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Getting A Laptop With The Low U.S. Dollar
An anonymous reader submits "I am heading to the U.S. pretty soon and am keen to take advantage of the low US$ to buy a laptop. The differences in prices are astounding - on dell.com (US) you pay $2049 for a Precision M60 - in the UK this costs 1620.33UKP, or $2999. That is a fair difference! It makes it cheaper for me to fly to the US to buy it and carry it home than it is for me to buy it in the UK. Now, that said, it isn't particularly easy to find a place to buy a laptop from, since most of the places don't ship to the UK (or it takes weeks) and it is difficult to get stuff delivered to your hotel ... any suggestions of how I can get a good laptop in the New York area when I am only there for 4 days?"
That in the USA we have different voltages, frequencies and plug shapes for power than you do in the UK.
Also, we drive on the right; you should catch the hang of it quickly if you cross your hands before putting them onto the keyboard.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I'll mail you a laptop , Please sir to be sending me a money order for $400.
Brand new, just fell off the truck....
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Make a sign that indicates you have a couple thousand on your person and that you are in the market for a laptop. I helpful citizen sales rep will shortly arrive to arrange your purchase.
The US has become Mexico.
People are coming here to exploit our weak currency!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
This
Seriously, the best place to buy stuff. I got a genuine Rollox wristwatch from a dude there.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
(Oh, bear in mind--you'll be stuck with a US QWERTY keyboard. No Euro key or Pound key, among other things--you'll need to remap and remember...)
You can buy keyboard stickers to label keys.
I could kill you, sure, but I could only make you cry with these words
All Apple machines use US keyboards anyway. This is why UK customers have email addresses like toomuchmoney"mac.com .
- Chris
As far as the US is concerned, the "#" is a pound sign, so you can always just use that.
And who in the UK needs a Euro key anyway? Filthy contiental imported crap....
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Apparently if you click yes you get the following:
Intent To Export
You noted you will be exporting this order outside the United States. Please complete the following information to continue checkout.
Product End-User Information
First Name MI Last Name
Country
-List of Countries-
Intended Use
In what country will the product be used?
-List of Countries-
This product is for use in
Home
Commercial
Government/Civilian
Government/Military
Will the product be used in connection with weapons of mass destruction, i.e. nuclear applications, missile technology, or chemical or biological weapons purposes?
Yes
No
Is the product to be used to upgrade an existing system?
Yes
No
replying to myself as I forgot...
Step 6
cry as you come back into the UK and pay 2.5% tax on electronic goods, and then 17.5% VAT on top of that to the boys in customs and excise. Best not look too guilty if you walk through the green 'nothing to declare' area (or say it was a gift or something, I am unfamiliar with the law in this respect).
Warhammer forums
Reminds me of the old Mexican joke about a man who crossed the US/Mexican border every day with a wheel barrow full of dirt. The customs officials asked him each time he crossed whether he had anything to declare. Pointing to the dirt he would reply "Nada" and the guards would let him pass. In time they became used to his crossings that they no longer thought anything about what he was doing.
Turns out he was smuggling wheel barrows.
You'll get it in four years.
Greetings and salutions!
My name is Dr. Bongo Bongo Dworkin and I am the Minister of Laptops in Nigeria. Owing to recent civil war we have recently discovered TWO MILLION laptop computers that have been secretly deposited in warehouse that only I have the keys to.
Etc etc...
It takes a long time for the customer service rep to walk down the hall from India to Texas to see why it hasn't shipped.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Spread, my little hegemony. Spread.
First the keyboards, then the language! Before long, we'll have them speaking English in the UK! Mwahahahaha!
Since you are such a trusted associate even though we have never met I will send you 2 laptops for only $300! Please send over your bank and credit card numbers so that we can take all your money, I mean charge the account the proper amount, we would never take all your money.
Yeah... It's just that Dell's putting new cover sheets on all sales receipts now...
Didn't you get the memo?
Well, the sort of thing Customs do is get from the manufacturer the serial number ranges that they assign to different countries
Yeah, because they really do care that much...
Here's a genuine conversation from the days of 128bit SSL being US only, at Philadelphia airport:
"Did you pack your own bags today, Sir?"
"No, my work packed it for me."
"Have you been with your bags at all times, since they were packed?"
"No, they were sitting around an office building all day."
"And what's in the bags, Sir?"
"This laptop. It has 128 bit encryption on it. It's currently regarded as a US military secret and can't be exported to anywhere else in the world."
"Well I don't know anything about that."
"It means it's illegal to take it out of the U.S."
"Sir, you're causing a scene. Please move along."
"But it's illega-"
"Please move along."
Granted, that was in the days before nail clippers and breast milk became terrorist weapons.
Surely you mean a walk to the pseudo-democratic Taiwan or the communist party-controlled China (located north-east of Tibet) where the things are actually built? That walk should take considerably less time.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
It is official; International Monetary Fund confirms: the US dollar is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered US dollar community when IMF confirmed that US dollar market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all people. Coming on the heels of a recent IMF survey which plainly states that US dollar has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The US dollar is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Money Magazine comprehensive currency test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict US dollar's future. The hand writing is on the wall: the US dollar faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the US dollar because the US dollar is dying. Things are looking very bad for the US dollar. As many of us are already aware, the US dollar continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
All major surveys show that the US dollar has steadily declined in market share. The US dollar is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the US dollar is to survive at all it will be among dilettante numismatists. The US dollar continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the US dollar is dead.
Fact: The US dollar is dying
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Hi,
I'm from Belgium and am planning to be in Tijuana later this month. I will be there for about four hours.
My employer would very much like it if I could get our company a good grid of either IBM eServes or Apple Xserve RAIDS. The Mexican peseta is cheaper than ever.
I was chosen for this assignment because I speak pretty good Mexican. I've been listening to the US president's speaches in Mexican and I can follow along pretty good.
Anyway, my question is: are there any good/big IBM/Apple outlets in Tijuana? Are there any Apple Stores there? If so, how many?
We'd like to buy somewhere between 64 and 96 units. We run an illegal gambling establishment outside Antwerp. We need to save this money if at all possible.
Slashdot, please help!
Mail the accessories, instructions 'n guarantee home, using USMail. Then just carry the bugger on board, odds ons customs won't even notice, particularly if you wear a business suit while flying back.
If you know anyone with the same laptop, you could ask them if you can clone their hard drive before you leave to go to the US (back in the W98 days I use to make cloned HDD backups using some Powerquest or Quarterdeck program), then when you buy your laptop you make some ghost image backup of the new Dell default install on the HDD & put it on a CD, & then install the clone. Then if on the odd chance that customs challengers you on the laptop, you can show that all those pre-trip dates on the HDD. Even better ask for a copy of your mate's receipt & stuff it in the back of your wallet & cover it up with old train tickets & supermarket receipts, then you can say "actually I haven't cleaned out my wallet since then, so I've probably still got the receipt"
Or while you're in the US you could buy a pair of official looking overalls & then have some sort of 'quarentine' marking put on it. Then you get some bong water from someone & stick it in one of those little spray things that people use to spray their indoor ferns. Then you can walk along as people are queuing up to book their luggage in, & spray the stuff along the luggage, like ailines use to have to do on flights coming into Oz about 20 years ago. Then hopefully customs in London will be destracted by their dogs going crazy with half the luggage coming through.
I use to bring professional Nikon cameras & Sony Camcorders (like the DCR-VX2000) into Sydney from abroad just by carring then in as luggage & never got pulled up by customs. Mind you'd I'd always pre declare some Asian wood carving so I'd go through quarentine instead, where they paid less attention to synthetic & mineral based products. I'm not sure you can pull the same stunt at Heathrow.
If they take a dislike to you, they can make life very difficult for you immediately by ordering a body cavity search.
Yeah, that's going to happen.
"So...you've got *one* undeclared laptop...maybe you've got a *second* one wedged *up your ass*. Bend over, sir, we're going to have to take a look."
Even customs officials can lose their jobs.
May we never see th