{"id":4257,"date":"2026-07-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/?p=4257"},"modified":"2026-07-07T11:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T15:32:11","slug":"mosier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/?p=4257","title":{"rendered":"Rise Up!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Decepticon<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If you’re new to my blog, you might not know that I absolutely love taking an old or abandoned computer and bringing it back to life. I upgrade the hardware with whatever I have on hand, trying to reduce bottlenecks. I order replacement parts for those I don’t have in my stash, and I test all the things. After that, I try to find the best version of Linux that will give the machine its longest life. Usually, this ends up being Debian-flavored, because that’s what I’m most familiar with. Then, once that’s done, I try to find the machine a good home.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Decepticon<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This one is an Acer Aspire 5253<\/a> laptop. I upgraded the RAM to 8GB and upgraded the hard drive from a very old spinning one to a SATA SSD. I replaced the battery with a new one; I love those old, easily replaceable batteries. Just pull the old one out and slot the new one in. Done! For the operating system, I chose Lubuntu<\/a>, which is designed to run smoothly on machines with very limited resources, for which this definitely qualifies. Additionally, because so much of the internet experience now happens through the browser, I installed Falkon<\/a>, which allows YouTube and Twitch viewing to happen, at least at medium resolutions. Falkon is really snappy for as few resources as it uses!<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Decepticon<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The last piece of this puzzle was something new-ish to me. I wanted this laptop to be more than a repair project. I wanted to get creative with it. I wanted to make it unique. Not H-Mods<\/a> customized, but, you know, something<\/em>. A while back, I painted the case of my desktop PC<\/a> (before handing it off to my son), and I was itching to do something similar. This time, to go with the black color of the laptop, I decided on the purple of Decepticons. On the lid is a graffiti style Decepticon symbol. On the wrist wrest is some Decepticon graffiti text<\/a>, which spells out “RISE UP”, which felt right<\/em>. I covered both with a layer of clear coat to make the paint last, and then I scuffed it for a worn look. For the final touches, I updated the wallpaper (pictured here) and the user login icon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really, really like mixing my hardware tinkering with art. It felt both thrilling and creatively satisfying. I have the feeling that I’ll want to do this again. For now, the RISE UP laptop is for sale here<\/a>, if you’d like to bring it into your home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re new to my blog, you might not know that I absolutely love taking an old or abandoned computer and bringing it back to life. I upgrade the hardware with whatever I have on hand, trying to reduce bottlenecks. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,54,48],"class_list":["post-4257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gadgets-and-nerdery","tag-tech-tinkering","tag-transformers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saQnES-mosier","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4257"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8879,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4257\/revisions\/8879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}