Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with purchasing

Help me pick a new best friend for the next 4 years

amethysts — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:16:33 -0800

Finding a new laptop is making my head spin. I'm finding a lot of advice for "gamers" and "people who only do email and Word docs" or "people who need a mobile video editing suite" but I'm in the middle of the spectrum - the heaviest duty stuff I use is graphics programs like Flash and Photoshop and I don't do video games. I'm finding lot of bad reviews and stuff that says "Great all around except for the graphics". How am I going to make sure I find a laptop that does everything I need and lasts for years and years? I have a 4 year old Gateway M320 (80gb hdd and 512mb ram) which is still doing OK but gets really slow on Flash, Photoshop, Firefox, etc. and is needed elsewhere in the family. Once all the Adobe stuff is gone it will be perfect for that purpose.

I remember hearing at various times that the following brands make absolutely shit products and should be avoided:
Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Sony, Lenovo, HP, Gateway, Mac
The following brands are ones that I can get a discount on through my school:
Acer, Toshiba, Sony, Lenovo, HP
The following brands are ones that I've had good experiences with in the past:
Gateway (2005-present), Lenovo (formerly IBM I guess) 2002-2005

This one is my front-runner so far, Lenovo Thinkpad SL510. It gets positive reviews but the bad ones seem really bad.

These are its main features, which I've been using as a baseline, and seem to be everything I need, but I really don't know:
* Core 2 Duo T5870 / 2 GHz
* Centrino
* RAM 4 GB
* HDD 250 GB
* DVD-Writer
* GMA 4500MHD
* Gigabit Ethernet
* WLAN : 802.11 a/b/g/n (draft)
* Bluetooth 2.1
* Windows 7 Home Premium
* 15.6" Widescreen TFT 1366 x 768 ( WXGA )
* camera
* matte black
* TopSeller
* Microsoft Office Ready

I will be using it for graphics programs like Photoshop and Flash, MS Office, internet, trillian, Itunes, etc., preferably all at the same time.

Also as much as I would like to get a Mac my budget is limited to around $700.

So here's my questions:
Am I on the right path?
Does the one I'm looking at seem like it'll be a good match?
Are there ones that I should be looking at but aren't due to outdated biases?
How do I know I'm making the right decision?

Vendor included confidential information in a quote. What to do?

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:59:26 -0800

Vendor sends a quote which unintentionally includes their cost, markup, and gross profit amounts. What action, if any, would be the proper course? I've received a quote for a bunch of IBM BladeCenter stuff from one of their official resellers. The PDF not only contains the normal columns of information, but their "CONFIDENTIAL, INTERNAL USE ONLY" columns as well. It looks like they just "hid" the columns in Excel and then printed to PDF. So the on-screen quote is normal for half of the pages, then the other half of the pages are the confidential information. I didn't even notice this until I printed the document and got more pages than I thought were supposed to be there. I am quite sure this was unintentional on their part.

So, I now have a quote during the preliminary purchasing stage of this project which includes these details. Two problems: I can't honestly negotiate at this point, even if I wanted to, because I know their costs. Second problem, which is honestly surprising to me, is that their margins are razor thin. This makes me want to just deal directly with IBM, but apparently this reseller thing is the way these products are sold. Is this normal?

Ethically, do I alert the vendor to this fact? I don't see any evidence that my quote was handled in a special manner, so I suspect their other customers would be getting the same information (but may never notice, due to the quirk mentioned above).

Would it be ethical to do business with this vendor, even if we did not negotiate on price?

If I do proceed would I put the company* in any legal danger, given that the information is obviously confidential?

* Additional wrinkle: I work for A, but A subcontracts me to B. B is who will be paying for the equipment, and is on whose behalf I am doing this project.

Purchasing department people: Credit card or purchase order?

PatoPata — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:50:10 -0800

I'm going to be selling two downloadable information products to businesses. One will be priced (at most) $495. The other will be more, about $1200. I hope customers will use credit cards, not purchase orders. Do I hope in vain? I can accept credit cards, so ideally the customer will enter their corporate card info and download the product.

Is either of these prices likely to be problematic for corporate credit card users? For example, are companies wanting the $1200 product likely to send a purchase order rather than just putting it on a card? If so, is it common or classy to give a discount to customers who use credit cards instead of purchase orders?

(Until now, I've sold only services, using invoices.)

Thanks!

Help me find the chimera of her dreams

longtime_lurker — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:54:02 -0800

I badly want to buy a replica of the statue seen here. It's a chimera, the original is from China in the Han dynasty, and the label on the one I saw, at the Chicago Institute of Art, claimed that it was a "tomb statue." My searching was good enough to find the picture, but not a purchase option, and it's too lovable not to exist somewhere.

If you find something similar but not exact, please know that the way it's pushing it's butt in the air is key, here.

Persian Rug Savvy

zenpop — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:43:02 -0800

Suggestions/tips on purchasing a Persian carpet. I live in Seattle and would like some ideas about how to not get swindled purchasing a large Persian carpet. There are scores of these stores in downtown Seattle, so that's where I've set my sights so far. But I associate this adventure with the same dread of visiting a used-car lot.

Any tips, suggestions, recommendations?

And does anyone in Seattle have a store they'd recommend?

WTB Wheels, Not Enough $$$ On Hand

BeerFilter — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:06:11 -0800

Are individuals selling used cars frequently willing to work with a purchaser with regard to a payment plan or are they really expecting the full asking price all at once? I need to buy a used car soon. I have a job but I don't have a lot of money saved up.

For instance, there's a nice-looking used car for sale on my ride home from work. The writing on the window says $2700. I don't have $2700 right now. I could put $1000 in the seller's hand right now, but it'd probably take me 6 weeks to earn up the rest. I could pay the rest out over say, a couple months.

FWIW, this is the 3rd used car for sale I've seen sitting in front of this house in the last couple months, suggesting this person liquidating his personal fleet. I bring this up because maybe this could be an indicator of someone eager to make a deal? Someone who just wants to get rid of it as quickly as possible?

Of course everyone's different, and some sellers would be willing to work with me and some would not. I'm just wondering what the general expectation is when people sell their cars to other people, and whether I shouldn't bother looking for cars until I have more money saved up.

Where to buy ska/reggae in NYC?

cyrusdogstar — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:02:35 -0800

Where can I get relatively unknown ska/reggae music in New York City (or online)? The specific target of my search right now is a recentish album by a group called the Debonaires (a southern California band formed in the mid 90s, not the 1960s group with the same name). I've had such good luck with finding music on iTunes -- even stuff that's not really mainstream -- that this is the first time I've gotten an earbug that I couldn't immediately buy off the iTMS (boo hoo, I know).

As such, and because I've only lived here for a few years, I'm totally clueless about decent places to physically obtain non-popular music in New York, even though I imagine the place is teeming with indie music stores and the like. Does anyone know of such spots that would carry a decent amount of ska/reggae type music? I'll make the "lol Jamaica, Queens" joke now to get that out of the way.

Alternately, online music stores with a non-terrible ship time (the label for aforementioned album does have it but it's 2-4 weeks ship time) might work.

Buying an Oscilloscope

phrontist — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:28:57 -0800

I'm an electrical engineering student/hobbyist looking to buy an oscilloscope. I'd like to spend around $200 ($300 max, probes/shipping included). What should I look for, and where? I think dual trace is worth having to compare signals. I'm not sure what I need bandwidth wise... I don't intend to do much radio work, so 10Mhz seems sufficient (in what other instances would I need more?).

How to get submission form fields from email to database and more!

prophetsearcher — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:20:48 -0800

How can a new company track leads submitted via its website through the sales and post-sales process, simply, automatically, and online? (Caution- IDon'tReallyKnowWhatIWantFilter:)

I'm helping to start a small company (well, it's really a division of a larger consulting firm) that is selling a one-off product/service to non-profits.

Through AdWords, I have managed to attract nearly 30 leads a day (which I'm quite pleased with, considering the cost of our product). Problem is, each lead comes into my inbox - as well as my partners' - as emails. (I believe the site is an ASP.net site, with form submissions. I'm pretty clueless, though).

Is there a way that each of these emails, which is a filled out form, could automagically be imported, fields intact, into some sort of database (ideally, online, but not necessarily).

Even better, would be if we could add notes to each lead ("Joe called Org on 30/1/08 and was asked to call back in a week") and automated reminders ("2/7/08: Joe- Call Org back"), and results ("2/12/08: Product Sold for $999,999.95") and more followups (8/12/08: "Call Org to find out how product was used; interested in more?")

This all would have to be (1) not crazy-expensive (2) easy to use (3) ideally, usable by people in different continents (ie, online?).

I suppose, all else fails, a Google Spreadsheet could take care of some of this, but I'm looking for a frictionless solution that would import our leads, fire off reminders, integrate with our address books and calendars, etc.

I've seen this question, but it didn't seem exactly right and didn't get the types of responses I'm hoping for. Honestly, I'm not quite sure even what I'm looking for or if it exists in our price range...

I'm not scared of a little bit of mucking around, as long as that's only for the setup. It would have to be foolproof for the other end users.

Is it in the cards?

Slam I Am — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 10:39:52 -0800

I'd like to buy a deck of tarot cards from these folks, but I've never bought anything online before. Is there any reason to think doing this is a bad idea? What do I need to know?

What are your "good," "ethical," or "moral" criteria for spending your money? Organic? Fair Trade? Made in America?

k7lim — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:19:06 -0800

What are your "good," "ethical," or "moral" criteria for spending your money? Organic? Fair Trade? Made in America? No Animals Harmed in the Making Of This ____? For the dollars you spend on goods and services, what values do you consider other than the value to yourself? Explain why. There are so many considerations in this regard, and I'd like to have a firmer grounding in mine and perhaps debunk some common myths in this regard.

For example, I've heard that NO soaps undergo animal testing, as soap has been proven to work as a technology, so why would any corporation waste money putting ole shampoo on a terrier?

Can anyone make some recommendations on a Purchasing Process management software?

doomtop — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:32:19 -0800

Can anyone make some recommendations on a Purchasing Process management software? I'm looking for an electronic purchasing process system, preferably web-based or with some level of web-based functionality. Also very important is a high emphasis on ease of use and simplified user interface. If Google made a product like this, I would be checking that out first.

I am looking to facilitate and automate a purchasing process, including submitting purchase requests, checking the status of open requests, adding notes to requests, automated e-mail updates on requests, user-level access controls, a user-based approval process, etc.

Those are the main features. Other great things would be the ability to export purchase orders into quotes/invoices, with the ability to manage markups and select specific items from purchase requests to export into invoices.

I am also interested somewhat in Quickbooks integration (or other accounting software), but don't care so much about this aspect as the main features.

Does anyone know of any good examples of this type of product? Has anyone used this type of software before?

It doesn't matter if it's free, open-source, or costly and proprietary. All I care about is the functionality and ease of use.

Stylish camera case?

Aanidaani — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:09:24 -0800

I'm looking for a stylish case for my Canon Powershot A510 along the lines of something offered by Foof. Unfortunately Foof's bags won't fit my size camera and I wondered if there are any alternatives. I like the Foof style and I already have for my laptop. I'm not really concerned with the impact resistance of the case, but more with the aesthetic appeal and quality of construction. If anyone could suggest a good manufacturer I'd be grateful. Thanks!

Help me buy an iPhone now, or later.

UnclePlayground — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:32:51 -0800

Thinking of buying an iPhone? So am I. Help me decide to wait 'til later, or get it NOW! Of those of you who are seriously considering buying an iPhone, are you going to jump on it now and buy it within, say, the first few weeks of its availability? Or do you plan to hold off for a particular reason (price to come down, for Apple to work out the bugs in the second version, etc.)? If you wait, what will have to happen until you then decide to buy it? This is the first time in my life that I've been excited about buying a cell phone. But friends and family warn of the whole gammut of drawbacks -- cost, first-version bugs, etc.
It's kinda off-putting, so I wanted to hear from the masses.
What. Are. You. Gonna. Do?

What is the best way to start up a small scale art gallery?

austinlee — Fri, 11 May 2007 06:58:04 -0800

What is the best way to startup a small scale art gallery? I'm moving to a new apartment next week. The front room is an old store front. The previous tenant used it as a small art gallery. I'd like to continue this every so often. Not every month but when I get a really good show organized. I'm not concerned about making any money just mostly about showing off work I like. Do I have to register it as a business or non profit organization? Although, it's going to be small scale I would like to do some advertising as well. Not a whole lot but enough to get peoples attention. I'm really new to all this so I don't know very much about it. I've been thinking of some solutions like calling it an exhibition space and if someone wants to purchase something I'll just refer them to the artist and let them handle it themselves. Will that make things more complicated than necessary? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Where can I buy an $800 Linux Server?

phrontist — Thu, 10 May 2007 11:25:46 -0800

I need to buy a server for around $800 ($1000 as an absolute maximum). It will be hosting a website with a (PostGres) database that will start at around 4GB and grow slowly (so would like at least 2GB of RAM). It must be able run Linux, preferably Ubuntu or Debian. I go to college in Kentucky, where I work for Radio Free Lexington. I am now home in the DC area for the next three months, during which I intend to develop a custom CMS/Radio Station Management/Playlist tracking system. The problem is, I have nothing to run or develop it on.

Before I left Kentucky, I had ordered a Dell Optiplex 320. It arrived two days before I had to leave, and what I thought would be a quick and straightforward install turned out to be extremely difficult (see this thread). Even if it is possible, I'm now out of town and can only ask the minimal effort of the person who has graciously volunteered to help me out of this mess and install the replacement machine in my absence.

So I'm looking for recommendations for a "server" (whether it is billed as such by the manufacturer is not important to me) that is comparable or better to the Optiplex machine, but is well documented as being trivially Linux compatible (no kernel patching) or ships with a Linux distribution installed. It must be something I can order in the next two weeks (I know Dell is promising Ubuntu systems... but I can't wait). Dell is not out of the running, but I'm highly suspicious now.

Here are the specs of the last machine:

P4 Processor 641 (3.20GHz, 2M, 800MHz FSB)
80GB SATA HDD (the SATA controller is actually what caused the problem, so I'm somewhat wary)
2GB SDRAM
$643 before shipping.

How do women know how to be women in America?

bilabial — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:47:47 -0800

Is there academic research that claims that viewing of advertising material a ritual of genderization? I'm writing a paper for anthropology class and am stating that it is. I've got enough material to support my saying it is, but I haven't come across anyone else saying it is. A large chunk of my writing focuses on content analysis of 7 ads I found in current American magazines that disembody and infantilize women. So what I'm arguing is that this print medium tells women what they can and can't be.

What gives? Has anyone else seen anything along these lines, or might I actually be breaking some ground here?

My university has access to online journal archives, so if you just tell me who and when, or perhaps an article title, I can find the works, if they're around, because maybe I could study this more thoroughly.

How can I convert a commercial lease into a lease purchase?

c:\awesome — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 10:38:04 -0800

I'm currently leasing my business space from an unmotivated landlord who seems to care less about what goes on within his buildings. I would've bought the building back when we moved in, but neither my budget nor my D&B credit score were what they are today. How can I structure a lease purchase option that will give my landlord enough incentive to part with his building, but at the same time won't overly burden us with new lease obligations? Here's a quick history of our building situation:

- When we originally moved in, it was owned by a different landlord - one who was very interested in our business, made frequent visits to make sure everything was okay, and expressed intent to eventually sell the building to us when our finances recovered from our "start-up process."

- One month before we open, we find out that our original landlord had sold all of his buildings (7 total) in one fell swoop. He expressed his apologies and told me that the offer was just too good to refuse. I didn't blame him (I would've done the same thing), and we're still on very good terms.

- The new landlord, however, has been completely absent from his properties. All of the tenants, and our old landlord, get the sense that he only bought the buildings so he could say he's a property owner in this trendy part of town. Even still, he doesn't advertise any of the vacancies in his newly acquired buildings, which completely blows my mind. Why buy the buildings if you aren't going to try to rent them out?! He definitely doesn't need the money (he comes from a very wealthy family), and I kind of get the feeling that he's grown tired of this whole "property owner" phase.

- Finally, we never signed a new lease when the properties were transferred from owner to owner. The only lease I signed was with the original landlord, and after titles were exchanged, the new landlord called me to ask if I would fax him a copy of our lease, as he had never received one (WTF!).

So, what steps should I take to wrest our building from him? I know that when landlord #1 purchased the building in 2001, he paid $120K for it. The area is in a bit of a real estate boom right now, so I wouldn't be surprised if it appraised for at least twice as much today. I was thinking we'd approach our new landlord with a purchase option of 3 years, 5% down, and keep our current monthly payments of $2,200 per month. I'll try to sweeten the pot by agreeing to maintain the property, which is something I already do.

Any suggestions, tips, advice would be greatly appreciated.

Clueless Co-Workers on Shopping Spree

gimonca — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:15:46 -0800

Salesmen and clueless co-workers: how to cope? Let's say you're a programmer or developer at a company or institution. Salesmen for third-party software call the office, manage to get through to someone who is unqualified or clueless, and give them the hard sell. The process starts to evaluate a purchase of a product that either 1) does something that existing software already does, 2) would not integrate with currently installed systems, or 3) is wildly expensive compared to comparable products or in-house development. Or some combination of those.

Obviously, looking for a better environment is an option.

But say you're stuck for now. How would you turn the institutional environment around to avoid these sorts of trainwrecks? Or is that an unrealistic expectation?

Estate Planning for the clueless.

sperare — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 20:09:41 -0800

What are the advantages and problems involved with buying my father in law's home? My father in law owns a home and is starting to think that he might like to sell it. We would like to buy it, but there is a significant difference between our top affordable price and the likely value of the home. What, if any, are the pitfalls of him selling us this house at the price we can afford, and not the value of the house? Would we run into legal and/or tax problems?

If we do this, would we save anything on closing costs? Also, would the difference between our price and the value of the home be considered inheritance? Is this a bad idea, or a bad way to pass on an inheritance? He will not need the income from this sale to buy a new house.

Are there websites that will purchase airline tickets automatically?

sublivious — Fri, 27 May 2005 09:42:33 -0800

I'm looking for a travel website that will purchase airline tickets for a specific date automatically once the price goes below a specified amount. I'm pretty sure this service is available for purchasing stocks. But is it for airfare?

Fair Market Value for computers

sublivious — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 12:13:29 -0800

Where can I go to get a formal fair market value quote for a certain model PC? My company is looking to disposition a fair amount of older machines (manuf. in 2000) and needs several quotes to estimate the fair market value for these assets. I'm finding that no one is really interested in purchasing any PCs of this caliber, but that doesn't matter so much. We're more interested in the quote than the sale. My Googlefoo isn't helping this time. Any ideas where one could go for this?

Mac for Mom

geoff. — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:17:18 -0800

MacHeads: I'm a good son and am going to get my mom a laptop. All she does is play Mahjong, and shop/check e-mail online. I've had unusually bad luck with Toshiba widescreen laptops for her, and a Compaq. All were taken back because of fundamental problems (blue screening, wireless card with crappy range). I'm wanting to stick around $1000. How's the standard 12-inch iBook? Good wireless range? Is the 256MB of RAM enough for a Mac? I'd go up to the 14-inch iBook if I won't be spending another $200 to get it up to spec. Thanks!

How much should I pay for a website community?

seanyboy — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 14:29:48 -0800

Website costing. How much should I pay for a website community? [More Inside] I'm thinking of buying a website community, and have been asked to make an offer. It's a Gardening community serving 100,000 pages a quarter. (50,000 sessions). I'm curious as to how much people on Metafilter would think this community was worth. My rough and ready calculations for advertising revenue is that the site will net about $1,000 a quarter. (Based on the fact that my site which gets 100 visitors a day and has a revenue of about $400 a year) However, I've no idea what sort of bandwidth this sort of site would use, how much time I'd have to spend on it, and what any of the other costs may be.

Ordering Trans-Atlantic software

misteraitch — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 03:57:47 -0800

Are there any reliable on-line US or Canadian PC software vendors who have no qualms about fulfilling European orders? [more inside] I am thinking of buying Adobe's Creative Suite (Standard) for Windows. This is advertised for sale at Adobe's web-site for $999. Being resident in Europe, however, I am directed to buy from the European web-store, where a near-identical product would, if I could arrange to have it delivered to a UK address, set me back £789 (or £927 including VAT), which, at current rates, is equivalent to $1450 ($1704). If I were to order from within Sweden, the cost would apparently be 13,300 SEK (or 16,625 SEK including MOMS), which is equivalent to $1817 ($2270). Naturally, I would prefer to pay ca. $999 (plus import duty) than ca. $2270… As a follow-up question, if I were to succeed in obtaining the software in this manner, would it invalidate any entitlement to support from Adobe?