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I know where to find deals, but does Joe and Jill Sixpack?

Fair enough. I tried http://www.onsale.com/ after searching with Google for "online auction consumer electronics". Not a bad site. I've shopped there in the past. Your point is valid. Most people do not have a clue as to how to pose a query to a search engine. PayPal/eBay get into financially raping such innocent people.

I'm surprised that no exec with a clue at PayPal didn't realize the horrible publicity they would obtain by ripping off the family of a slain soldier. :-( Most suits know more about PR and especially damage control.

I'm working, as much as possible, with the same rules they did, except that I'm pricing everything after rebates.

RAM: Corsair 1GB PC3200, $48.99 after rebate http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3746086

Optical Drive: NEC 3550A, same as they did, $38.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Subm it=ENE&N=50001326&Manufactory=1326

Keyboard, Mouse and Speakers: About as generic as they come, cheap PS2 keyboard, USB mouse, and some sort of speakers, $12.99 including shipping http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/productdetails.asp?l inkid=119&item=23-174-003

Monitor: 17" X2Gen LCD, $129.99 http://www.onsale.com/onsale/shop/detail~dpno~7181 70.asp

Case/PSU: Generic silver case with a generic 450W PSU. $29.50, free shipping http://www.supergooddeal.com/ProductDetails.asp?Pr oductCode=BCC204-4HA-S-P4&Click=17583

Hard Drive: There's either a 160 GB WD drive for $50 http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oi d=67646&cm_keycode=85 or a 100 GB Maxtor for $40 http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?p roduct_code=320167&pfp=feb19sale.

Now, here I left a choice, and a bit of a nasty one. I've got $189.54 left for a motherboard, CPU, and hopefully a video card. I'm going to offer it both ways, one with the best processor I can fit into this, the other with a cheaper processor and a real video card.

Motherboard: Again, there aren't any great motherboard/CPU combo deals at the moment. For those wanting to go all-out on the CPU, I found an Athlon64 3400+ (socket 754, obviously) with a PCCHIPS 861-G (Yeah, crap, but it has onboard audio and video) motherboard for $184 (optioning to update the BIOS and including thermal paste). http://www.pc-infinity.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen =PROD&Store_Code=P&Product_Code=MB7543400

Now, if you do plan on doing a bit of gaming on this, a video card might be a good idea. Unfortunately, one really can't be put in without dropping the processor to a Sempron, so that's what I'll do. Let's face it though, with the video card that could still be afforded, CPU limiting will probably be a non-issue. As far as Semprons go, the 2800+ they chose seemed to be at a very nice price point, so I went with it and an ECS 761GX motherboard, $75 and $49.50 respectively at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16819104245 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16813135002

Now there's $65 left for a video card, but I'm going to offer four options; two each for ATI and NVidia, going to $525 as they did or keeping it under $500 (with the strong recommendation of spending the extra $25; performance increases a lot). For the cheaper two, we have a choice between the ATI X1300 128MB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8

Looking at Onsale.com, they had a nice variety of switches from Belkin, Apex, Cybex, and more. Even if you don't want to buy there, they have all of the specs and such there to compare. Just do a search for KVM.

I'm glad to see that yet another corporate giant isn't too big to realize what's in their best interests when it comes to web serving reliability.

Now if OnSale and other online-stores would only switch to Apache, it would make my surfing alot easier. Many times I've been surfing for that special piece of hardware only to find myself drumming my fingers on the desk waiting for their lame server to send me a page or two. If these competitors keep using their IIS or Netscape servers, they're only going to drown in their own downtime & latency.



Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad