A New Home for Old Gadgets

If you are like me, you probably have a bunch of old cell phones and used computer equipment lying around the house. I was one of the first people to start carrying a cell phone and when it came time to upgrade, I got a credit for returning my old one. For some reason, the carriers stopped their upgrade programs and so I have a box with all of my old phones. Every once and a while, a Scout troop or school fundraising group will drop by asking for old phones to recycle. While I don't mind helping them out, it would be nice to get some real cash for my old gadgets.

Last night I was getting ready to head off to bed when the news mentioned a story about a company paying for old computers, monitors, cell phones, and other electronic gadgets. I decided it was worth staying up a bit to see if it was something I could use. It was and now I can pass that information on to you.

If you go to www.gazelle.com, you can find out how much your old junk is worth. My son's phone died and is using an old Treo 650 that we had lying around. I did a query to find the value of the phone and discovered it is worthless. I thought back to my last phone that I was using before I got my iPhone 3G and that was a Motorola Razor. I did a search to discover that it is also worthless. Each time I searched for a worthless item, Gazelle offered to recycle the device responsibly. That is nice, but I want cash.

I looked at my iPhone 3G and wondered how much it is worth. I am interested in upgrading to the iPhone 4 and want to know how much I can get for my current phone. I plugged in the numbers and discovered it is worth $104. Now we're talking. At that price, it could be worth it to get rid of my old phone and pick up a new one. This gives me an idea for Christmas . . .

Moving Files to My New Computer

So far, I have not run into any problems because I left my MacBook at home. Of course it helps that I am not working on any old projects. Last night I did some volunteer work and didn't get back home until very late. This evening I will have some spare time and it will be a better test of how well I did transferring files from the MacBook to my new laptop.

Previously I listed 7 steps that I use to transfer old files to a new laptop. Step 3 is: Move all important files to the new computer. With my MacBook, that was easy. Any time I create a new file, I make sure it ends up in the "Documents" directory. Linux, Windows, and the Mac all have a directory called "Documents" and so the advise is valid on all 3 operating systems.

When I create a new word processing document, it ends up in "Documents". When I start a new spreadsheet, it ends up in "Documents". Now it may sound like my documents directory is full of files. It isn't. One of the beauties of computer file systems is that folders can contain other folders or directories. This means that I have a number of folders in "Documents" and those folders contain other folders. When I got to step 3 of my list for transferring information, I just copied the Documents folder to my new computer and I didn't have to go searching for all my important files.

Truth be told, I have yet to complete the process of transferring all of my old files to my new computer. I started the process by copying them to a 16 GB flash drive and was amazed that it took up 3.5 GB of space. Now I just keep that flash drive with me and when I need a file from my old computer, I copy it from the flash drive to my new computer. That helps me figure out what I really need from my MacBook. After all, who wants to fill up their new computer with old stuff that never got used on the old one?

Time to Replace a Computer

It seems like things have been breaking down a lot around my house. This morning I was putting away some of my skiing turtlenecks and noticed they are looking like they should be replaced. We also have been fighting with one of our cars that really wants to die. Most importantly there is my wife's laptop that can only run for fifteen minutes on the battery before it dies.

That got me thinking about how to know when it is time to replace your computer. I could always just buy a new battery for my wife's computer and it would continue to work for another six years. However it is SIX years old and really needs to be replaced.

I've written in the past that I try to replace one of my computers each year. This past year was my desktop and next year will be my laptop. That is probably overkill for most home computer users. My computers need to be replaced so often because I am constantly working with bleeding edge projects and sometimes those older computers don't have enough horsepower to run some of the newer software required. Besides, I put my old desktops into service as database or web servers and pass my laptops onto another member of the family.

The answer of when it is time to replace your computer really depends on how old it is and what class of machine it was when you purchased it. For instance, if you bought a $300 notebook computer, it might be time to replace it after one year. If it was a $3000 notebook, you might be able to use it for six (like my wife). It all boils down to what will run on the machine. Right now my wife's computer is so old, she can no longer update any software on it. Unfortunately that means that some of the websites she visits won't work because they require updated versions of Adobe Flash or newer versions of Microsoft Office.

Yesterday my oldest son came home from school and mentioned that a friend had recently purchased a computer from eBay for $100. His friend was excited to be getting a new machine and was showing it off to all his friends. After all it came with 128 megabytes of RAM and a 2 gigabyte hard drive. My son sort of burst his bubble when he pointed out that the friends iPhone came with more memory than the new computer at which point the friend realized he had just purchased a worthless computer. Yep, it's time to replace that one before it even arrives.