Wow, I never thought of some of those ways. Dumpster diving may not be legal, but it's not always neccessarly illegal either. My brother used to work for trash company and he drove a truck and picked up the huge dumpsters and hauled them off. This company would actually ask people if they wanted stuff they were throwing away, one time it was computers from a wood mill, and I got a couple Aptiva's with P3's and 512 MB inside running WIN2000 and some expensive wood manufacturing design programs like I used back in school. A lot of companies don't mind you getting in their dumpsters because they have to pay the landfill by the pound on how much they deposit, so if you take weight of their hands it actually saves them money. But given that if you get in McDonalds dumpster that would probably be illegal and nasty cause I'm sure they don't have anything of much value in there..... So if you gonna raid a dumpster make sure it's a trash company that is throwing stuff away for a business that's likely to have goods you want, and all you have to do for permission is usually just ask one of the workers.

[EDIT] I have found TigerDirect.com to be the best computer dealer I have ever found. I have rarely seen their prices beaten.[/EDIT]