Windows on Charlie Howlett

Repurposing a Laptop as a Home Server

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently given an old laptop that had been retired by my company. Despite no longer being needed for work, it still had quite capable hardware, so I decided to repurpose it as a compact, general-purpose home server rather than let it go unused.

Because the server will remain plugged in, I removed the battery to reduce unnecessary heat and avoid leaving an ageing battery permanently charging. I also removed the display, which improved airflow, made the machine easier to fit into tight spaces, and left the power button accessible without needing to open and close a lid. I saved the screen so it can be reused in a future project.

University Game Development

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Universe City was born from a group software project I worked on during my Computer Science degree at the University of York. Our brief was to create a game in Unity, and our team decided to build a turn-based strategy game inspired by Risk, replacing countries and armies with a deliberately light-hearted version of university life.

Players represented University of York colleges such as Halifax and Derwent, competing to capture sectors across the map and eliminate the other factions. The game supported between two and four human players. Alongside the main strategy systems, we built menus, resource displays, victory detection, and a Vice-Chancellor dressup minigame.

Go-playing Bot

Fri, 17 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Go bot interface, including the board and move history

Monte Carlo Go Bot

One of the earliest substantial software projects I built was a Go-playing bot for my Extended Project Qualification in sixth form. I had initially planned to build a chess bot, but once I realised how well simple brute-force algorithms could perform in chess, I decided to take on a more challenging problem. I turned my attention to Go because, at the time, it was one of the few classical board games in which human players still regularly beat machines.