On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Scott Silva <ssilva at sgvwater.com> wrote: <snip> >> My wife just made me an offer I may refuse: She told me to go to the >> Dell web site for Colombia and look for a new, inexpensive box there. >> They have one with Ubuntu Linux on it, for about US$700 with a monitor >> and 3 year in house warranty. Maybe..... :-) > While you are looking on the Dell site, sometimes they have some good deals > under the "Reconditioned" systems. Most of them have had nothing more than > someone got the system and sent it back within the 30 days because they didn't > like it. They are usually at least 20% cheaper. Scott: Thank you for that idea. I will go to the Dell web site for Colombia again and see if they offer those reconditioned systems down here. The other night, my wife indicated that I should take her up on this, while she is in a good mood. :-) As I just wrote to Toby, this morning, I went to a place where they may be able to fix the mainboard in this box. I plan to take it there, on the 5th of January, to see if it can be fixed. If not, I will probably buy something like Mark (MHR) suggested last week (bare bones box from TigerDirect.com), but get it here, because ordering from the states is a PITA and if I do, there's no warranty down here and I am out of luck, if there's a problem. Due to some problem at OpenDNS.com I haven't been able to get to the Dell Support Forum since this came up last week. Lots to like about Dell stuff, but the fact that they (and other manufacturers) use some proprietary components (tower, power supply and mainboard) is a "minus" if one needs to buy a replacement. Happy Holidays! Lanny