Have problems disposing of your old IT kit? Of course you do. With the proliferation of legislation like Weee and RoHS etc, things have gotten pretty tricky for IT managers, especially given the new, caring and sharing, eco-friendly, responsible attitudes of many enterprises today. One natural home for used an abused hardware is to ship it off to a charity like Computer Aid, who'll take it off your hands and repurpose it for use in developing nations, to bring IT joy to a whole new generation.

A more unusual use for old kit though might be to throw it all in the corner of a room, think of an emotive title and enter it into Microsoft's DesignIT competition. Actually that's not strictly true. This competition is all about putting the fun back into IT (what, it went missing for a while?) and celebrating the creativity of IT professionals and how they can contribute positively to society. Basically a few charities are asked to come up with problems which can be solved through technology, and the ten finalists' IT system-solutions are then turned into art and put in a gallery. Interesting? Thought provoking? Pile of pretentious toss? It all depends on your perception of art and whether IT and creative types are actually compatible at all.

Leave your preconceptions at the door though and it's a worthwhile project – charities benefiting from the creative ingenuity and outside the box thinking of the IT professionals who took part. Oh, and there was a lively panel debate apparently, featuring our sister publication Computing’s very own (TV’s) Bryan Glick. Would have loved to listen to their words of wisdom but had some pressing matters to attend to in The Burlington Arms at the time…