> What the .... > She just turned up again and handed me a Packard Bell Platinum 4500 from > circa 1996 and said "See what you can do to make that better, the kids did > something to it and it keeps running chkdisk". She also handed me a HP > Pavilion with Windows Me with the same "make it better" instructions. The > HP would not even start when I called her she said her father in > law had it > sitting in the garage for two months. >
Nothing a 1 gallon can of gasoline and a match could not handle <g>... Of course, there would be a $250 fee to simply "see what you can do". So, why not offer to look at the units for free and later hit her with the fees? Because she will decide it is too much, and let you take care of disposing of the old, high tech boat anchors! Where does it end? At the start. I stopped taking older PC "donations" a while ago from friends who would ask me to help set up their new PCs. Too often I would find the older PCs were okay for running Linspire Linux after I added some RAM, but the recipients who "could not afford a new(er) PC" would gripe that it was not a Windows PC! Further, I had begun to see the older, non-repairable machines & parts begin to pile up. New York passed a law requiring all PC and electronic components be disposed of in a "proper manner" (recycling effort). Of course that meant "somebody" had to pay the recycling fee. I washed my hand of trying to help the folks claiming to not be able to buy a new(er) PC, as many of the Linspire recipients ended up getting a "real Windows PC" shortly after my efforts to be kind. And I do not take in any older parts or PCs any longer, unless it is a client who is willing to reimburse me for the scrap fees. Heck, I got a call from a local car dealer that went bust the other month. He wanted me to buy his older ADP (IBM, 7 years old) Server that he owned outright. He was not certain how much it was worth, but he paid over $125,000 for "it" (certainly must have included prepaid software license fees). He got a bit irritated when I told him I could not even take it for free (not a client of mine), as it would just collect dust. Further, if he or I sold it to another car dealer, the vendor (ADP) would still charge software license fees to the purchasing dealer as that is not part of the Server. He then asked what it would take to turn it into a Web Surfing machine. I told him that with 64Mg of RAM it would not handle most of what is on the market in terms of Operating Systems. I felt badly for him, as he had just paid the machine off shortly before he went broke, but I did not cause his business problems, and it made no sense for me to buy or "fix up" the Server for other uses. I did tell him he would have to pay a recycling fee if he were considering simply tossing the machine out, and it would be better to just leave it in place for the repossessing bank to deal with as an asset of the company. Let the bank assess a value, then deal with it once they take it as part of the settlement. Who knows, perhaps they will assign a value of a few thousand dollars, in ignorance. As several of us have said at times, and fairly recently at that, "No good deed ever goes unpunished." Of course, the corollary is, "Fire the folks that found and corrected the problem, reward those that caused it." How often do we see that played out, time and again? Gil > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David Boatright > Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2007 12:02 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [NF] Nothing is Trivial! > > > mrgmhale" > >> She said sure no problem it will cost you $80, she > >> got offended when I said I wanted her to do it for free. > >>> --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- > multipart/alternative > text/plain (text body -- kept) > text/html > --- > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
