How do I acquire, cheaply while I job hunt, what I need to keep learning? To extend my knowledge of Perl, yes, but also to become a more ecumenical monk, whose practice is Perl but will break bread with a good-hearted devotee of any sect.

Here are some tips I've found useful:

1. Prepare a monthly (or even weekly budget). You can't control your spending until you know where it goes.
2. Save portions of all income for various needs (emergency savings, tech purchases, etc).
3. Buy wisely. This means checking the local paper for old hardware that's more recent than what you have. For example, many people are trying to off their Pentium I and II computers to help pay for PIII/Athlon based boxes. Since you're starting from 486 class machines, this will help you get a number of the hardware elements you need to go to the next level, including ATX-style cases, more memory, larger hard drives, bigger power supplies, etc.)
4. Find ways to bring in extra income while you locate your "real" job. For example, I worked temp jobs while searching for my first job after graduating from college. This gave me a weekly income that helped pay for my first computer.
5. Look for used computer stores in your area. Here in the Northwest, we have RE-PC, PC Renaissance, and a few local sources for older stuff. I used these to buy the parts needed to upgrade two machines and the parts to build two more boxes from scratch (one for my daughter and one for a Linux box.)

I would recommend learning to build boxes yourself. It's not difficult and, if you're careful, you can build machines for 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of buying them new. There are many, many online resources that can help.

Also, if you have any interest-based bills (credit cards, school loans, etc), it may help to focus initially on paying them off early. This is especially true of high interest credit cards. You'd be suprised how much an extra $50-$150 bucks a month adds up into serious savings. As an example, my car payment is $300 a month. I haven't missed it because it's deducted automatically from my paycheck, but I'm looking for ways to add more money into my daughter's college fund. That extra $300 means I could triple my investment into her account and free up another $100 for myself.

Once you manage to save a chunk of cash for hardware upgrades, design the target machine and list the components you want. I recommend targeting the ideal, as of 18 months ago. For example, older P-III's are far cheaper than the P4. The same is true for the supporting components. If you want to be as inexpensive as possible, look at AMD's line of processors which are cheaper and require less expensive memory.

Consider contacting some of the larger employers in your area and contact them to find out what they currently do with their old hardware. Many companies give it to various charities; hook up with one and help refurbish the machines. You might even be able to buy one inexpensively. For example, my company recently auctioned off a bunch of P-133 level machines for $50/each. This included monitors, memory, and installed copies of Windows (along with the license).

As far as getting to know people in your new home:

1. Locate a nearby user group that you find interesting and begin participating.
2. Volunteer to help with local charities and public service agencies
3. Take evening classes from the local community college.
4. Start going to the local church and participating in appropriate events. There are many faiths, including ones that accept and welcome non-believers.
5. Look for free events to start enjoying; check out the local library or underground paper for starters.

In other words, take the initiative, find some people you like to hang out with, and then enjoy spending time together.

It's easy to be lonely in a new area, but more rewarding to investigate new adventures.

--f

P.S. As an aside, try to cultivate a couple of non-tech related interests. The time off can be very helpful.

I prefer not to give ecumenical advice here. Besides, that is a journey whose roads can only be driven by you.

Now Practical advice, that goes like this:

You need to invest yourself into your workbench in order to learn to make tools:


a.) To work comfortably you'll need to add at least a PII server into it. (Shouldn't need more than a used PIII -300Mhz for quite awhile).


b.) If you haven't put systems together before pay the extra $100 - $300 to have a local shop put together a system that's appropriate for you. Used components are often a good deal if backed up by a local shop that's been around awhile. I would put money in getting a NEW hdd on your server. (Whatever gets you the most Mbites/$ at said local shop.)


c.) Network your three systems (Don't buy linksys even if they are cheaper.) 10mb network cards are fine but go for a 10/100 hub you'll be glad you did later.


d.) Don't worry about the hard drive space on your client 486's forcing yourself to use SAMBA and NFS to access space on the server is part of the proffessional growth you get out this project


e.) Set your server up to be an internet server for your network.


i.) For a litt;e extra valuable education register and host a site from it). If you have cable-modems accessibility go that road with a DNS redirector (Don't mess with DNS it doesn't pay off in education for the security hole any extra port represents).


ii. Don't bother messing with hosting via an analog hook-up. Digital is the only decent solution


f.) Set your 486laptop as a win9b client. Cuz the rest of the world will force you to have a DOS interface until you learn more, and linux may have some problems with such an old laptop.


g.) I don't know what your *NIX favorites are but your 486 workstation could be any linux/free-BSD flavor you chose. It'll probably be 4 or 9 OS's before your sure what it should be. This is your sandbox for learning. otherwise known as your development server. You create on here what you migrate to your internet server (production server).


h.) If your really serious about doing things right put Free-BSD on your server. Or if your more comfortable with linux I reccommend Mandrakes HIGH SECURITY install or bastion. Patch it,firewall it and ONLY mess with it when your OS distrubuter puts out security releases.


i.) Get yourself a monitor switch/cable box to share one monitor with all 3 of your systems.

Accomplish these things and you will not only have gained the minimal tools required to exploit the on-line world with the most minimal investment, but you will have also improve your market value.

At least that's how it's worked out for me.

My advice will be less all-encompassing than footpad's but hopefully will help none the less.

First of all, Perl doesn't require much of a computer to run well. Throw Linux on a 486 and you've got yourself a Perl server. Similar things can be said for C/C++, Python, PHP, FORTRAN, whatever floats your boat. I think people lose sight of the fact that you only need a fast computer if you're running Windows. ;) Or another GUI, of course, and if you're doing 3D rendering, or huge amounts of databasing, that kind of thing.

That being said, you have a couple options. As footpad mentioned, AMD computers are hella-cheap these days, and the new Thunderbird line outperforms Intel's Coppermine in the majority of benchmarks and real world applications. You can pick up the economy model for even cheaper. An AMD Duron 800 runs about $70 if you purchase it online*. Add a cheap Socket-A motherboard with integrated sound for $100, an ATI Rage or GeForce2 MX for $50-$80, 128MB of RAM for $50, and a 10GB hard drive for $110 and you've got yourself a cheap workstation. Networking... contrary to what coreolyn recommended, LinkSys cards are cheap and work fine. I use them almost exclusively on my network at home, and have used them in the past in the workplace.

You could go back and buy an old Pentium II or Celeron, but oftentimes that will cost you more than it would to buy a newer system.

As far as putting the new computer together goes... well, that's always a good learning experience. ;) You can ask my dad about that one. Seriously though, there are tons of "build your own computer" guides online that you can read for clues. If you purchased your parts from a local store, you can usually call them up and ask them simple questions when you get stuck. If you get really frustrated or just don't want to bother, you can always pay them to do it for you, but that won't exactly save you money.

Otherwise, hitting company auctions and http://Ebay.com is your next best bet. People are practically giving away their systems on Ebay. Even if you don't want to go that route, you can often find major steals there... like a bundle of 10 network cards for $20, used motherboards, etc.

Good luck!

'kaboo

* Most of my prices are from http://pricewatch.com. I'm building new computers for four or five of my friends, happens every year, so I'm well versed on the issue. If you don't believe any of the prices I quoted, just hit pricewatch and do a few searches for yourself. I'm tellin ya, computer parts are cheap these days!

Keeping track of which driver goes with which linksys chipset on which OS is a pain. I'd rather pay $20-$30 more per card for a rock-solid 3com anyday, but we are definitely drifting into 'opinion' territory.

coreolyn

As for hardware, leave off the expensive stuff for a while. A straight Pentium 166 with 64Mb RAM will run almost everything, just a bit slower than you'd like. Once you have your nice new machine, tinker your old ones to death. Take 'em apart, put 'em back together, and you won't have to worry if you break them, because you have your new one to use.

Make friends with computer people, and you will often find yourself being given hardware because old machines take too much room to be worth keeping. (This often applies to corporations and universities too).

Finally, don't hesitate to mention your situtation in job interviews, rent applications, etc. Many people have been in similar situtations to you, and are willing to give you a bit of help by lending you gear or finding a little bit of work for you to help tide you over.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

Putting in an hour or so every other day will get you through the average O'Reilly book every couple of weeks. Retaining information may be a problem if you don't have a way to play with it immediately, but there are enough examples of good design (like UUCP, strangely enough) that the common elements will stick around in your subconscious.

Turn off the TV for a while and read, or play around and experiment with a new module or a question and answer you don't quite understand.

Oh, and go for 30+ minute walks every other day, or lift weights, but get regular exercise. It clears the head, gets the blood flowing, sends oxygen to the brain, and produces all sorts of good chemicals. If you haven't been in the habit before, you'll be surprised how much it helps with everything else. (After the first couple of weeks, anyway.)

What!? Actually physically move for 30+ minutes a day? Even when you don't have too?

What a concept! I really should check that out one of these decades. :-}

coreolyn¹

¹Currently recovering from shock after shovelling the 'white death' of 2000 -- again!.

Oh, and go for 30+ minute walks every other day, or lift weights, but get regular exercise. It clears the head, gets the blood flowing, sends oxygen to the brain, and produces all sorts of good chemicals. If you haven't been in the habit before, you'll be surprised how much it helps with everything else. (After the first couple of weeks, anyway.)

chromatic, adamsj said he was in Houston, so I'd probably advise against this particular choice, at least doing this outdoors. :)

adamsj, I think the standard advice I'd give is similar, though. Pick up the alternative weekly that's generally out each Thursday (seems to be standard practice in the major Texas cities). Find other things that intrigue you and meet other people. Aside: last night, my roommate and I were in Dallas and I ended up talking and drinking with the DJ and his friends.

I can't think of any good computer stores down in H-town, but I'm sure they exist. If you can spare a day to make a road trip to Arlington (really, it's not that far), there's a good place there. Likewise with Austin, although I haven't found any as eclectic as the one in Arlington.

Short of finding an amazing place that can cheaply meet your needs, you can configure a system for a fair amount at Altex.

Knowing what it's like to be transplanted from OK to TX, and having now lived near Big-D, H-town, and in Austin, I'd be willing to try to comb through my knowledge base and give you some specific local advice. Good luck, and stick with it. Houston gets a bad rep of all the cities in Texas, but it's livable and there are things worth doing out there to make the transition bearable. If you can't survive there, give Austin a try. :) I'm amazed at how there were times I'd do a double take thinking that I was headed towards Memorial or Lewis.

ALL HAIL BRAK!!!