11 Sites to Make Money Selling Old Gadgets

As technology becomes a larger part of our lives, we find ourselves casting aside our old gadgets in favor of new ones. As a result, cell phones, PDAs, and GPS units end up in a junk drawer. But they don’t have to end up there. Here are 11 sites where you can trade your old - and sometimes dead - gadgets in for actual money, gift cards, and even charitable donations to your favorite causes.

With the holidays coming up, could there be a better time than now to make some money while also helping out the environment?

What’s residing in your dead gadget drawer? Are you going to be trading anything in?

BestBuyTradeIn.com - Electronics superstore Best Buy will allow you to trade in a wide range of products in exchange for gift cards you can spend with their company.

BuyMyTronics.com - BuyMyTronics will buy your gadgets from you whether they work or not. Of course, you get paid more the better their condition, but they will even take the broken ones. Can pay by PayPal or check.

Costco Trade-In and Recycle Program - In addition to taking gadgets like iPods, Costco will also accept desktops, laptops, fax machines, printers and more. Payment is in the form of Costco gift cards and can take up to four weeks to process.

EZTradein.com - EZTradein powers some of the biggest trade-in programs out there, or you can just simply go directly to the source. Payment can be made via check, PayPal or a Best Buy gift card.

Gazelle.com - Besides the smaller gadgets, Gazelle will take external hard drives, GPS devices, satellite radios, Blu-ray movies and more. If your item isn’t listed, you can contact them for a personalized quote. Payment can be made via Amazon gift card, checks, PayPal or you can even opt to have the funds donated to one of the charities they work with.

MyBoneYard.com - MyBoneYard takes desktops, laptops, flat panel monitors, MP3 players and cell phones with more items to be added soon. Payment is by Visa prepaid cards.

NextWorth.com - NextWorth takes iPods and iPhones, and pays you by check, Amazon gift card or in-store credit when you trade the device in at one of their retail partners.

RadioShack.cexchange.com - RadioShack, one of the oldest electronics dealers around, will let you trade in your old gadgets, games, consoles and more, and offers gift cards you can spend at their stores.

Sam’s Club - The wholesale club arm of the Walmart corporation will trade your electronics for gift cards for their company.

Toshiba - Toshiba will take in numerous items such as laptops, camcorders, PDAs and so on, paying you by check and sometimes throwing in an extra item like a $25 gift card to Starbucks.

VenJuvo.com - VenJuvo will take all of the usual major items like game systems, HDTVs, laptops and so on, and then you can choose to be paid by check, PayPal or donate the funds to a charity.

Apple releases iPhone 2.2 update

Apple released a hefty update for the iPhone on Thursday night.

The 2.2 software update is available through iTunes, and it's packed with lots of goodies. Apple released its 2.1 software update in September.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple released a hefty update for the iPhone on Thursday night.

Some of the highlights of the update center on GPS and Google Maps. For example, version 2.2 includes Google Street View in Google Maps, which allows users to see a 360-degree view of locations taken with cameras mounted on Google's cars. It also added walking directions in Google maps with information on public transportation stops.

In addition, the iPhone can now download podcasts over the air using a Wi-Fi or 3G network. Previously, users had to download podcasts into iTunes on their computers and then sync their files. Now iPhone users can also turn off the auto-correction on the virtual keyboard, which I must say is a nice alternative to allowing the iPhone to guess what you're trying to type.

Other improvements include a bug fix for scheduled e-mail fetching, improved stability and performance for the Safari Web browser, improved phone quality to reduce dropped calls (hooray!), and improved sound quality in visual voice mail messages.

But there are still lots of things missing--for example, cutting and pasting. And the iPhone still doesn't support MMS messaging nor does it have GPS turn-by-turn directions.