About Brandon

These days I'm the whole IT department for a Kansas nonprofit, which means about 150 people and their devices. That covers the laptops, the accounts, the printers that won't print, and everything in between. Before that I worked as an application developer for Kansas state agencies, and I've been building websites (mostly WordPress) for about as long as I've been doing IT. My personal site is sheley.org.

The old-computer side of things

On the side, I pick up retired IT equipment from businesses around Topeka for recycling. Most of it is the heavy stuff: old network switches, servers, and power-hungry enterprise gear. I break it down myself. Drives get wiped to the NIST 800-88 standard (with a certificate of destruction for businesses that want one), the scrap metal gets recycled locally, and the valuable parts (motherboards, memory, and processors) get shipped to Boardsort, a recycler that pays more for them. If you just have a household computer or TV to get rid of, my NE Kansas electronics recycling guide lists the free drop-offs.

The computers I actually keep are a different story. I've got a few tiny Lenovo and Dell desktops, some ThinkBooks, a couple of Apple machines including two 2013 Mac Pros (the "trash can" ones), and a handful of older laptops. None of them are new, and that's the whole idea behind this site.

If you're wondering about brands, I'm a Lenovo guy. I'd pick one over an HP or a Dell any day. I used a ThinkPad T440 for a long, long time, and I'll use it again once I fix the hard drive cable I broke. (If you're shopping, here are the old ThinkPads I'd look at.) For now I'm on a ThinkPad T15, but I miss that T440.

Why OldPCGuy

Most computer advice online is written either for people who already know the answer or to sell you something new. I wanted a place for the people in between: someone with a 2017 laptop who just heard Windows 10 is "ending," or who wants their desktop to stop taking three minutes to boot.

What I try to do on every page:

• Skip the jargon, and explain it when I can't.
• Put dates on prices and deadlines, and update the page when they change.
• Say so when the free option is good enough.

A disclosure

I have opinions about hardware, especially that Lenovo thing, and they show up in the guides. I've tried to keep the refurbished buying guide useful whatever brand you end up with.

Get in touch

If something in a guide is out of date or just wrong, I want to know. Same if there's a topic you'd like covered, or if you're in the Topeka area with old business computers to get rid of. Here's how to reach me.