Hello, Roy.  Sorry, I've been pretty busy here, so haven't responded
ill now.  Writing in haste, because it is late now.  I overheard
you talking with Tom Walker about - -

 -> I remember somebody making a comment in here a while back about the
 -> newer, bigger hard drives.  Something to the effect of considering a
 -> range of "a dollar a gig" being about right,  more or less.
 -> Unfortunately,  I can't remember who it was that posted that in
 -> here,  and there weren't any specifcis about where one might find
 -> such prices...

Yep, starting at about 60GB,  a buck a gig or less.  Bigger drives, less
per Gig.

 -> Anybody in here know where there are some good deals?  I need to radically
 -> expand my available storage space here.  :-)

 TW> Office Depot in my Area presently has a 40 gig Maxtor Retail Box
 TW> for $49.84 After Rebate.

 RJT> You're the second person to mention them.  I still need to scan the ads
 RJT> that came with Sunday's paper...

Unless you see something really stirs your grits, may as well wait a few
days until this weekend.

 TW> And I couldn't find the Ad but CompUSA(IF tyhey have one in your
 TW> Area)

 RJT> We don't,  but do they do mail-order?

Diff now from old-time mail-order.  Need to do the order online
(www.compusa.com) , but I know at least some of these mass-retailers
will let you order online and they will wait until you mail them a
check. Some let you order online, then pick up and pay at your local
store. Some of the "best deals" with the mass-retailers are only at the
stores, some are only online.  Mixed bag.

 TW> has a good deal on a Western Digital 80 gig HD. $69.99 After
 TW> Rebate vas I recall. That one was an OEM package though.

Yep, that's par for course right now.  Sometimes those deals hinge on a
double rebate, as you had a "bad" experience with.  Maybe pay $50 extra
out the door, then a $20 and a $30 rebate from the store and from the
mfgr.

 RJT> What's that difference in packaging going to mean?  I don't recall it
 RJT> making much difference to me one way or the other before...

Retail pkg a la Maxtor has drive, booklet, 80 conductor IDE cable,
mounting brackets to put the pup in a 5 1/4" bay, a little bagful of
screws, and software on diskette or CDROM disc to install the thing,
transfer over files from old HDD to new, and etc.  Old-style OEM is
brown box, or even worse, bulk pack with just a bare drive sealed inside
an anti-static bag.

For some of the better non-rebate pricing,  check out
www.pricewatch.com
These are "shipped" prices, so easy to compare with deals at stores.
Some of the prices are only good for online orders.  Most of these
sellers have 800 numbers posted there, but may cost more if you want to
order over the phone.  Some of these sellers have websites.  sometimes
the pricewatch price is "better" than the normal price at their regular
website.  Be sure what you're going to pay before you commit to an
order.  Many of these sellers don't charge any sales tax on orders from
out of state.

Another pretty good source is at
www.techbargains.com
They usually print on Fri or SAT a "heads-up" for upcoming weekend
deals from the national mass-retailers.  These are sometimes among the
very best prices, but almost invariably they involve rebates.

This should be a good weekend for such "specials" - - look for some good
ones,  for sale on Sun and MON due to the holiday.  If anything looks
like a really good bargain price,  those are the ones which usually sell
out pretty early on Sunday, so then it is good to have some advance
notice via place like techbargains.com.

That's all for now.
Good luck - - -  JimH.

... Jim, some of these here 'Bargains' you find are too good to be true-Bubba
--- MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.32