is right there too. She never really excelled on the ground but overall she really benefited from it. The boy is really digging it right now. They have them learning all the different elbow and knees now while working on proper form punching and kicking.

She made it to orange belt, which is a really big accomplishment, it has to be approved by the head organization based in California. He's a white belt now, but if he sticks with it within 2 years he should get his yellow. Just to get yellow for my daughter it took 2 years going 3 times a week. It's no joke and I like them because of that.

iBrokeIT

"Am I cheap or creative?"

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive

MTciscoguy

Back on track, heck, my Asus Netbook has made a great computer for doing the weather, that baby has been hooked up wirelessly for over 4 years now, reporting the weather to weather underground. The Atom works good for somethings.

tpatt100

Is it something you would use for yourself? I would consider it cheap if I spend more money on myself but find ways to skimp for my family. I tried a netbook before and it was so bad that I would only let my son bang on it since he is not even five years old yet.

I know some guys who rock the most expensive tech and make their spouse and kids use garbage because "they can't tell the difference". If it's not good enough for me then it's not good enough for my family.

Now I am not saying they need the absolute best but even techies make excuses to spend way more than they need to but are incredibly cost conscious when it comes to their family. Sort of like when they buy the latest and greatest phone for themselves and think they are doing their wives a favor by giving them their old one. My wife always has the current generation mobile device or tablet that I "want" the hand me downs go to eBay.

Ukimokia

Speaking of getting creative....

My friends and I were at a convention and we were trying to get a specific person's computer to be able to connect to the TV in the hotel room. They had a VGA on their laptop, and the TV only took HDMI. So by luck we had a VGA to DVI and DVI to HDMI-mini and HDMI-mini to HDMI connector all hooked up to eachother. No single person had more than one of the converters :P

N2IT

@ tpatt you are calling me cheap. @Uki that is quite the set up. Sounds very interesting!

auxiliarypriest

IMO, cheap is not a bad thing. I would say resourceful.

DevilWAH

tpatt100 wrote: »

Is it something you would use for yourself? I would consider it cheap if I spend more money on myself but find ways to skimp for my family. I tried a netbook before and it was so bad that I would only let my son bang on it since he is not even five years old yet.

I know some guys who rock the most expensive tech and make their spouse and kids use garbage because "they can't tell the difference". If it's not good enough for me then it's not good enough for my family.

Now I am not saying they need the absolute best but even techies make excuses to spend way more than they need to but are incredibly cost conscious when it comes to their family. Sort of like when they buy the latest and greatest phone for themselves and think they are doing their wives a favor by giving them their old one. My wife always has the current generation mobile device or tablet that I "want" the hand me downs go to eBay.

I don't even have a laptop of my own at home, Wifes has been given to my daughter and we both use our work laptops for everything else. Long ago I found there was a sweet spot found some were on the line between the minimum of what I really need, and what I really want. With what I need being affordable and what I want of the scale.

If you need X and what you buy/build provided it, then your not cheap.

If you need X and you provide some thing that provided X + 20% then you smart and looking to the future.

If you need X and buy some thing that doesn't support it then your cheap and foolish.

If you need X and buy some thing that provided X and 10,000 other things for 1000 times the price of the solution that only does X and that you will never utilise then you are foolish.

if you Need X and speed 1000's in some thing that only does Y because it has a name in it then you really stupid.


No point spending more than you need to, our buying features you never will use, I use a Raspberry Pi for my media center, yes I know the speed is pants, but it can stream fast enough to support HD streams, so yes a £1200 6 disk raid system would be fun, but to be honest I would never see the benefit as I have no need to copy huge data sets around the house.

If it does the job you need it to, then its good value, if it doesn't or it causes frustration when using it for what it was designed then its poor value.

What ever way its a fun project and some time putting it together like this even if it does not work out, teaches you exactly what you do need.

tpatt100

Which is why I choose to live by the "Would I be willing to use it myself?" rule. It keeps me from spending way more than I need to on stuff because if I spend more on myself that means there is less for family members if they need it also.

I moved mobile carriers and was tempted to spend more on a larger storage phablet but ended up getting a regular sized phone because the phone I would have gotten my wife I found myself turning my nose up at lol. If it's not good enough for my own use then it's not good enough for my wife.

N2IT

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I politely disagree with your rule. I don't think a blanket statement like this makes much sense. You maybe a stay at home dad who requires only a bare bones phone or voice and text, while your wife is a CEO of a fortune 500 company. She is going probably need data and other features that you won't need. I also wouldn't buy my daughter a brand new Volvo for 50,000, my wife sure but not a 16 year old lol. (When she turns 16) I think your logic is flawed but respect your opinion.

tpatt100

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That's nothing like I am talking about, I am speaking from a need vs want perspective. If I "want" a nicer item and I cut funds from my wife's purchase choice in order to get what I "want" then I am being greedy.

Even the "need" idea gets stretched to ridiculous extremes from my experience when it comes to justifying spending more on one's self than somebody else.

MTciscoguy

My wife always gets the better technology and she gets it first! I work with her hand me downs. In reality, I have only bought myself 1 new laptop in the last 15 years, her on the other hand has had 4 or 5. Of course when she hands me down her current laptop, I won't mind, it is a I7 core 16 gigs of memory, 1 tb hard drive, etc.

DevilWAH

tpatt100 wrote: »

That's nothing like I am talking about, I am speaking from a need vs want perspective. If I "want" a nicer item and I cut funds from my wife's purchase choice in order to get what I "want" then I am being greedy.

Even the "need" idea gets stretched to ridiculous extremes from my experience when it comes to justifying spending more on one's self than somebody else.

I find the idea of having fund for people in the family a bit strange to be honest. It's very simple in my house, we each have a bank account that we split wages in to, there is X amount for food/bills/ savings and the rest left over we split down the middle. If I want some thing it comes out of my half. if she wants some thing it comes out of hers. If I want some thing that cost £50,000 that's fine but that comes out of my money not hers, so does not affect her spending. (mine you if we want a new car that's generally a family item and a joint savings are put aside for it).

My wife walks in a shop and chooses a phone I turn my nose up at, but that does not mean just because that all she wants in a phone that its all I want. For me its simple, what do I need to achieve, can I get some thing to do that with the money in my account. Yes? then buy what ever I want limited by what I can afford remembering I might want other stuff to. No? then start saving or ask my self if I really need it.