Turning A Sow’s Ear Into A Silk Purse
Apr 8th, 2008 by Don Ray
I took on a project that has turned out to be a little more difficult than I expected it to be. Maybe there are a couple lessons to be learned, so I will give some details. Part of this is Panama related and part isn’t.
I have a good friend that was buying some items for his residence, in a store in downtown David, about three years ago. After making the furniture purchases, he mentioned that he was in the market for a PC. The store attendant immediately saw $$$$ and said he had a relative that was an engineer that built PCs.
MY friend give some basic specifications for what he expected in the PC, including CPU type, DVD writer, amount of memory, Windows in English, etc. He was quoted and paid $1,300+ including the monitor. Not being technical, when he got the PC, he thought he got what he ordered and assumed the price was reasonable. He was told it was and he trusted the person he had worked with.
One day he invited me over to check out his PC. Here is what I found.
What he received contained a CD (not DVD) player, not a writer. An Intel Celeron processor, not the Pentium IV that he had specified. It had 256 mg of memory and not the 1 gig that was ordered. The monitor was a cheap CRT. The PC was loaded with a Spanish version of Windows. He didn’t receive any manuals for the motherboard or MB/driver CD or Windows CD.
Hardly any of what he ordered was in the PC. I figure the parts would have been about $50 for the motherboard, $35 for the case. $40 for the 40 gig hard drive (it was some Chinese brand I have never heard of), $40 for memory, $20 for the CD player, $50 monitor and $150 Windows XP. That adds up to $385 plus labor. Many places charge about $10 to assemble a PC in David.
He spent several months and had to use a lawyer to get part of what he ordered. He settled for the Celeron processor. I think he was upgraded to 512 mg of memory, a DVD reader, which also wrote CDs.
So that is the sow’s ear. The lessons here are these. In Panama, everyone has a brother, cousin, uncle or some relative that does what ever you need. Whether they are really any good at what they do may not be as it is represented.
In this case, the relative was an engineer that built PCs. Assembling a PC isn’t rocket science. Anyone can do it. The key is to buy quality products. If you are going to buy a generic brand PC built by anyone in Panama, you would be wise to take a technology savvy person with you and let them research that what you are going to get will be worth what you pay.
If you are not going to do that, then buy a name brand. You can check the price in the US and then expect to pay about 20% - 30% more here.
That ends the part that is Panama related. Basically it is buyer beware, if you are a gringo buying anything. I am not saying that everyone will cheat you, but several will. Most Panamanians don’t trust their fellow citizens when it comes to buying and selling, so why should you?
Now for the silk purse part of the story. Remember we are starting out with a sow’s ear.
My friend has been wanting to install Linux to stop having all the problems he has with the window’s firewalls, anti-virus programs and all the other nonsense you go through with Windows. He asked me about installing Linux. My first suggestion was to consider getting a new PC. I thought something like one of the $300+ models from YOYTEC.
He wanted to stay with his current PC and was on a limited budget, so I said I would recommend adding a SATA drive and put Linux on it and dual boot with Windows so he didn’t get rid of his windows system. With a SATA drive, I knew he could also put it into a new system, if he later upgraded.
Ok, so now the fun with Linux begins. He purchased a 160 gig MAXTOR SATA II hard drive. Installing Linux Mint on that drive to dual boot with Windows XP went without a hitch. It took a couple of hours to get it installed because the install disk required several Internet downloads to bring all modules up to current. Finally we had an operational system.
Now for the problems.
First, his Canon printer isn’t operational. HP printers are better supported under Linux. I have found what I need to install to make it functional, so I am not concerned about getting it running. That is fixable. I had problems initially with my old Canon printer which I was able to solve. I have had none with the new HP printer.
The next problem was a little more difficult. Linux was taking a very long time to boot. All I/O to the new SATA drive was slow also. From my experience, Linux Mint should boot and run as well, if not better than Windows XP. Linux Mint is basically UBUNTU 7.10 with an improved desktop. On my PC, I am up and running in ½ the time of Windows XP.
I had to research running Linux with his ASROCK 775VM800 motherboard. Since he didn’t have a manual, I had to download the manual over the Internet. One good thing, about Linux and these types of problems, is that there is plenty of information on the Internet. In these situations, Google is your friend. After I read the Motherboard manual, I discovered that I needed to configure the BIOS for RAID for the drive to run under Linux. I just got back from trying that and the problem is solved. Just the printer problem is left to be solved.
I guess the lesson, in the silk purse part, is that you always have to expect the unexpected when you install Linux. Some motherboards and chip sets work better than others. My friend is lucky my labor is so cheap (free). However, he is probably getting what he is paying for.
I have spent about 8 hours on this project. This post is my proof, to me, that my time was well spent.
Just FYI, PARS computers (across the street from super 99) recently built a PC for me, to my specs. It is a wonderful machine and the people at PARS have always gone to great lengths to make sure I’m a happy customer. Oh, and the cost of the machine was less than I would have paid for the same machine in the US if I figured in shipping costs and the Panama Customs’ fees.
Hi Fran,
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.
PARS has a pretty good reputation. I have purchased items there before, and always found them good to deal with.
I still think that the prices to beat in Panama are at the YOYTEC location in Panama City. You can order over the Internet, pay in David and have it delivered by Fletes Chevale for cheap.
I certainly would have thought turning on hardware RAID in the BIOUS would have been the wrong thing to do. A person who used to be on the IRC channel I frequent had a signature on leaving, “Google is your friend.” — words to live by.
I’m glad your friend has at least one good operating system. Now to move him to using a VM instead of dual boot ;-).
I agree. I had set the BIOS when installing the HD and did what I thought should have been there. It ran poorly and I had to research the problem.
I will have to look into VM when I get some time.
Don Ray,
A few years ago,I had a computer built by some nice folks in Boquete, with the Microsoft XP operating system. It worked fine, until I tried to do the security upgrades offered by Microsoft. Opps! It seems that the operating system was bootlegged, and the end result was that Microsoft disabled all of the Office software and all of my e-mails in Outlook were lost. I subsequently heard that lots of buyers had the same problem.
I don’t like Microsoft, but haven’t had the courage to switch to one of the other operating systems. The good news is that I found an Open Office package for free, that does everything Microsoft office does, and does it just about as well. Then Sun, one of the Open Office supporters, offered a free version of Star systems 8, which did the same thing as Open Office, only slightly better. There is an upgrade, also gratis, which I plan to download some evening when the internet is a tad faster and I don’t need to do anything.
I completely understand Microsoft’s perspective, but think they would garner less ill will by going after the jerks who sell the bootleg software than after their victims. Sure, I should have known, since I didn’t get a bunch of CDs. But I didn’t.
Would I know better next time around? Certainly. It was a learning experience, and possibly worth the cost and aggravation. Still, I developed a dislike of Microsoft and that may be not uncommon.
Dan Miller
Hi Dan. Yes many of the small builders may try to pass off a bootlegged copy. The better shops don’t do that. I really don’t know whay countries like Panama don’t try using more Linux systems. I know that the systems that Optica Lopez has in their stores are on Linux PCs.
Hi Don. my cousin is trying to find a computer with a keyboard in english. A laptop and XP or vista in english. can he orrder one at any of the stores in David?
If he wants a Laptop in with English Keyboard he can get it in David. I think Alex at INFOX has them or can order them. He might also look at PriceSmart. A lot of times their PCs have the English KB. Most new systems will come with Vista.
If it is a destop that is wanted, Alex can build them with either Vista or XP.English KBs are more difficult to find by themselves, but they are here.
For Dan Miller,
Sun’s StarOffice is OpenOffice plus some additional goodies which Sun adds in. Sun bought StarOffice several years back (~8?) and spun off the OpenOffice effort (which largely run by Sun).
IBM’s newer Lotus office offerings are also built on OpenOffice, but I’ve read that they started from a version that’s now a bit outdated.
OpenOffice is licensed under the Lesser GNU Public License (link is to latest version, but Open Office may be under an older version). This allows Sun, IBM, and others to provide commercial offerings based on OpenOffice.
If you suspect that you have a bootlegged version of xp you can set the system so that it doesn’t prompt you to load updates. It is simple and you can google to find out how it is done. The downside is that you don’t get updates but sometimes Microsoft updates create more problems than they solve.
Running with a bootlegged version is extremely dangerous. I would never recommend for anyone to use such a system. If you run a Windows system, you should keep it current. Doing less is not smart.
¡ Hola Don Ray et al !
Long time no read or write.
All is ducky here in The Land of My Dreams –
Costa Rica.
Thanks for the scoop on Yoytec. Wish I had know about it when I was a Boquetian. (:-)
Most computer items here are landed cost plus 50% or more.
Did find a good source in the U. S. tho,
http://geeks.com/
They were the only computer parts store that I found that ships to Costa Rica by U. S. Postal Service. The others, Tiger Direct, Newegg, etc., charge several hundred dollars to ship here by UPS, FedEX +/or DHL.
I was able to build a new compute by ordering a couple of items at a time and shipping to my P. O. box here. Costa Rica doesn’t bother charging tax if the box is small. (:-)
Total cost for the computer was ± $600.00.
¡ The same computer here would be over $2000.00 !
Enjoy Ur time off, Don Ray.
Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo®