Shopping at the Goodwill Outlet.....
Mar. 5th, 2013 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1Our local Goodwill Industries organization -- Goodwill/Easter Seals Miami Valley -- has an outlet store with a section devoted to computer systems and parts. There are several volunteers in the area who refurbish these systems that are donated by both individuals and businesses.
Last November, I bought a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop for about $150. This became a holiday gift to my ex-wife and daughter. She has a desktop computer that one of her friends gave her a few years ago. But she has no place to set it up. And she's been wanting a laptop for a while.
In December, I picked up a Dell Latitude CPx laptop at Mendelson's for about $10. This is a model I'm familiar with, as I already had one (which had been named "tardis mark iii").
Last week, at the Goodwill Outlet, I found a 40 Gb IDE hard drive for $5 and a power supply for $4. They didn't have memory for it, so I'll look online.
Elsewhere in the outlet store are large blue bins filled with various items. And it was rather crowded. It's a feeding frenzy, as people are frantically looking for deals and bargains. Some folks were wearing latex gloves, so that they wouldn't get cut or infected by the products.
I found a KVM switch/cable, a case for a portable CD player, a Magnavox VCR/DVD combo ($3), and an HP PSC 2355 printer ($5). I took everything home, cleaned up everything with Clorox disinfectant wipes, and ran them through some tests. The VCR/DVD works well -- I can play tapes, record tapes from TV (it has a tuner), and play DVDs. But when I tested the printer this evening, it powered on, but would complete the bootup sequence. I looked inside and saw that there were no ink cartridges. So I went to my local supermarket to buy cartridges. They're expensive! After installing the ink cartridges, I tried powering up the printer again. And it still wouldn't complete booting up.So I have to find out if I can get my money back for it. [Updated 05-Mar 01:50] So after futzing with it for about an hour, resetting the printer, reinstalling the ink cartridges, fixing a carriage jam, and ensuring that the power supply connection was robust,I got it working.
Would I go back? Probably, for the computer parts. But not for much else.
Last November, I bought a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop for about $150. This became a holiday gift to my ex-wife and daughter. She has a desktop computer that one of her friends gave her a few years ago. But she has no place to set it up. And she's been wanting a laptop for a while.
In December, I picked up a Dell Latitude CPx laptop at Mendelson's for about $10. This is a model I'm familiar with, as I already had one (which had been named "tardis mark iii").
Last week, at the Goodwill Outlet, I found a 40 Gb IDE hard drive for $5 and a power supply for $4. They didn't have memory for it, so I'll look online.
Elsewhere in the outlet store are large blue bins filled with various items. And it was rather crowded. It's a feeding frenzy, as people are frantically looking for deals and bargains. Some folks were wearing latex gloves, so that they wouldn't get cut or infected by the products.
I found a KVM switch/cable, a case for a portable CD player, a Magnavox VCR/DVD combo ($3), and an HP PSC 2355 printer ($5). I took everything home, cleaned up everything with Clorox disinfectant wipes, and ran them through some tests. The VCR/DVD works well -- I can play tapes, record tapes from TV (it has a tuner), and play DVDs. But when I tested the printer this evening, it powered on, but would complete the bootup sequence. I looked inside and saw that there were no ink cartridges. So I went to my local supermarket to buy cartridges. They're expensive! After installing the ink cartridges, I tried powering up the printer again. And it still wouldn't complete booting up.
Would I go back? Probably, for the computer parts. But not for much else.
