Selling advice: iMac G4

[JW008]

I wasn't sure which forum to post this in since this really isn't "buying advice" or "selling," but rather "selling advice." I apologize if it's in the wrong forum.

I'm getting ready for the iPhone (by selling stuff on eBay!) and just wanted to get some advice about selling an old(er) iMac.

I bought this iMac G4 five years ago this July. It is a 17" widescreen iMac with an 800 Mhz processor, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD and a CD-RW, DVD-RW Superdrive. I've kept it up-to-date with iLife '06, iWork '06, Microsoft Office v.X and OS X 10.4. Never had a problem with it. It's a little slow, but it is five years old...

Here's where I'm seeking advice.

1) Price?
The obvious place to start is price. I've looked on eBay and they're going from $250-$600. I realize this is a fairly minor point, as that I can set the beginning price at $250 and the "Buy It Now" price at $600 and be OK. While I want to get maximum value for it, I'm more interested in actually sellling it. I do not use it any more (since I bought a Core 2 Duo iMac in December). So there really isn't any loss from this (as that it has been sitting my closet since I bought the new iMac). Any suggestions on price?

2) What should I leave on it?
I'm guessing iLife, iWork, Microsoft Office and 10.4 would only INCREASE the value so I should leave it on there, but I'm really quite unsure what exactly else I should leave on there. Is it as easy as dropping anything I want to delete in the Trash? I've never had to do this before and I want to make sure I do it right.

3) Passwords, iTunes account, .Mac account
This is kind of obvious, but I want to delete all my saved passwords, address book contacts, iTunes account and .Mac account. I know how to break the link with my .Mac account and iTunes account. I'm really more worried about the Keychains stored on the computer. (i.e. the ones for my bank account, etc.) Can I just delete the all the "autofill" in Safari and that will be good enough? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to totally wipe all my passwords?

Thanks so much for the advice. I really appreciate it!

 

[lil' brudder]

Restore

I would recommend you just restore the iMac to original state using either the restore cd or 10.4 OS that way, when the buyer receives the computer, when they turn it on the computer will act as though its the first time it has been turned on and the buyer will get the setup screen where they can configure the computer as they like. Just send the OS X cd, Office, iLife and iWork cds along with the computer and they can install them themselves. As long as you do a clean install, all of your old settings, files, passwords, browsing history, programs, and whatever else you put on there will be wiped clean.

Hope this has helped!

 

[MikeTheC]

Two things...

First, the software in question...

This is going to be the biggest bugaboo (from a legal standpoint), so it bears mentioning. Remember that you do not own the software; you only hold a license to legitimately use it. Oftentimes this means you cannot legally just turn it over to someone else. Legally, you should wipe the computer and provide nothing with it that did not come with it, the exceptions being anything that you bought for that computer and ONLY for that computer which don't carry such a stipulation, and/or are not something which continue to follow YOU. Examples of this would be iLife and the purchased copy of Tiger.

However, when it comes to MS Office... No, you should NOT turn that over to someone else, since it's serialed and registered to YOU. One (sort-of) loophole you might be able to squeak by using is if you bought the educational release of MS Office 2004, it comes with two seperate licenses. So, provided you only ever used one of them, you could simply stop using it and turn over your original CD plus the unused license. (Of course, as a practical matter, this means buying a new copy of Office, but then when it comes to commercial software, well, them's the brakes, man.)

Second, securing your data/identity/etc.:

It should be a no-brainer -- erase the Mac and set it up from scratch. I can't believe how many idiots I see out there selling a computer and leaving all their stuff on it. I just can't get my head around the level of stupidity in the computer user world. (But that's alright: there's lots of things I guess I was never meant to understand.)

What I would do if it were me would be to boot from your 10.4 CD, go into Disk Utility, and in erasing the HDD, have it zero all data as an option during formatting. This way, it'll make it that much harder for the next person to try and ressurect your user data, personal info, etc. There's also further levels of data destruction available out there (3, 5, 7 and 10-pass formatting processes) depending on how paranoid you are about your data being recovered by someone else.

 

[JW008]

What I would do if it were me would be to boot from your 10.4 CD, go into Disk Utility, and in erasing the HDD, have it zero all data as an option during formatting. This way, it'll make it that much harder for the next person to try and ressurect your user data, personal info, etc. There's also further levels of data destruction available out there (3, 5, 7 and 10-pass formatting processes) depending on how paranoid you are about your data being recovered by someone else.

How exactly do I boot from the 10.4 CD?
After I boot from the CD how do I go into Disk Utility and erase the HDD?
Do I have to reinstall 10.4 after I wipe the HDD? If so, do I just follow the instructions?

Thanks Mike and and brudder. I really do appreciate the help. If anyone else has anything, I would appreciate it.

 

[m.jakey]

ebay selling suggestion

I've sold quite a few things on ebay and in my experience I end up making more if I start my bidding price low(usually just enough to cover the listing fees, etc)- High starting bids tend to slow the initial bidding whereas a low starting bid gets early bids and bidders then often buy into competing with one another. The only time I use a high starting bid or buy it now is when I absolutely must get a certain amount for an item and this sometimes backfires and I don't get a sale. I sell mostly old fly fishing gear but this applies to the few computer items I have sold as well. Also quality photographs of the item, a friendly, thourough and informative description and, in the case of a large item(such as a computer) a fixed and reasonable shipping charge will all help the auction go well. Good Luck.