In the past, I never really thought twice about Earth Day. I barely even celebrated recycling day, and even then, only after many, many fines and citations. But, LAPTOP readers, bear witness, for I have been evangelized: I am now an environmentalist. I didn't have much choice, really, because in this line of work electronic gizmos and doodads pile up faster than…well, they pile up pretty fast. The stuff occupies literally every nook of my apartment-floors, closets, desks, drawers, shelves, crawl spaces. It's the land of misfit gadgets, and things have gotten so bad that I'm pretty sure I used to have a dog. So in celebration of this year's Mother-Earth Day I've whipped up a handy guide to reusing old gadgets, and thus slightly shrinking that elephantine carbon footprint.

 

(And for those of you who are motivated to clean house and trash your gadgets, check out our handy recycling guide first.)

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