Honesty
201 words eaten alive on June 17, 2009 - Filed Under Business, Honesty, Ranting, This Town, computers |
This August will be our 10th year anniversary for the business and what a journey we have had. We started as a clearance center and have morphed into what we are today, trying just about everything and anything along the way that would make money while trying to do so in a fair and honest way. We’d even help you with diet pill reviews if we had to, just to keep you as a customer. We are not a big business but we’re fairly well established as of today. Everyone in and out of town should know the name Gator Byte by now.
While we try to be as honest and fair to all our customers there are some who just want to take advantage of us. Yes! There are quite a few! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! But that’s alright because you see the wife believes in karma. So while you steal and cheat from us today, you will somehow, somewhere, somehow pay for it. Maybe not now, but in the future, in some other way, the wife strongly believes. Honesty seems hard to come by these days eh?
For The Tourist
118 words eaten alive on June 13, 2009 - Filed Under Business, This Town, Travel |
We finally have some computers set up for the tourists this summer. For many years now we have been sending them to the library, but since we do have so many computers and monitors laying around the store why not put them to good use? It wouldn’t be as lucrative as the neighbors selling the best diet pills, but it’s a service and its definitely a plus for the tourist. I’m sure they would appreciate it. So the former adult room is being put into better use this summer. So if you see a tourist in town looking to go on the internet, you know where to send them eh.
Lots of Gadgets
73 words eaten alive on June 6, 2009 - Filed Under Business, gadgets |
After putting up the new shelf for the gameboy games I had room to spread out a lot of the little gadgets properly. The iPods and other mp3 players, the digital cameras, the controllers and memory cards and so on. Still feels like there isn’t enough room for everything, but it’s getting better. Next up are plans to re-purpose the Adult room since those movies don’t rent/sell so much lately.
Our Own Petition
130 words eaten alive on June 1, 2009 - Filed Under Business, Ranting, This Town |
After thinking about it for the weekend we’ve decided to start our own petition for the Farmer’s Market, to try and get it located downtown where it belongs. When going around to some of the local businesses I was astounded that they all had the Mariner’s Center petition sitting on the counter, and had even signed it themselves! When asked if they knew what it was they had signed, no one seemed to realize the implications or that there was even another option! Does it mean that no one cares about Main Street anymore? Even the business owners trying to operate on Main Street?! Or are we just resigned to the fact that Starrs Road gets all the good stuff so we gave up trying?
Read the Petition before you Sign it!
100 words eaten alive on May 30, 2009 - Filed Under Ranting, This Town |
I just saw a petition floating around town that should NEVER be signed by anyone with any sense. The petition is to have a permanent Farmer’s Market at the Mariner’s Center. THIS IS JUST PLAIN WRONG!! If we’re going to get a permanent Farmer’s Market it needs to be in the downtown core. The downtown is on its last legs and if we continue to support putting all the good stuff on Starrs Road then it won’t be much longer til Main Street resembles a wild west ghost town.
6 Councillors and a Mayor
228 words eaten alive on May 26, 2009 - Filed Under Ranting, This Town |
So today I decided it was time to write a letter to voice some of my concerns about the direction this town is headed in. Among the things I mentioned were the mega-yacht dock, the permanent farmers market, what’s being done to revitalize the downtown area and why it’s costing so much to send 5 people to BC for a conference. Whether it’s high travel insurance quotes or they’re choosing to stay in the finest of hotels (while we taxpayers foot the bill), it’s quite ridiculous the amount of money this town has been blowing through lately.
I sent this letter to the Mayor and all the members of town council. So far I’ve gotten replies from 2 of them. Martin Pink says he’d love to discuss my concerns over the phone any time, and Ken Langille who took the time to write out a fairly lengthy reply. For the most part he agrees with me and went so far as to say “You have great passion and expressed yourself very well. Hopefully, you may offer the assist us in future plans for Yarmouth.” Unfortunately I’ve got a little too much on my plate as it is with running a business and raising a kid to get too involved, but I don’t mind stirring the pot a little to see what splashes out.
The Sign is Literal
87 words eaten alive on May 22, 2009 - Filed Under Amused, Business |
I stuck a box of candles on the counter recently with a little sign stuck to the front of it. The sign has been a good source of amusement for several customers already as they read the sign, then look inside the box. I haven’t sold any of the candles, but that’s ok, sometimes it’s better to have a conversation piece/funny item taking up space on the counter.
So what’s hiding in this mysterious box? Some phenphedrine reviews? Nope! It’s some dusty candles!
Always Evolving
170 words eaten alive on May 16, 2009 - Filed Under Business |
It seems we’re always evolving here at Gator Byte. Maybe not as much in recent years as when we first opened as Lakeview Clearance Center, but things still change from time to time. All the way back to when we sold things like coffee makers, toasters, misc. hardware and Christmas decorations. We moved more toward electronics along the way, even had some clothing at one point. And furniture, that stuff sold fast actually, a load of a dozen beds would sell out in a couple of weeks. But, we no longer have room for that sort of thing.
Sometimes I think it would be quicker to make a list of things we haven’t sold as opposed to a list of things we have sold. We’ve never sold guns. Or equestrian apparel. Or explosives actually we did sell fireworks for a few years. I guess the thing to keep in mind is that you never know what you’ll find in this little store!
Older Games are Worthless at Game Stop
263 words eaten alive on May 6, 2009 - Filed Under Business, gaming |
So yesterday I was snooping around Game Stop to see what was new and interesting. While I was there someone came in with a bag full of games and a guitar to trade in. I decided to stick around and see what kind of offer they got. The guy at the counter punched everything into the computer, looked at them and said, “After refurb charges they’re worth 8 bucks”.
Wow, that was pretty shocking! Needless to say they weren’t impressed with the offer, especially after being told that the games were pretty scratched up and needed to be buffed, that’s why they were worth so little. And the wireless guitar, for PS2, was only worth $3. CRAZY! So I followed them out and struck up a conversation, letting them know that we also do buy/sell/trade at Gator Byte and they should bring the stuff down so I can take a look.
Turns out the games were all for PS2 and original XBox, not really hot/best seller titles, and a few were quite scratched and not worth anything, but the rest were in pretty good shape. The guitar looked almost new and worked well, so my offer to them was $33 in cash or $43 in store credit (compared to GS’s $8 store credit, they don’t give cash).
So while I may have no idea what the best diet supplement is, I do know my games quite well and continue to believe that overall, I offer a MUCH better deal than Game Stop. Even on the newer releases.
Used Wii Stuff is still pretty Rare
115 words eaten alive on April 29, 2009 - Filed Under Entertainment, gaming |
We’ve got lots of used games for XBox 360 in these days, and several controllers and headsets too. Used 360 consoles are fairly common as well. The Wii and PS3 quite rare still though, only see a system every 2 or 3 months and games maybe once a month. I do have a few Wii accessories in at the moment though, some wii-motes and nunchucks, but for PS3 all I have is one of those bluetooth media remotes and a bluetooth headset. The 360 seems to be more popular in general, but it was released a year before the other two so that probably has a bit to do with it.
Junked Laptops
158 words eaten alive on April 28, 2009 - Filed Under computer repair, computers |
There’s been a fair number of calls lately from people looking for various laptop problems, wondering if I have parts for certain types in stock or just laying around in the back room. The problem with laptops is that you can’t generally take parts from one to fix another any more than you can use Ferrari parts to fix a Dodge truck. If the model number isn’t an exact match it’s pretty unlikely that they’ll fit or even plug in. The only things that tend to be interchangeable are the RAM, hard drive and wireless network card. The optical drive can usually be changed as well with a bit of effort. The rest of the stuff, whether it’s the battery, screen, keyboard and so on, need to be replaced with identical matching parts. That being said, I do have a few dead Acers, a Toshiba and a Dell in the back room.
Layaway
151 words eaten alive on April 23, 2009 - Filed Under Business, Honesty, lakeview larry, thieves |
Many years ago, we used to let our customer/s put things on layaway, it’s a common practice here just like getting the best diet pill. Unfortunately, having tried this out and in bid to help genuine customer/s, the bad ones comes along and take advantage of it.
We had someone cheat us outright some 8 yrs ago, and to think that he used to fix our electrical problem at our store but he never paid us for a tv and vcr he took from our store till today. Because of ppl like him whom we thought we could trust .. we don’t do layaways anymore. Plus because of this electrician .. we couldn’t help a non-profit organization because his wife was working there. His wife had told us that she would pay us when she pay us – and that was 8 yrs ago.
KVM Switch
185 words eaten alive on April 21, 2009 - Filed Under computers, gadgets |
For a while I toyed with the idea of having a separate computer in the house to use as a media server. The plan was to stick it in a closet or in the basement. It wouldn’t have to be an overly powerful or fast system, it would just need tons of storage. Music & movies can take up a lot of room, especially if you keep the full DVD structure. The media server can then share out to all other computers/TVs/game consoles in the house.
The advantage to doing it this way is you don’t need to keep your main computer running all the time, sucking up power, when the lower powered server costs less to run. The biggest problem comes with controlling it, you don’t really want a separate keyboard, mouse and monitor for this computer since it will rarely be used. One way around this is using a KVM switch, you can hook up 1 or more computer towers to the same monitor/keyboard/mouse and just flip a switch to control the tower you currently need access to.
Looking to Dump the Adult Room
108 words eaten alive on April 11, 2009 - Filed Under Business, DVD, Entertainment, Movies, sale |
I’m short on space and the movies in the Adult room don’t rent or sell enough to justify the amount of shelf space they take up. So, I’m willing to dump them all at just above my wholesale cost. Take all the DVDs, only around 100 left for a total of $600, and the remaining VHS for $4 each, roughly 130 for a total of $520 which is a LOT less than I paid for them. Back when I was still buying adult VHS they were costing me $15 to $20 each. DVDs have been a lot cheaper, costing around $4 to $5 each.
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