1. The best source of information on buying a computer is someone you know who already owns one. If you're buying one for your kids without asking them what their friends are doing, you're likely to land in deep soup. Salespeople selling name brands in SuperStores are the last people you see to seek information to help you decide what to buy.

2. You can't get quality for $1.98. If a deal sounds too good to be true or a price is dramatically lower than the competition offers, something is wrong. If you try to have your cake and to eat it, too, or focus simply on the lowest price to the exclusion of all other concerns, someone will ask you to pay extra for the privilege.

3. If it doesn't walk like a duck, talk like a duck or look like a duck, it isn't a duck. If everything you think you know about the performance, characteristics and compatibility of a processor or a chipset is based on what you've read and heard about an Intel version of the product, keep in mind that when you pay less for a non-Intel "equivalent," less is what you're most likely to get.

4. If you're still afraid of being ripped off, you haven't done enough homework.

5. There is no such thing as a computer that is too powerful for you, particularly if the point of the exercise is to get what you have to do finished so you can go and play golf. Likewise, there is no such thing as a computer with too much memory or has too large a hard drive. However, there may be one that is too expensive. Your task is to find the correct balance.

6. What you wish to do with your computer determines the software applications you need to do it. In turn these programs determine what type of computer you need and what mix of components is required to do the task. Coming at this from any other direction will simply get you in trouble.

7. The time to buy a computer is when you need it. You can't get the fastest computer there is. The industry changes so quickly it isn't here yet; it's on a truck somewhere between the factory and the store. If you wait for it to arrive, another faster system will be on the next truck and you'll never buy a computer. By the way, prices for existing technology <italic>always<italic> go down. New technology comes in at the old price. The same rule applies.

8. You're going to want another one. Advances in software, hardware and your own sense of anticipation will make today's fast computer appear old and tired long before you wanted. So, plan an upgrade strategy before you buy in order to extend its useful life as long as you can.

9 Conversely, the only valid reason to upgrade software or hardware is to solve a problem you can't fix any other way. If you jump on the newest thing simply because it is the newest thing, then sooner, not later, the computer gods will getcha!. Sometimes the leading edge is the bleeding edge.

10. Everyone else knows better. Despite all your hard work and research, a couple of weeks after you buy your system total strangers will tell you over coffee where you could have received more power for less money. Ignore them; it's simply part of the game.