Anything metal that has a worn out finish is fair game to repaint instead of replace. I've repainted return vents, heat registers, mailboxes, and probably other things.

@KatsumeBlisk: Even though there's an automated defrag in recent versions of Windows, MyDefrag will do a better job. It will move critical files toward the front of the disk, where access is faster, and create zones of free space to make the disk less prone to fragmenting in the interim. And when it can't completely…

@dickfreckle: That's a good idea. Most of the people who object to the small size of SSDs have a lot of movie/music/other multimedia data that doesn't benefit from the SSD's speed anyway. Shuttle that off to a cheap spinning disk, and store software on a fast SSD, where it stands to benefit.

Several things come to mind.

@TheBobmanNH: I'm with you on that, having installed operating systems hundreds if not thousands of times. I can think of three things that scare people off. One is that some vendors don't include an OS CD, so you have to track one down somehow. Second is the fear that you'll break something, whether that's not…

Getting the height right also helps prevent repetitive stress injury/carpal tunnel syndrome.

@frankenstoen: The main defense I'd give in favor of restoring the old box is rust. Left untreated, the toolbox would continue to deteriorate and eventually become unusable. After treating the rust and repainting it with a good quality rust-resistant paint, it should be good for decades. And if it goes back into use,…

@jbaranski: I agree with JacobK, use a benchmark of some sort to determine the fastest DNS to use. A number of factors, including but not limited to a DNS being closer to you on the wire than what you're using now, can cause some to outperform others. But it's not universal. The fastest DNS for me to use isn't the…

The other thing to do is to check the item out before handing over the cash. There was a guy near me selling Microsoft and Adobe software, which he claimed were OEM versions, at a good price. I met him at a grocery store. The discs were in plain paper sleeves, sealed, but were very obviously printed on an inkjet…

@k4gdw: The way to find out is to run DNSBench (grc.com). It can be very counter-intuitive whose DNS is fastest and why. I'm on AT&T, and for me, the fastest servers are run by AT&T, Level 3, and Sprint. I can't remember the order. My mother-in-law is on AT&T, but she lives 120 miles away. I don't remember her top 3…

I use Steve Gibson's DNSBench (grc.com) to determine the fastest DNS to use. OpenDNS and Google DNS often are pretty fast, but usually it finds something else that's faster. Presumably because it's geographically closer. So that may help for situations like this. AT&T is my provider; I think I use one DNS from them,…

@flinx1: That's odd. The four-year-old HP dx5150 that was on my desk until this past spring seemed perfectly capable of running all the programs I had to run on a daily basis. The 2.3 GHz AMD 8600-based PC they swapped in (an HP 7750) boots a little faster, but I wouldn't say it saves me more than a few minutes a day.…

Since I don't game anymore and haven't edited video in years, my needs are pretty modest. I've had outstanding success buying off-lease business PCs, then I put the fastest hard drive I can find in it. You can get 2-core desktops, complete with operating system and a gig or two of RAM, for $150-$200.

@flinx1: Except when you're buying it for the government, it'll be under a support contract. Buy one of those, and the manufacturer will support anything.

I miss Transwrite. It was an Amiga word processor whose capabilities were somewhere between those of MS Write and MS Word. But man oh man, was it fast. On a stock Amiga running at 7-something MHz, it was perfectly usable. And it didn't use a lot of memory, so you could pretty much keep it running all the time if you…

@timgray: At Best Buy, that should be standard procedure. Reason being that if there turns out to be a problem and you try to return it, you're guilty until proven innocent.

@jft135: Thanks. I'll give that a try. I've tried everything else.

@shazaam42: I bought a house in 2002. The previous owner was married and had two teenage daughters. All had long hair.

@CatStampFever: I hang on to them for 60-90 days, then delete.

@bobkoure: Save those baby teeth. There's a high likelihood that sometime within the child's lifetime, the stem cells in those teeth will be useful to them.