I have had pretty good results with Dell in the past, mainly 'cos you can select many models, and then per model, many options. This means for the non-computer specialist, you can ask them roughly what they want, and give them what they ask for, professionally built, at a known price, with (important!) a guarantee.

Having said that, I have also had a couple of Dell backfires - but these have been mainly where the people who got the computer then tried to screw around with the order, or couldn't deal with Dell's support line people. I have personally not had a problem with Dell that couldn't be sorted out reasonably quickly on the phone.

I am not associated with Dell, I'm not promoting them, neither am I saying they are faultless. But as a way of doing "minimum effort" computer ordering, they rate pretty highly with me and I have always been satisfied with them (first used in 1988).

As to what I do these days: I look for behind the curve hardware that is brand new, but unsold, at specialists or auction houses. I can usually pick up stuff for around a third of the price, at a good price/performance point, and keep customers/friends happy. If you look, these people (re-sales specialists) can put out some pretty good deals. I recently set up a small office with a large RAID server and 4 workstations (plus cabling and net access) for a quarter of the price and a 90 day guarantee. All Compaq and HP stuff, so no rubbish. Customer literally grinning from ear to ear