Converting your old PC into something useful again!

What are you talking about? I hear you ask.

 

My personal example is a Dell Inspiron N5050-5436 from about 2012. It happens to have belonged to my mother-in-law.

 

She told me, do something with the Dell, “before I kill it, or someone!” and being the kind and considerate gentleman that I am, I sat down and thought, hmm, what can I do to get this ole Dell productive again?

 

I thought:

• I can go retro and install XP on it, but, hmm, viruses; spyware, malware etc., nope; very, very bad plan, ole boy.
• I can go with a linux distro! But then again, I know very little about linux, and I cannot be bothered to go and do the research, so again, nope.
• My last idea was to install Chromium on it, and I thought, how would you do such a thing?

 

So, how do you install Chromium on a laptop, and what do you have?

 

So after I decided to install Chromium on the Dell, I was wondering how to go about this thing. I decided to employ my best friend Google and search for “How to install chromium on pc”.

 

Unsurprisingly, results were plentiful! I looked at quite a few, and in many of them the name Cloudready popped up, over, and over again.

 

Thus, I decided to go take a look at the Cloudready website and thought, hmm, let’s give this a go.

 

Instructions on the website is about as clear as you can get, and also very easy to follow. Thus, the Dell Inspiron Chromebook was born.

 

As a blind individual you will find very limited info on Chrome OS, and this is for a very simple reason. It is the simplest usable system I’ve ever worked with. I would go so far as to say it is beautiful in its simplicity.

 

In years passed, Chrome OS was basically a glorified, bootable web browser, but those days are gone. There are very few things I haven’t found a way to do, the most notable, playing audio games, but that is not really my interest anyway, so I can’t really give a damn.

 

So, what is the old PC good fore now?

 

I think the most important thing to the blind community is communication, and one of the most important tools for this is Skype.

 

There is actually an extension which would launch the Skype Web App, and, yes, this is fully accessible. It does not quite work in the way you may be used to, but if you have used the new Windows 10 version, you would be okay.

 

Google Docs, Googles word processor reminds me in form very much of Word 2003, no ribbon menus!!! It is easy to use. In Chrome OS you use it like you would’ve done Word 2003, Alt to get to the menus and all.

 

I would expect Sheets and Slides to be similar in function to their Office counterparts.

 

Chromevox as a screen reader in Chrome, the browser comes up short, but in Chrome OS where it is the only option, it shines. It does exactly what you need it to do, exactly when you need it.

 

My conclusions?

 

I will not do this, but if I have to, I could quite happily do everything I need to in Chrome OS.

 

It is something I would recommend you give a shot if you are tired of antiVirus software, Windows updating your computer when you don’t want it to, overly expensive screen readers not doing the job any more, or even if you just have a bloody old Computer, and, yes, this will work on a Mac to.