[dba-Tech] Desktop recommendation

>I found a local shop with a flat rate $75 bench fee for building/fixing
PC's. 

That's a steal and well worth doing.  I definitely understand the "no time
to do it", on the other hand it just keeps getting simpler and simpler, it
really does.  With all the plug and play (less and less pray), installing
the hardware is just getting down to nothing.  Plus the new motherboards
have everything built in to the MB itself.  I kid you not, the new machines
I built have exactly ONE card, that being the video card.  All the disks,
sound, USB, etc is all just right on the motherboard.  You pop in the CD
with the drivers and load it up and you are done.  Why do you think the
systems from Dell are so cheap?  

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 

Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause:
http://folding.stanford.edu/

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Porter, Mark
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 2:03 PM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: RE: [dba-Tech] Desktop recommendation


I also purchase/build my own stuff, very economical.

However, I rarely have time to build anymore (I'd rather be kayaking).  I
found a local shop with a flat rate $75 bench fee for building/fixing PC's.
I give them the parts and they do a great job, saving me time and sometimes
a headache.

Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of
> John W. Colby
> Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 9:04 AM
> To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
> Subject: RE: [dba-Tech] Desktop recommendation
> 
> 
> ROTFL.  There's a guy with too much money!
> 
> ;-)
> 
> It's really easy to get cheap prebuilt systems, but high
> performing, cheap
> prebuilt systems are another matter.  In fact Dell and the 
> others get you in
> and browsing with the cheap machines, then seriously jack up 
> the price when
> you start upgrading the cheap components to better performing ones.
> 
> Joe was discussing buying an Emachines which is a fairly
> strong indication
> that he is not in your (apparent) income bracket.  And an 
> Emachines is not
> going to impress many clients unless they happen to be impressed by
> frugality.
> 
> And the case is NOT ugly.  8-(
> 
> For those of us not so wealthy, building systems is DEAD
> easy.  In the US
> the parts are extremely cheap, and you can put together 
> machines that you
> can't touch for twice the price the price.  I replaced my 
> wife's 1ghz amd
> with 256 of ram (which I built 3 years ago).  I had to replace the
> motherboard, processor, ram and video card.  I used the rest 
> of the parts
> (disks, cd, floppy, monitor, mouse and keyboard and chassis). 
>  It took me
> about an hour, plus the time to load the software.  The price 
> was ~ $300 to
> go from low functioning to SERIOUSLY fast.  Gigabit LAN NIC, smoking
> performance, plenty of memory, tons of USB ports, etc.
> 
> Do that with your IBM Gustav.
> 
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
> 
> Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: 
> http://folding.stanford.edu/