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Actually I used to work at a shop down the street from a Worst Buy and surprisingly that didn't happen as often as you'd think, not because they wouldn't do such a thing but because with their shitty wages the guys they'd get would be fucking lost if it wasn't something that followed their little script i mean you have NO idea how many times i saw things like floppy drives hammered in upside down or with the power for something like the CD ROM not even plugged in.

But I heard about this place from a guy that used to work there and he said that they would take systems that people traded in or kept for a month and returned and after doing a basic check, make sure all the keys work, drives show up, etc they would bag 'em and put them on Cowboom.

Anyway as long as you don't mind minor blemishes like a scratch on the back of the lid? You can get some crazy cheap deals there. A friend picked up a Dell Mini 9 from there for like $95 and its been running solid for him for the past 2 years and I've pointed several people to cowboom over the years and never heard a complaint. its one of those sites where you have to check back every couple of days because the gear and prices can change often, one week you have a ton of netbooks at$125 and next week they'll have some at $95.

I'd say their best deal ATM would be the $190 AMD Acer netbook as the AMD C60 is a great netbook chip, the APU thanks to DXVA can do hd video over HDMI, gets around 6 and a half hours on the 6 cell (my dad got his GF one for Xmas year before last which is how i know) and can easily be upgraded to 4GB of RAM, its a pretty nice little unit.

I'm personally gonna wait and see, last I checked they were a little more locked down than a I care for. To me if I can't install any OS that is compatible? Then its an oversized cellphone, and last I checked you can ONLY install certain flavors of Linux by jumping through a page and a half of CLI hacks and they won't even let you dual boot between Linux and ChromeOS, that just sucks.

That is why I'll be babying the hell out of my 1215B, it came with both Win 7 HP and Linux based Expressgate for when i just need to whip off an email or surf, still gets about 4 hours after 3 years on the battery, and with 8GB of RAM all my programs are preloaded into RAM which lets the HDD park and save power. Oh and the Bobcat APU is actually powerful enough I can play me some Portal 2 or GTA:VC if I feel like it.

But if you just want a SFF to run Linux on Cowboom has used atom EEEs starting at $95, I've pointed a couple of friends to Cowboom for netbooks and they are quite happy,in fact one has been using his Dell Mini he picked up there as his go to portable for 2 years now and not a single problem. Ironically they have also started carrying the Chromebooks, although last I checked a new Chromebook is only $225 so its not really worth getting a used one. Its just a damned shame they locked them down so much because frankly if you could put windows on them for the software that won't run anywhere else and then boot into ChromeOS the rest of the time frankly it'd be more attractive.

Oh I almost forgot, here is a great place pnutjam if you need cheap units to load Linux onto as cowboom has netbooks starting at $120 and if you keep an eye on the site you can sometimes even get them as low as $80. I have pointed customers there before and they have gotten good deals. In case you wonder where they came from every time somebody tries a laptop at Best Buy or swaps one in for a new model? There ya go. They test 'em before bagging 'em up and my customers are quite happy with theirs, one has been using his Atom dual netbook as his go to for 2 years now and he paid a grand total of $100, can't beat that for an X86 netbook.

I don't know why anybody would hate on the C60, its frankly a kick ass netbook or mini-PC chip and when I couldn't find an E350 for my dad's GF year before last I found him an Acer with a C60 to give her and she just loves the hell out of the thing, like with my E350 EEE she has no intention of getting rid of it and why should she? Unlike the crippled Atom systems the C and E series support a ton of RAM (she has 4GB on hers, I went ahead and slapped 8GB in my E350) and have full VM support as well as does 1080P over HDMI. She loves hers because the C series gets even better battery life than mine, after 2 years she still gets nearly 6 hours whereas after 3 years mine still gets a solid 4. But I'm glad to see you enjoy the Bobcats, I can't count the number of office PCs and HTPCs I've built with Bobcats and they are just great, low power, full 1080P, hell I play L4D and the Portal and Torchlight series on my netbook when stuck at the doctor's office and its a fricking blast.

BTW Crosshair one place to keep an eye out besides Craigslist and eBay is to check out Cowboom which will have some insanely cheap AMD units from time to time. If you have never heard of them its the site Best Buy uses to sell all their returned and refurbed as well as trade in units and as you can see while they have a ton of dirt cheap Atoms they do get some AMD netbooks as well as the occasional full size. I picked up an Atom dual for $85 there that was like new, boy that was an easy unit to turn, as well as a C50 Gateway that was only $129 and also easy to flip. Its one of those sites you really just have to check daily as they constantly get new stuff and you never know what is gonna be there. The only AMDs they have now is a couple of single cores at $165 but last week they had a really nice E450 for just $130, you just gotta keep an eye out.

Oh and also keep an eye out on Amazon because as you can see here you can get some insanely cheap AMD E series boards there, I mean $70 for the Gigabyte with 4 SATA, or $95 for the Asrock with a PCI-E slot? way too cheap. If you are building an office PC I recommend the cheaper Gigabyte but for an HTPC you can't go wrong with the Asrock as hybrid crossfire works pretty damned good on those E series and having dedicated VRAM makes for a sweet HTPC, but as I'm sure you know both do 1080P just fine as long as you don't cheap out and buy 1066 RAM, I found running 1333 does make a difference on those APUs.

And if you do have an HTPC you ought to email me and I'll send you the links to the free programs I use, i tripped over some killer freeware that loads all the Metadata from IMDB into your media library so when you fire up WMC it has all the box art and synopsis filled in, hell of a lot nicer than trying to just find things alphabetically and since it loads all the metadata you can sort by genre, year, title, its a great way to enjoy your movies and TV shows.

No shit, you know how many of those damned things i have thrown in the garbage over the years at the shop? its ALWAYS the same, either they put a desktop chip in a laptop (no shit, I've seen DESKTOP Athlons and Celerons stuffed into a crap laptop) or they put a shit fan, but either way the POS cooks so i end up having to convert the drive into an external and pick them up something that is actually usable.

So please warn those around you to stay FAR away from these piles of shit. If they truly have NO money and want something cheap? get an off lease or a refurb, hell you can get a netbook for less than $150 at Cowboom and at least they won't roast and fall apart in a month.

1) Segment your home network so that a compromised windows box can't reach your other computers. Use 2 or more NAT/wired/wireless boxes between your cable-modem and your computers. (I do much the same to keep my wireless and guest traffic away from my personal machines.)

1a) Ideally put a hub in there and silently monitor the network traffic (ON A SECOND MACHINE!) from the WIndows box by port, destination, and TIME OF DAY!

2) Get a bootable CD/DVD of Linux, a 2gig (or larger, though many older computers can't support larger than 2gigs) external drive, and make ntfsclone your friend. ntfsclone runs under linux. I've used it numerous times to back up and restore winNTFS partitions. Nothing like turning back the clock.

3) Restore frequently.

4) Use chrome rather than IE for webbrowsing. Put IE on its most restrictive settings anyway.

5) Watch out the "freebies" and downloadable stuff. To say nothing of drive-bys.

6) Reconsider Macs. They just work. You can get something decent for $1k new, or even $600 new, or for a lot less off cowboom. ($350? Though watch out for older hardware not running the latest versions of OSX.) (Also, you might check on educational pricing. Don't know if Apple does that for grade-school, but they've been lenient in the past.)

N) Graphics are pretty lean on the Lenovo T400 laptop. Processing power is low too. It might work on the lowest settings. Or you might need to consider a desktop. Newegg often has good sales, if you are comfortable putting the parts together. Try: http://hot-deals.org/ or http://slickdeals.net/.

N+1) You might suggest his friends try LOTRO too. It's a lot cheaper without the monthly fee! The recent release (as of last monday) now works with WINE on macs & linux, though you need a patch... And an official mac port is on the way.

But you just proved my point, even you admit you'd be more likely to get a C-60 Bobcat and have offline and online from one unit, instead of being stuck with a thin client in a laptop form factor.

BTW I have one of the 12 inch AMD E-350 EEE netbooks and I have to say i just love the thing. i get nearly 6 hours on a battery, it only weighs 2.5 pounds, nice clear screen, and does 1080p over HDMI so I can just plug it into a TV and use it for an HTPC, its nice.

Other than schools though I just don't see the selling point of Chromebooks, I mean how many are 100% within WiFi range 24/7/365? With my netbook if I have to set while my mom is in the doctor's office and there is no net, no problem, I even took mine camping so I could have my tunes and just charged it off the 12v adapter. With the ChomeBook though if I didn't have a net connection I'd be SOL and paying $250 for a device that limited when i could buy a new Atom dual for that is just nuts.

BTW I don't know if you are in the USA or not but if you are and want one of those netbooks cheap just keep an eye on this site because they get different models every day and you can get some crazy deals. I had a couple of friends buy from there, one got a dual core Atom Dell mini from there for $120 and it was like new, another waited and got an AMD C-60 Acer for $149 which other than a scratch on the bottom of the thing you couldn't tell wasn't new.

I'd say the best advice above all is DON'T PANIC. Every time something nasty happens its always the panicked ones getting screwed over, a little common sense, a little thought ahead of time, and you are good to go. I always try to keep at least a week's worth of canned goods and Gatoraide (in the south water is fine, but if you don't replace the salt you sweat out in the heat you can get in a bad way all too quickly) along with enough gas in my truck if the excrement really hits the bladed cooling device i can always go visit my country relatives who have generators and plenty of foodstuffs. I've already talked to them and as long as I bring the trucks and the movies we're always welcome.

Now as far as data? Having a spare PC in the closet not plugged in is always a good thing, even if there isn't a disaster you never know when you are gonna blow a PSU or have a board die and with the Tiger kits being so damned cheap its really no major cost. Multi-Tb USB drives are pretty affordable and so is a little wall or floor safe, put them together as you said and there is the data solved, and if you want to have a spare mobile I've picked up plenty of returns from Cowboom and those Acer dual core netbooks are right at $200 and will fit in a safe just fine, just break it out to charge it once a month and you'll have portable goodness on tap. Nice thing about those little netbooks is they are so low power you can run them on just about anything, car adapter, charge 'em off a generator, hell I wouldn't be surprised if you could charge one with a solar charger but I've never tried.

But everyone should always have enough supplies for at least a week or two on hand, that's just common sense. After all there are earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, lots of different things could cause your area to go without for a few days and having supplies ready just in case is really something everyone should have around. Just be sure to check the dates regularly and use the stuff getting close to expiration while replacing it with fresh and you'll always be prepared.

The other guy said get her an iPad but that's bunk, wanna know what would be perfect for her? Something like this, its cheap, 12 inches seems to be the perfect size from dealing with older customers, and it lets her get comfy anywhere and do her email on the Wifi.

But as someone who builds new PCs and sells used as well I can tell you another problem isn't just the speed factor, its that most multicores are more than powerful enough for the average person and they just don't die like they used to. I have several customers with early Athlon X2 and Core Duos and frankly they just can't stress the chips, hence they just don't die. hell i sold my full size laptop for a 12 inch E350, why? Because when i'm mobile I'm frankly not stressing even the E350 and that is one of the weakest chips out there, my surfing just can't push it.

The only reason we are seeing such growth in mobile is they too are having a MHz war but it already looks to be coming to an end, with not heat but battery life becoming the issue. When that happens you'll see the same thing we are seeing now in PCs, people not replacing a unit until they die, although mobile will have a higher turnover simply because its easier to step on your phone or drop it down the stairs than it is your laptop.

Question: How does it handle? because i already have a dual core netbook that weighs less than 3 pounds and is easy peasy to carry, so for me to get one it needs to at least be snappy. I tried a tablet last year and the whole "click and wait" thing drove me nuts.

And while its cool that you snagged one for $89 if its slow as Xmas its really not that great a deal, especially when there are places you can grab a returned netbook for $148. But if it is at least snappy I may end up doing like you and picking up one just to play with.

True he hasn't thought about all that will entail trying to go homebrew for a road capable device. I'd say his best bet is one of the small Atom or my personal preference the E350 based netbooks, you are talking less than 3 pounds, insanely cheap, especially if he can live with a refurb, and small enough he can carry it anywhere. I've tried both the Atom 10in and the E350 12in and I have to say I prefer the extra bit of screen but either choice would be a lot less hassle and a damned sight easier than dragging all the crap around.

As you can see here you can get netbooks starting at $160, again if he doesn't mind returns and refurbs, so frankly it'd be so cheap that even if something were to happen to it it'd be no great loss. If he is worried about data loss they just about all come with an SD card slot, more than enough space to simply pop in and out your work when needed. Personally I've gotten several customers this model Acer and it along with the E350 EEE have been quite well received. Small, light, decent battery life (6-7 hours depending on what you are doing) and there are third party batteries that will stretch that to 12 hours if you don't mind the extra weight but I prefer the 6 cell, 6 hours of 720p video or a little over 7 surfing is just about the right amount of time, at least for most of my customers and me.

True he hasn't thought about all that will entail trying to go homebrew for a road capable device. I'd say his best bet is one of the small Atom or my personal preference the E350 based netbooks, you are talking less than 3 pounds, insanely cheap, especially if he can live with a refurb, and small enough he can carry it anywhere. I've tried both the Atom 10in and the E350 12in and I have to say I prefer the extra bit of screen but either choice would be a lot less hassle and a damned sight easier than dragging all the crap around.

As you can see here you can get netbooks starting at $160, again if he doesn't mind returns and refurbs, so frankly it'd be so cheap that even if something were to happen to it it'd be no great loss. If he is worried about data loss they just about all come with an SD card slot, more than enough space to simply pop in and out your work when needed. Personally I've gotten several customers this model Acer and it along with the E350 EEE have been quite well received. Small, light, decent battery life (6-7 hours depending on what you are doing) and there are third party batteries that will stretch that to 12 hours if you don't mind the extra weight but I prefer the 6 cell, 6 hours of 720p video or a little over 7 surfing is just about the right amount of time, at least for most of my customers and me.

I take it that its a REALLY old laptop then? Might want to tell him to keep an eye out on this site and grab him a cheap return because the celery is frankly a dog of a chip which i'm sure you know. I got myself one of those EEE-PC E350 netbooks and I can tell ya it stomped the Pentium mobile I had before it, really sweet and even does 1080p over HDMI.

But that little trick i told you will fix him right up, hell i had to do that trick myself a couple of days ago because MSE crapped itself by trying to update while WU was trying to update MSE and boned itself. one of these days i'll have to toss it for Comodo but since that machine is mainly gaming and transcoding its not like its really in any danger of bugs and Comodo takes about 3 days to train.

BTW if you give your roomie a hand be sure to point him towards ninite as that will take care of most of the "must have" software without any toolbars or 'clicky clicky next next next" bullshit. its the closest thing to a Windows repo I've ever found, you can even check the boxes for stuff you already have and it'll only install if there is a new version, just a great little resource. peace.

Next time watch http://slickdeals.net/ or try http://www.cowboom.com/.
You can get a very nice HP laptop for ~$900 off slickdeals every 1-3 months or so. Nice as in it plays games (lotro/warcraft) at maxed DX11 graphics with a decent refresh rate.