What was the last thing you bought?

[ElChevelle]

Picked a new 80 gig hard drive (with external case) for only 60 bucks. Maybe now I can store my porn seperately from my 300 gig drive

[skryingbreath]

Are you sure it'll all fit on there?

[ElChevelle]

I'm going to have to delete all that contain blondes.

[Wolfgang]

Surely that accounts for about 90% of all porn.

[shakey_snake]

Interestingly enough, no.

[gaekwad2]

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=blonde+porn&word2=brunette+porn+

[unrelated] Oh shi- [/unrelated]

[Wolfgang]

You have to use proper english, snakey.

[General Geoff]

My most recent purchase..?

[rockouthippie]

[img]http://retrovision****wp-content/uploads/02116.jpg[/img]

[Thunder Pussy]

I bought a Don Hertzfeld anthology dvd because it had Rejected on it. And I got some CD-Rs from Eric Gaffney, former Sebadoh drummer/singer/etc. That was my big christmas money spending spree.

[tuckerm]

Originally posted by ElChevelle
THE best show on TV right now

I don't like it, I feel it's a rip of 24.

As for me, Today I bought a Samsung 19" Widescreen Flat panel, Speakers, Wireless Keyboard\Mouse, a pizza, mountain dew, and found an old hub at Goodwill for $2.99. All for my new upstairs "office", (i hate being down in the studio all the time!). Except the hub, that'll go in our router room as we ran out of router spaces recently.

[ScorLibran]

Originally posted by Vie
Try the Life Drive.

Reading the spec sheet, it fails at least five of my requirements. And I didn't initially review it because it's not even the basic type of product that I needed - a smartphone. Don't get me wrong, it may be a very nice product in general, but everyone has their own needs. It doesn't nearly meet mine.

You see, not everyone has the same requirements for a product, my young friend. This is why there is more than one of each type of product in the world.

And no, all of them except the one you like do not "suck".

For a year before I bought it, I talked to about a dozen professionals in my field who own one, and I talked to them extensively about their own requirements and how well this product met them, as well as asking questions about general information such as reliability. I filtered their testimonials and critiques with my needs for such a product, and made the most informed choice.

For a teenager, this device will likely not be favored. I'm sure it has features they wouldn't need, a price most wouldn't be willing to pay, and is probably missing other features a young person may want in a smartphone/PDA before embarking in a particular career. But for an IT professional in my field, it works quite well, and is quite well favored.

Second place is the Blackberry. It's much more prolific because it's widely utilized as company-provided equipment. A big reason for that is the HUGE price markdown a company gets on the things buying them in bulk. Guess how much I paid out of my budget for the last batch of 8703e models I purchased. The things retail for about $600. I paid under $150 each from a major corporate technology provider. No such deal for any similar product.

And I almost bought a Blackberry for myself, in fact - but when the executives I've talked to (with requirements similar to my own) had their choice, almost all chose the Treo. And they chose models that were from earlier generations than this one. I'm the only person I know that's bought the 700wx, so the only relevant risk is that this particular model will have a defect that the others didn't, but I'll take my chances. The features are easy to discern, and if reliability is anything like the previous models, I'll be very satisfied.

My recommendation for doing research before buying an item of technology used for both personal and business reasons is to talk to people who do what you do for a living. Their needs will often - at least on the professional side - be very similar to your own, and you'll trust their personal experience with the product more than listening to reviews from strangers - who rarely add what they do for a living, which leaves out an important point of reference. However, I do read such reviews as well. The more info the better - just know how to "grade" the info you come across. Combine this with the intel to filter the information to your own needs, and you'll be able to make a very well-informed choice. It's the best way to prevent regret after spending your money. This is a similar approach as you'd use before buying a car, or a computer, or a camera, etc. After having made technology purchases for 20 years in my adult life - including bulk purchases for corporations - I've certainly never had a regret anytime I've done this level of research beforehand.


(Sorry for rambling, I just enjoy educating people and sharing ideas on how to make informed technology purchases. )

[psycho_maniac]

i finally remembered the last thing i bought.
[IMG]http://jackiemhawkins.**********/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/ax5000.jpg.w180h225.jpg[/IMG]
this phone is pretty damn good. a lot of people have this phone around here and i never hear complaints.

[shakey_snake]

Originally posted by ScorLibran
http://scorlibran.org/chris/pictures/Treo700wx-withbox.jpg

http://scorlibran.org/chris/pictures/Treo700wx.jpg

I'm in love.

My cousin has one and he hates it because he feels like he can never get away from work.

[ScorLibran]

That's a distinct risk. I'm starting to have that problem, myself, finding that I can use this thing to do almost every aspect of my work.

(Foruming with it right now, as a matter of fact. Web pages load very fast.)

Originally posted by psycho_maniac
this phone is pretty damn good. a lot of people have this phone around here and i never hear complaints.

That looks like a Sanyo vi2300 - is that what it is? That's the model of phone I had before this Treo. It was a really great phone. Never had a problem with it, very good interface, and one of the best speakerphones I've ever heard on a cellular device.

I gave it to my mom, who was having problems with her Samsung phone. She took it by a Sprint store and they switched out the SIM chip with hers.