Building PCs vs. buying: Flex those geek muscles

There are geeks. And then there are geek's geeks. George Ou falls in the latter category.

For someone who just has worked himself up to the point where he isn't handy--up from ridiculously incompetent--I can't help but marvel at George's weekend projects.

His latest build it yourself feature focused on building a new all-in-one PC. Why buy when you can build? What's interesting with these efforts is that you can save dough with the build vs. buy approach.

George's all-in-one PC project joins what must becoming one interesting garage/spare bedroom/home IT department. In recent weeks, George has worked through:

• The $340 NAS;
• The VESA Stand PC mod;
• The all-in-one game PC for $765;
• The poor man's all-in-one PC for $380.

For those of us incapable of such engineering George's efforts are interesting. For those of you inclined to take on these projects yourself go for it. I'm stuck in the "buy because there's no way I can build without blowing something up" camp.