I'm in a similar situation with an old laptop, but I'm eking a little more life out of it by:
- using a docking station at home, which has its own USB sockets
- using a cable with a Mini-B plug on one end. and two USB plugs on the other. The two plugs mean that it makes better contact on the socket shell, which is where the damage is in my case. You can get an extension-type cable with two plugs, e.g.
here, though I got my cable with an external disk drive (which needs more current than a single socket can provide).
