Other ways to find deals online
Auction Sites
There was a time when you could get good deals on hardware and software through auction sites
such as Ebay and On-Sale.
Those days are long gone. Now, you'll find that the final purchase
prices on products listed on the auction sites are higher than their market value. People are
so caught up in the excitement of bidding that they end up paying more than they should have.
Not to mention that the products listed are usually refurbished (which means it broke once, and
will probably break again) or discontinued. If you see a deal that seems too good to be true
on those sites, it probably is. Bottom line, don't buy from auctions, unless you're looking
for a discontinued hard to find part or you're a collector.
Newsgroups
Newsgroups, in particular the Usenet, used to be the place to go to find great deals and also to sell
your excess hardware. Unfortunately, as the Internet proliferated, many small mail order companies
started to spam the newsgroups with high prices and general garbage. As a result, it became harder
and harder to sift through the useless ads to find the good ones. Nowadays, the ads on the
newsgroups are generally useless. Still, the newsgroups are probably your best bet if you are
looking to sell. The popular newsgroups for buying and selling hardware are the
misc.forsale.computers.* hierarchy, and the local market newsgroups (ba.market.computers,
ucb.market.misc, su.market.misc, etc. where the first few letters
designate a geographic region).
As a service to our readers, we have put up the
GX Marketplace Message Board
where users can post
for sale ads on hardware and software. We will be monitoring the board for spam and commercial
ads, so hopefully we can keep the posts of high quality. We will also be putting our excess
hardware for sale on the board, so keep checking back often for good deals!