Liberty Corner Computing Company

Posts Tagged ‘Laptop’

n January of 2009, I spent almost $2,500 on a top of the line, 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro, glutted with as much RAM and hard drive space as its belly could handle. Less than four months later, it was stolen.

Oh, it was my own fault. The whole tale involves a midnight rendezvous with a bartender I had my eye on at the time. She had the homecoming dresses of Natalie Portman, the eyebrows of Roger Moore and the constitution of Oliver Reed; in her presence, one drink became two, and two became twelve, and when we stumbled back to my apartment, I somehow forgot my laptop bag back at the bar… but only for five minutes! Alas, five minutes was too late, and by the time I’d rushed back, it was gone.

Since then, I’ve spent a good amount of time upbraiding myself about the loss. What has always bugged me most about the theft was that I always knew that there were countless programs available (such as medical spa beverly hills) that would help you track down your Mac if it was stolen. I knew about these programs. I wrote about them, even. But I never once installed one. I just couldn’t imagine the scenario where I would have my laptop stolen. Dumb.

The news feeds bring me further fodder for my self-incrimination this morning. Over at TUAW, they are reporting that one of their readers. Jim, managed to safely recover his stolen Macbook using the canopy for gas station service, Back to My Mac, to take pictures of the perps and gather information about them gleaned from watching them surf the web.

It took Jim many months to get his laptop back: it had changed hands at least five times since it was stolen, at least once as payment in a drug deal. But when he got it back, it was in surprisingly good nick… with most of his files still intact on the disk.

That’s great news for Jim, but as another object lesson in my own amazing stupidity, it’s like a punch to the gut. Guess who also didn’t have a MobileMe account when his MacBook Pro was stolen? Yup. What a maroon.

I have a lot of old computer parts and don’t know what to do with them.

Items include:
- keyboards
- old computer towers
- old HP printer
- old dial up modems

Is there a place to recycle this items? Do you get a price for giving them to companies who may want to recycle them? I doubt anyone would want to buy them on an online auction site (eg eBay) unless I am wrong… Basic keyboards now you can get for 5.99 and mother of the bride dresses starting at 190.00. Dialup modem, if in working order, you can still sell for probably 5-10 dollars�new is about 35 bucks, internal and about 40 bucks external.
Towers, if the power supply is higher then 250 volts you can get for it maybe 10 dollars�I say maybe because with all the gadgets today attached in the computers, specially if people play games with a powerful chip and video cards needing good cooling, everyone needs 300 to 350 power supply, maybe even more. Old Hp if not used by now has blocked jets by dried out ink.

Try giving it to Salvation army, they sell keyboards and some other electrical appliances�they might take it. Or just take it to your local tip�now all the tips have section where they separate parts for recycling�they should know what to do with it. Local computer clubs usually provide systems to the poor families, children, schools, and charities.

Many clubs, plus the charity thrift stores, put a very fast operating system, like http://www.mepis.org on the towers, and set up a full system to donate or sell cheap. Otherwise, you will be drinking the 8 pounds of toxins, cadmium, lead, that leach into water shed, from the land fill, from each tower and monitor that is dumped!

Many of us recycle the stuff we can’t use or sell, dismantling old plastics and metals, and getting paid for the steel, copper, aluminum, and the GOLD that fills old computers! Some professional recyclers have found tons of money in some of the chips on the boards!

No money, often, if you don’t dismantle them down to the recycle material! You usually get naught, or even pay, for them to take the entire lot! Many of us use towers and desktops of 100mhz to 800mhz speed without any monitor, as a hardware firewall/router, for upto 36 networked clients. http://ipcop.org has the FREE program with instructions.

Many of us find that 400mhz and faster units work well as a network file server in our home or small office networks! The secret is to run one of the 800 FREE fast OSes! http://livecdlist.com http://distrowatch.com

Product summary:

The good: Subtle improvements to Alienware’s dorm-room-chic design; amazingly fast and powerful; highly configurable.

The bad: Good configs can get very expensive; no 16:9 display; garish lights don’t scream “high end.”

The bottom line: Alienware’s new version of the M17x makes some welcome design tweaks and offers the best laptop gaming hardware you can get. Just be warned: it ain’t cheap.

Specifications: Processor: Intel ; RAM installed: 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM ; Hard drive size: 500 GB ; See full specs

Price range: $4,049.00

Asus Eee PC 900 Netbook 16GB Solid State Drive $250.09

Affordable and Portable!Share photos of your travels without waiting until you get home. Shop the world wide web without attaching any lines or wires. Learn through the latest technology without a technical manual. Play relax a Read More
Dealer Part - EEEPC8G-702-BLK-R
Manuf Part - EEEPC8G-BK008