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I’m not behaving like a proper MySpaceman

Friday, October 26th, 2007

I think I need to put up a bunch more photos. Everyone else has a load of photos. Thank heavens I’m not a girl, or I’d feel obligated to have a risque one in a bikini. Hats off to you, girls, for the risks you have to take in the tight, tiny clothes the fashion industry has provided for you.

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Geek/artist buying guide Part Deux: RetailMeNot.com

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

You ever notice that little box for a “coupon code”?

I have done a lot of online purchasing in my time. In fact, I’m at the point now where I would prefer to buy something through the web than to go to a brick and mortar shop simply because the prices are so much better and the options are far more numerous.

Something I notice very often during online checkout procedures is a little form box for a “coupon code” or something similar. Many websites offer discounts to customers from specific companies or organizations, and the means by which those customers claim the discounts is through these codes. The retailer simply sends an e-mail to the organization with the code in it, and then the organization disseminates it to its members however it sees fit.

RetailMeNot.com (http://www.retailmenot.com) is a website that collects such codes. If, for example, you were interested in making a purchase from Amazon, and you noticed that there was a place in the checkout pages for you to enter a coupon code, you could first visit RetailMeNot. On the RetailMeNot home page, you could type “amazon.com” into the search box. You would immediately be given a list of codes to type into the coupon form on Amazon, along with explanations of the sort of deal each code would give you, as well as details about what products it applies to.

I’ve already made use of RetailMeNot to get free temporary subscriptions to some websites, as well as discounts on purchases I have made at others. Not every code works (sometimes they’re just too old, and the offer has already expired), but for a few dollars in savings, isn’t it worth having a look-see?

Tags: buying guide
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Self-induced Jet Lag

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

I really need to controld the desire to take that nap at 2PM. Makes me wake up at 1AM. Sigh. I need more people who don’t sleep in my messenger lists.

On that note: oh great, now there’s MySpace messenger. As if Yahoo, AIM, MSN, Skype, ICQ, Google, and CamFrog weren’t enough. Ugh.

Still…anyone want to chat in the middle of the night? I’ll install the MySpace one for you.

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Geek/artist buying guide Part 1: B&H Photo/Video

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Where to buy your next camera or camcorder:
B&H Photo/Video

Every now and then someone asks me for advice on buying a camera or some other device or equipment for making art. I usually don’t flat out recommend one brand or product line over any other, because I think that different companies make better products depending on the specific needs of any particular consumer. So for some people, I might recommend a nice Canon Digital Rebel, where for others I might suggest a Panasonic FZ-50 or something else. It all depends on what they are going to use it for.

On the other hand, not all retailers are created equal. Buying cameras and camcorders can be a harrowing experience. You can go to your local Best Buy (or your local equivalent electronics shop), of course, and just slap down a huge pile of money on whatever device that the poorly informed, 19-year-old salesperson is trying to pass off on you. They’ll try to convince you to buy an extended warranty for your device that you will almost certainly never use, and that might not even coven your purchase if the thing does manage to break. I would not recommend this approach. You’re too prone to spend twice as much money as you should, and end up with a device you don’t really even like that much.

You can go to CNET (http://www.cnet.com) and look at some nice reviews of comparable products of the sort you want. The reviews might be a little skewed by the fact that CNET gets its sample devices donated by the manufacturer, and has to be kinda nice in what it says lest the manufacturer decide to stop sending samples. Nevertheless, it’s a good starting point. What’s more, once you choose the item you want, you can use CNET Shopper to hunt through all the various online stores that carry it, and find the very lowest price available.

Now this is where you might get into trouble. Some online stores are scams. Some of them sell “gray market” material, meaning that the camera you buy from them will be come in unofficial packaging, without a manual, and without a manufacturer’s warranty. If there is a problem with it, getting the store to replace it or refund your money could prove virtually impossible.

Other less seemly outfits will pull a “bait and switch” on you. You’ll visit their website, see the item you want for about 2/3 the cost you saw it at Best Buy, and you’ll click the buy now button and give them your credit card number. Instead of getting an e-mail with your tracking number the next day, as you would expect, you get a phone call. The person on the other end tells you that your order is being processed, and then asks you if you would like to add any accessories to it. The try to sell you a five-year extended warranty, extra batteries, a bag, straps, cleaning gear, etc…all at what sounds like reasonable prices. If you agree, well…fine, your order will ship, and hopefully it won’t be gray market. If you politely decline and ask that they just ship your camera, they may tell you then and there that they are afraid it isn’t in stock and it will be on back-order for a couple of weeks. The couple of weeks will stretch to months, at which point you will realize that the reason the price for the item was so low was that they needed to get you to buy all that extra stuff to turn any profit. In other words, your camera will be on backorder until you buy some accessories. The bait you with the low price, then switch to a different deal where you spend enough money to make it worth their while.  Read more...

Tags: buying guide
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Recommendations for people who spend too much time online, Part 4: Pandora

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

Recommendation 4:
Pandora

Pandora.com is one of the coolest websites I’ve run into on the internet. If you don’t know about it already, just go to the site and follow the instructions. Pandora has you name a song or artist you like. It then goes through a massive library of music to find other songs that are similar to what you have specified. Then it just starts playing them for you.

It’s like a radio station that you yourself get to program. You can even specify different “stations” for different moods you might be in (in other words, if you’re not in an Ozzy Ozbourne vibe, you can always make a new station and put in “Luther Vandross” as the artist that Pandora will find similar music to). When you hear a song you like, you can give it a thumb’s up, and it will be added to the station as an indicator to the system that it should find more music like that one. If you hate a song, you can thumb’s down it so it will not play again.

If you work in front of a computer all day, especially doing work that’s repetitive or mindless, this might be the website for you. Just plug in your earphones, and run Pandora in the background. You’ll hear old favorites as well as new stuff you’ve never run into before.

http://www.pandora.com

As a side note, Pandora’s days may be numbered. The US Copyright Royalty Board raised license fee rates recently to the degree that many online radio stations can’t make enough money to be able to pay for the songs they play. So far Pandora lives, but it may not last.

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