I must admit that I’d be absolutely lost without the growing number of desktop and laptop computers, printers, digital cameras and all the other assorted electronic equipment in my house and home office. I know I once got along without all this gear, but that was back in the olden days, in the last millennium. Today I absolutely depend on it. What this means is that I buy a lot of stuff, and I have formed some definite opinions about where I do my shopping and what places I avoid like the plague.
I hate to say it, but #1 on my list of places to avoid are the big electronics chain stores. They are certainly convenient and their prices are usually in the ballpark. And all their glossy brochures have lured me more than once when I quickly needed some RAM, a disk, or a new inkjet printer. Problem is that their sales people are embarrassingly clueless and often only interested in selling extended service contracts. No thank you.
When I build a new desktop computer I occasionally buy the parts from a local electronics superstore. Those places are a geek’s paradise, or they could be if it weren’t for a couple of really annoying deal breakers. First,...