I’m looking at buying a new laptop soon, an Asus G71Gx gaming grade laptop. It turns out Best Buy has the best price on this laptop. As someone who would rather pay less when possible, I began to seek out cheaper alternatives than paying $1300 +tax for this notebook.

First off, see if there are any better prices out there. Traditionally, Best Buy is not the best source for cheap systems.

Next, I live in Vancouver, Washington. We have a 7.7% sales tax. Right across the border is Portland, Oregon — 0% sales tax. That’s instantly going to save me $100.10. In order for this to work, you have to go into the store, not online; unless of course you’re willing to just have it shipped to someone who lives in Portland.

Next, search for coupons for Best Buy. These are somewhat rare, but there are some 10%-off-anything coupons that surface from time to time. Make sure that what you are buying falls into the “acceptable categories” as explicitly noted on the coupon. Can’t find any currently.

Next, find gift cards. Ask your friends if they have any they want to sell. Look at online for sale forums. Check eBay. As long as the person selling the gift card is reputable, this is a great way to save money. For example, I just purchased a $250 Best Buy gift card for $238 buy it now -$23.80 for Bing cashback, -$4.76 for eBay’s cashback incentive plan, -$2.38 because I paid with PayPal through my credit card. That makes the final price for this $250 gift card $207.06; a 17.18% discount.

Next, as I mentioned previously, pay with credit card (assuming you pay it off, and have a cash back incentive plan). This is an easy 1-2%.

Finally, don’t accept any upselling that Best Buy will try on you. You don’t need the extended warranty, you don’t need the new peripherals. Don’t be a sucker for their highest margin area of the business.

With these principles applied, I’m going to take a $1400.10 laptop (including tax) and get it for $1084.80 (5*207.06 + 50 – 0.50).

I hadn’t received any comments in the past few months, I figured it was just because I hadn’t put out any new content.

Then I realized that I couldn’t even leave a comment myself. I received an email from a buddy saying he had a similar issue.

So I checked the logs:

WordPress database error Table './{db_name}/wp_comments' 
is marked as crashed and should be repaired for query SELECT * FROM 
wp_comments WHERE comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY 
comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT 15 made by require, require_once, 
include, get_sidebar, locate_template, load_template, require_once, 
dynamic_sidebar, call_user_func_array, WP_Widget->display_callback, 
WP_Widget_Recent_Comments->widget

Went to the mysql database physical location and did the following to fix it:

# myisamchk wp_comments.MYI
Checking MyISAM file: wp_comments.MYI
Data records:    3914   Deleted blocks:     347
myisamchk: warning: Table is marked as crashed
- check file-size
- check record delete-chain
- check key delete-chain
- check index reference
- check data record references index: 1
myisamchk: error: Found 3913 keys of 3914
- check record links
myisamchk: error: Keypointers and record positions doesn't match
MyISAM-table 'wp_comments.MYI' is corrupted
Fix it using switch "-r" or "-o"

# myisamchk wp_comments.MYI -r
- recovering (with sort) MyISAM-table 'wp_comments.MYI'
Data records: 3914
- Fixing index 1
- Fixing index 2
- Fixing index 3
- Fixing index 4
- Fixing index 5
- Fixing index 6

(If I can remember to register) I will be attending Wordcamp Portland September 19-20th. To quote Matt Mullenweg on episode 92 of Tekzilla

For $25 you got a barbeque lunch, a full day of speakers, a t-shirt and an open bar that night.

Hard to refute, I am interested in all of those things

I’m running on the Windows 7 RC these days. I like it, it’s pretty neat — and free, of course.