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I\'ve got Scottish ancestry. You need to know that before we continue. Okay, now that\'s out of the way.

When I look around my home office, I like to think of where each thing came from. Not much work on? Well, that\'s partly the reason, but mostly it\'s because most of my equipment wasn\'t simply purchased from a supplier.

In fact, many things were rescued from the rubbish piles of big corporates. There\'s my rather limited but still fully functioning fax machine, brought home by my wife from a big insurance company where she worked.

There\'s the ergonomic keyboard I\'m using, rescued from the jaws of death by my Mother-in-Law who\'s

a cleaner. It doesn\'t bother me that the commands are in German, my fingers find the right places. But it was probably enough reason for someone else to throw out.

Then there\'s the computer monitor I\'m using. If you bring up a blank document and look very hard, you can see an error message imprinted on the screen. I don\'t notice it most of the time.

Then there\'s the speakerphone and the trays and the envelopes and… you get the idea!

So what\'s in this for you? If your budget won\'t stretch to the latest equipment, be alert for the knock of opportunity.

If you have friends that work in corporate offices, let them know what you\'re after. Look at the Trade and Exchange and other newspapers for office auctions and liquidation sales.

Of course, they may not be perfect, but I\'ve found that putting up with a little discomfort can make the difference between moving ahead and going backwards.

Here\'s something to think about: If the latest greatest ecommerce companies of 2000 had practised rubbish-bin-plundering, would they still be around today?

Och aye the noo to you.