Deal of the Day #4 - 11/25/09

Hi All,

One last one for this morning.  Amazon is offering Black Friday deals all week, and rotating them each day.

You can find them here.

Since you are there, they are offering $3 in mp3s for free as well.  You can find this here.

Later,

John

Black Friday Advice

Hello All,

First things first.

1. Check this site to plan out your shopping.  They have almost all of the ads and they are searchable.  Reading every ad on Thanksgiving is not an efficient use of your time.
   
   
2. Black Friday is a gimmick.  There may be other good deals at a store on a certain day, but be prepared and know before you stray from the reason you went in.  When the Garmin for $90 is sold out at 7:01 do not just throw down $300 for the other one they have left in stock.  Go back home, check Amazon or whatever and order it online.  Remember it is worse to be suckered into an overpriced item than it is to go home empty handed.
   
   
3. Check online.  I am going to put that again, for emphasis.
   
   
4. Check online.  Amazon, Buy.com, and many online versions of brick and mortar stores have Black Friday deals as well.  You can shop in your robe and never deal with the insanity that is Black Friday in person.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  Free shipping and your own house is better than waiting hours in line for disappointment.
   
   
5. If you must have the gift today or the item you want is not one of the door busters, ie several hundred dollars off, just wait until 10 am or so.  You can often get a late start and not deal with the 5 am insanity.  The people that get there for the store opens are up at 3 am and in line at 4 am.  By 10 am they are exhausted and back home, sleeping.  Most of the rest of people are scared to venture out at all, leaving the $10 copy of Grand Theft Auto IV for you at 10 am.  I have nabbed some sweet deals using this strategy and not waiting in line or gotten up way too early.

Hopefully everyone finds what they want and saves a bundle of cash.  Good luck.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #3 - 11/25/09

Hello All,

Woot, one of my favorite sites, has started a deal site of their own.  They a hosting a forum to have people upload offers to their site.  If you are looking for something specific and I have not found it for you, this place is a good bet for you.  As a warning, there is a lot to wade through and it is socially driven, but it looks promising if you can deal with those two things.

Find it here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 11/25/09

Hello All,

Audible is offering a free audio book from now until Thanksgiving.  The selection is limited but there are some good books listed for free.  This offer is open to any email address that they do not have on record.  You do not need a credit card to create an account for this offer.

Find this deal here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 11/25/09

Hello All,

Sony is selling a few games at 50% off in their online store.  The deal runs from now until December 2nd.  I picked up The Last Guy last night, it is entertaining for $5.

• Flower - Sale price: $4.99
• The Last Guy - Sale price: $4.99
• Prince of Persia Classic - Sale price: $4.99
• Comet Crash - Sale price: $4.99
• Bomberman Ultra - Sale price: $4.99
• Smash Cars -  Sale price: $7.49
• Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao - Sale price: $7.49

You can see all of the details here.

Deal of the Day - 11/22/09

Hello All,

Target has a great price on an Acer netbook. They are selling the Acer Aspire One 10.1" netbook in blue for $199. This is $90 off the usual price for this machine.

The only negatives for this machine are the small battery, so giving only around 4 hours of battery life, and it is an Acer. On the plus side it is very inexpensive. $200 for a new netbook is very inexpensive.

You can find reviews here and here.

You can find it here.

Black Friday - Post One

Hello All,

Many of you have been asking me about Black Friday deals. I do not want to reinvent the wheel so I will link to other posts about the topic.

Gizmodo has a nice guide here.

Of note in their listings

• A Dell Mini 10V Netbook for $249
• A Toshiba 16" Core 2 Duo for $399
  
• A Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS for $149
• A Western Digital 1TB External Drive for $78
• A 23" Dell Monitor for $219
• A Samsung 46" LCD TV for around $849 from just about every store there is
• Batman Arkham Asylum PS3 and 360 $37
• Dragon Age PS3 and 360 $39
• Forza Motorsport 3 $39
• Left 4 Dead 2 $35
• Pikmin $15
• PlayStation 3 120GB w/ LittleBigPlanet GOTY & God of War Collection $299
• PS3 package at Best Buy $299
  
• Resident Evil 5 PS3 and 360 $19

More to come.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 11/18/09

Hey All,

I am going to do something new today, that is post an iPhone app deal. Let me know what you think.

Konami is selling all of their apps for $0.99. I cannot find anywhere that states how long this deal will last, so act quickly if you want anything.

In quickly looking at the apps, Metal Gear is the top rated app with 4 stars. Most of the rest of the apps are 3 star apps.

Here is the link to all of the apps currently for sale.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #5 - 11/17/09

Hello All,

I like Windows 7. I am not ashamed to say it. I am still a Mac user at home, but I have switched to Windows 7 at work. Honestly this is mainly due to one horrible program I need to use every day, and my old machine does not do virtual machines very well, but I still switched to 7, and am happy with it.

I will probably write more about this switch and Windows 7 later, but for now, if you want Windows 7, you can get it very cheap as long as you have an .edu email address. Mircosoft is selling Windows 7 for $29.99 as a download. This offer ends on 1/3/2010.

Buy it here.

Later,

John

Laptop Reliability Ratings

Hello All,

-- Update --

Here is a PCMag article that mimics the findings of the Squaretrade data. As I said Consumer Reports shows similar data as well. That makes three separate sources that say HPs have the highest rate of failure.

Interesting article over on Gizmodo about laptop reliability. This mimics what Consumer Reports found as well, and what I have said all along. The short story, do not buy a Compaq or HP and Asus and Toshiba are some of the best.

Read the full story here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #4 - 11/17/09

Hello All,

Amazon is selling the Canon XSi, a 55-250 Lens, a 18-55 Lens, and a lens filter for $618.

The XSi deal from Amazon is the best by far. Best Buy has the same deal for only $900.

The only kicker to the deal is you have to buy all three things at the same time, and all from Amazon. You need to pick them in the sellers list. By default Amazon usually picks themselves as the seller, but sometimes there are cheaper sellers and it is not Amazon as the seller.

Here are all of the links to the parts for the deal.

Canon XSi Camera with kit lens

55-250 IS Lens

UV Filter

The camera and filter are sold by Amazon by default, you just need to choose Amazon from the list with the lens.

You can also do this with the T1i. I am not going to spell that all out though, as you should not buy that camera. HD Video DSLRs are not their yet. They cannot auto focus after you start recording. Unless you are going to record something that does not change its location from you and the camera, this is worthless.

Wait until the second generation, the T2i or whatever Canon will call it.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #3 - 11/17/09

Hello All,

I love the Beastie Boys. If you are like me, you can download a free album of theirs. It is a fresh take on Check Your Head.

Find it here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 11/17/09

Hello All,

Many of you have been snapping up the XSi for cheap from Amazon, and all you need is some memory. Here is a deal on SD memory from NewEgg.

Transend Class 6 SDHC for $17.99

Find it here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 11/17/09

Hello All,

Woot-Off. It came early this month, maybe to try to get peoples money before Black Friday.

http://www.woot.com/

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 11/16/09

Hello All,

Radio Shack is offering $25 off a purchase of $100 or more. Use coupon HOLIDAY2009. This coupon expires 11/25/09, and does not include some fun stuff like netbooks and video game related items.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #3 - 11/11/09

Hello All,

Not to be totally outdone by macheist, RedSweater software decided to have a 20% off, "1 finger", discount this week. A bunch of other developers jumped on board. It is over 80 as I write this.

You can find them here.

Thanks to Jon for finding this one.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 11/11/09

Hello All,

Newegg is also selling the new, and highly rated G11 for $461.99 shipped to your door. You can see samples and reviews here, here, and here.

Find it here

Use code EMCMMML25

As an added bonus, if you have a Canon, and have it registered with Canon, you can get an additional $20 back from Canon on this camera. You can find this here.

I think you might be able to get it cheaper from Best Buy, if you have a reward zone card and use the coupons that came in the mail last week, but I am not sure.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 11/11/09

Hello All,

Newegg is offering 10% off on any DSLR, up to $50 off. This deal runs until 11/20/09, but will likely be ended early as they only allow so many discounts before the code does not work.

You can find all of the cameras here.

Use code DSLR10B.

As a reminder, if you have a Canon, and have it registered with Canon, you can get an additional $50 back from Canon on any Canon DSLR camera. You can find this here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #3 - 11/9/09

Hello All,

Mac Freebies! Macheist is offering six Mac apps for free.

Check it out here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 11/9/09

Hello Again,

Sears has a great deal on a 32" Panasonic TV with iPod dock. It has good ratings on Amazon, and Panasonic makes excellent TVs. The iPod dock is neat, you can play your music, videos and pictures on your iPod on the TV. It also has a SD card slot to play pictures directly on the TV.

All and all a nice TV for a very good price.

Find it here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 11/9/09

Hello All,

Deals are picking up again, which is good for everyone. That is aside from Best Buy, who said this

Don't expect big sales

I currently strongly dislike Best Buy after a Xbox 360 fiasco, I will write more about that later.

Anyway on to the deals. Amazon has a deal on TV series. You can get seasons 1-10 of the Simpons for $95. You can mix and match the years and the series and pick from Family Guy, Futurama, American Dad, and King of the Hill.

Find this deal here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 11/4/09

Hello All,

Here is the rest of the Wal-Mart deals for Saturday. They surprising pretty solid for being so far from Christmas, and not Black Friday.

Highlights Include

• $300 - 15" laptop
• $500 - 42" Sharp LCD HDTV
• $150 - Sony Blu-Ray Player

Find them all here.

Later.

John

Deal of the Day - 11/4/09

Hello All,

Wal-Mart has two nice deals on Xbox360 related gear.

1. Starting Saturday, and probably not lasting long, they will be selling 360 Arcades for $199, with a $100 gift card.

2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will come out on the 10th. Wal-Mart is offering a $20 gift card with the purchase of the game.

I plan on picking up a 360 to use as a media extender with my Windows 7 machine at home, and I am pretty excited about it. If you want a 360 as a serious gaming device I do not think this is a stellar deal, as you can get a 360 Pro (it comes with a hard drive for game saves and quicker game load times), with a couple of games for $299, and some other similar deals are even cheaper. To get this one up to the Pro Level you would have to spend about $90 to get a hard drive, which although $10 cheaper, does not come with the two bundled games.

Just to reiterate, as a media extender this is perfect. If you want it for gaming it is not a great deal. If you are thinking of this, but do not have a Tuner, woot has you covered. That is a today only deal though.

Thanks to loyal reader Hans for the heads up on the Modern Warfare deal.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 11/3/09

Hello All,

-- Update --

This was a pricing error. The corrected price is $299. Amazon is the cheapest place for the lens that is apparently, not a pricing error.

HH Gregg has a crazy deal on a Canon lens. They are selling the Canon 55-250 IS lens for $99.99 shipped to your door.

This is a great walk about lens, and general use lens. It is a bit much zoom for most indoor situations, but for any outdoor work, this is a great lens.

I am sure they will sell out, the same lens is over $230 at Amazon.

Find this deal here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 11/2/09

Hello All,

At a recent party there was a request to find cheap prices on a Dyson hand vac. For all you loyal JDOTD followers, here you go.

Dyson DC16

Two things about this model.

1. This is not the pink model that Val has, this is the boring yellow one. The pink one I knew of is sold out. You can find it here. You can sign up for a notice if they get it back in stock.

2. This is a quick use vacuum. The battery lasts for about five minutes. This is a big complaint about the model. If you know this, you will not be disappointed. I think it would be perfect for little messes around the house, but for some people they want more, at least that is the feeling I get from the reviews.

Later,

John