Posted on 08/02/2013 12:31:08 PM PDT by Utilizer
Depressing news for those of us who appreciate great prices on computer gear and component parts. The Geeks website now displays a simple page explaining that all ordering has now ceased. Competition appears to be the overriding reason, and a general unwillingness to have been forced to this point is quite apparent. I, for one, will miss all the great deals they offer, and have offered for many years.
I noticed that too. I stopped patronizing them when the bottom fell out.
Ableshoppers dot com used to be a great resource for finding better sales, but their website seems to have been unmaintained for a couple of years now and no equivalent site has yet appeared. TigerDirect was barely tolerable, but as I stated previously paying for shipping all the way from Florida to NorCal put a serious crimp on the attractiveness of their offerings.
Newegg still has the best prices on cases and quite a few other things if you are willing to wait for their sales. Also, on some items taking a chance on the Mail In Rebate which takes over eight weeks to process. I can post a screencap of their last great case offerings (last month's) if anyone is interested (and if JimRob does not mind the bandwidth usage) if you just have some patience and keep an eye on their sales offerings. Free shipping and about 99% of the orders I place arrive within 48 hours -I assume that is because I live in Cali. Other sites I could name also have great prices on electronics-related items but none come close to that, I have found.
Again: watch the sales flyers. You might be surprised.
I used to go up to Geeks in Oceanside to pick up stuff.
Did they actually stop that at some point? I moved away from San Diego in 2010 so it’s been a while.
With Fry's, I think you have to buy in the store to get the really good deals. A lot of times it says right in the ad "in store only", and then you look at the same item online and it is a discount price but not a truly great price. So maybe that affects your view of Fry's prices. I am starting to sound like an ad for Fry's, but I do love having that store handy. If I lived in a town that didn't have these choices available, I would have to spend a lot more money.
Years ago, I used PriceGrabber, and it was good for a while, but now it is hard to find the best deals on it.
PriceWatch used to be the best place for low pricing on RAM, but I think there are now lots of sites with cheap RAM, and Fry's is just as good when you get the RAM on sale. Whenever I am looking for RAM, I just have to wait a few weeks for the one I want to be on sale.
Newegg may have been best in cases, I can't say for sure, but I know that Geeks had really good prices on cases, and I could pick them up locally. PSUs, too.
In America, we have it really good. I recently tried to get an electric fan for my daughter in Paris, and it is 95 degrees and it seems there is no store in that town that you can walk into and buy a fan. Their big electronics store, Darty, doesn't keep them in stock and doesn't deliver them to Paris. You have to go to one of the 5 stores in France that carries that particular model. They need a Walmart in that country, not to mention a BestBuy or Fry's. But that's another topic. I guess we'll know Obama has succeeded in remaking the US when we can't get stuff anymore, and they shut down all the Walmarts.
They closed the ordway store, and moved it to Vista. However, the Vista store didn’t have everything in stock, just a few things. The warehouse was moved to Murrieta. I never did make it to Vista after that.
According to what remains of their website, the Oceanside retail store remains open. Unfortunately, I live in NorCal, nowhere near Oceanside and it simply is not possible for Me to drive there no matter how strong the temptation.
It doesn’t get much geekier that a usb powered foam missile launcher.
Recently, it was some 2.5 in to 3.5 in drive adaptors I purchased for comparison purposes, prior to that it was the cases I mentioned previously, and before then some powered USB hubs and power strips with individually switched outlets that I simply had to have. I was also looking strongly at an air-conditioning unit that was quite similar to the one I have now less the digital control and remote for 100.00 less and free shipping...
Not every day, but now and again there are some quite good bargains if you are looking closely.
Nothingbutsoftware is decent enough if you are in the market for 'Doze software (I run pretty much all Linux machines), and freeafterrebate seems to have some quite attractively priced items. A few other sites I could mention for electronics stuff not totally computer related but sometimes have computer accessory items that are useful if you check them out closely enough.
I pretty much agree with you about Fry's. I would frequent them quite a bit when I was still living in The Valley and true, the walk-in sales were quite good. In Store Only is too much to ask -the closest we have here is a ChickenHut (Radio Shack) franchise in the local Napa auto store, with the RS section taking up the right-hand wall and half of one aisle. In a building with a retail space about seven steps long. So I use Online Vendors almost exclusively.
‘Ace, you know anyone that can give us a bit of programming (not exactly pure coding) advice?
The "missiles" are roughly the diameter of a cheap pencil and half as long with a slightly weighted tip for beautiful 'arcing' shots. Easily shoots across the room lengthwise but about as troublesome as a thrown q-tip.
What kind of advice are you looking for? I used to be a programmer in a previous life.....
I first started programming in BASIC many years ago, first on a TI99/4A and then on 8086 chips. You could do quite a bit with 64k to play with and a tape backup. However, being always pressed for time I did not put a lot of REM statements in the code, and back then we swapped bits of code back and forth quite a bit to help each other out. I worked on several interesting projects, moved to the 286 and then the 386 platforms and began learning first Visual Basic then C++ and Visual C++ after that. Along the way I converted most of the programs I had created or worked on with others to their COM and EXE equivalents, then backed them all up on floppies and chucked the paper.
Then suddenly I had to learn Assembly and began concentrating on Embedded Systems exclusively before I stopped programming and worked on the Engineering skills I needed for a paycheck.
In a nutshell, I have recently come across quite a bit of old programs that I created and executable files from projects that I worked on many years ago. Most of the small firms, hmmph, pretty much ALL the groups I worked with back then are long gone, and the few programmers I remember the names of I can not find.
Now I have all these old programs from that time and I want to get back into programming and convert them into Linux-compatable proggies. Problem is, while I used to code for a DOS environment and later some '95 even, I do not know how to code for a proggie to run in Linux as of yet, and all My instruction books concentrated on the biggest prospect out there: a Microsoft environment.
I am decompiling more and more progs as time goes by but can not seem to figure out how to recode for a Linux environment. Not even going to try for BSD or a pure Unix code as this will all be made available for GPL'd Debian useage, but I need some help in what areas to study to successfully convert over. Any ideas?
I look forward to hearing about any more info you might come across. *grin*
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.