Six years is several human lifetimes in computing terms. The lithesome MacBook Pro of 2009 is not going to speed into 2015 without considerable tweaking. Jason Snell discovered this when he rescued his mother’s old MB Pro which she had abandoned in favour of an iPad. Jason put the elderly Apple on his top shelf. With its miserly 2GB of RAM and slothful spinning disk it was not good for much. But when a friend cast lustful eyes ever the dusty device Jason couldn’t bring himself to pass it on in its original configuration. For only $130 and minimal effort he transformed the laptop. It is now all suited and booted in El Capitan and, while it will not win any benchmarks, it is once more a very viable computer.