If you haven’t checked out Craigslist (many regional sites, including one for Austin), you should. It’s a phenomenal marketplace.
A lot of people use it for casual sex hookups, and hey, if I knew about that aspect of it back when I was single, who knows? But it’s also great for getting rid of stuff that has a little too much value to donate or throw out. I’ve posted several items for prices that are probably about 1/3rd to 1/5th what the item would cost new and gotten nibbles within a few hours, and sold the item within about a day. No fuss, no muss, and a lot easier than ebay. The posting process is dead-simple.
It’s got RSS feeds for each classified section, so if you want to tune in to, say, the new listings for old computers, you can do that. And it’s even got entertainment value in the hye-larious best of craigslist section
One thing that turned me off of Craigslist was that (as best as I could see when I checked it out) it’s not a straightforward web-based bbs, but one of those Yahoo groups or something you gotta join. Haven’t been to the site in a while but seem to remember being asked to jump through hoops I did not want to jump through. I should go check it out again, see if anything’s changed.
No, it’s not like that at all. It’s not a mailing list. You post a listing on the web, and individuals reply to you directly via e-mail (or via an anonymizer).
Freecycle is a mailing list (actually, a bunch of local mailing lists)–it’s a good concept, but turns me off for that very reason. And Craigslist has a “free” section, too.
Your note inspired me so I checked it out and found someone in Boulder with a listing for a Weebles Farm set. I got all excited and fired off an e-mail inquiring how much, but never heard back. Wah…. Still, very cool site that I had heard about through several others but just never took the time to check out myself. I think we’ll try to sell Gary’s old computer there. Thanks for the tip.