jordan wrote: >I'm new to the group/list/state/country, having moved to Minneapolis >from Kuwait last night. I'm Canadian and my wife's a local here, and >I'll be wanting to build a computer soon. Apart from your Best >Buy/Dell/etc, do you have any independant computer sales companies, or >wholesale parts or just your preferred places for hardware shopping in >and around the twin cities? I'm in Lakeville, down south a bit. For new x86 or AMD64, I prefer to buy all components on-line from one reseller. I think Monarch Computers is a very Linux friendly place to buy parts and they will assemble the machine for a modest price as well. For new machines at local shops, some people like General Nanosystems (http://www.nanosys1.com/) in Minneapolis, but I prefer Tran Micro (http://www.tranmicro.com/) which is just a bit west of General Nano on University Ave. For used machines, including Macs, I prefer Que Computers in Minneapolis (http://www.quecomputers.com/). They moved recently and haven't been to their new store at 26th Ave S & 26st St E. Midwest Surplus & Elect. http://twincities.citysearch.com/profile/5589359/minneapolis_mn/midwest_surplus_electronics.html has nice machines sometimes as well. The Box Shop http://twincities.citysearch.com/profile/36338454/st_paul_mn/box_shop_dirt_cheap_computers.html in St. Paul has some very good deals on used computers, but they seemed to have mostly Compaqs which I'm not interested in at all. They do have the occasional somewhat rare part though. Materials Processing Corporation (http://www.materialsprocessing.com/surplus.html) in Eagan has something of everything, but I haven't been there in years and they are now only open Thu & Fri 11-5. That should keep ya busy! Sincerely, Ken Fuchs <kfuchs at winternet.com>