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!