Archive for the ‘Reviews and Recommendations’ Category
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?
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Tags: buying guide
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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...
Continue reading the full text of
Geek/artist buying guide Part 1: B&H Photo/Video.
(1150 words, estimated 4:36 mins reading time)
Tags: buying guide
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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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Saturday, October 20th, 2007
Recommendation 3:
DIGG!
You may have heard of something called “Web 2.0,” if you run around in geeky enough circles. The general idea is that the latest, coolest websites all share certain stylistic attributes as well as some similar methodologies. YouTube, FaceBook, Pandora, Wikipedia and MySpace are all representatives of this new movement, and so, perhaps, is the entire Blogosphere. Perhaps the most common feature of Web 2.0 is user submitted content. The videos on YouTube, the profiles and blogs on MySpace and Facebook, the articles on Wikipedia, and even the radio channel programming on Pandora are all produced not by employees of the companies, but by Schmoes like us.
Digg.com is another website where the content is submitted by the end users. Digg is basically just a webpage with links to news stories on it. The ingenious thing is the way the stories are chosen to show up on the page. Instead of a team of editors deciding what we should know and what we should not, we decide for ourselves. Anyone who has signed up (for free) to be a Digg member can submit a story. All they have to do is type in a URL, come up with a headline, and click a button. Then, any member of Digg can see the story and either Digg it (give it a thumbs up) or bury it (well..it’s not thumbs sideways). Stories, pictures, videos, webpages, or anything else that can be identified by a URL that receive enough “Diggs” appear on the front page of Digg.com.
Professionally, Digg leans towards techno-geeks and politically it leans to the left. Nevertheless, I have found that it’s a wonderful addendum to my usual means of keeping up with the news (Reuters & AP top stories as well as Los Angeles Times headlines, all available online…and maybe a little Daily Show 
). If you want to keep up with technology and internet news, keep track of political races, get a smattering of injustices that need to see the light of day, the occasional crackpot conspiracy theory article, and a couple of funny pictures every day, this could be the site for you.
http://www.digg.com
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Saturday, October 20th, 2007
Recommendation 2:
Take advantage of your provider.
Lately the buzz on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) has seemed pretty negative. From reports that providers are unplugging people who use too much bandwidth (article) to scarier reports that they might even be filtering e-mail off their servers for political reasons (article) the news hasn’t been particularly pretty (sorry those are both Comcast stories, fanboys). Let’s face it, they’re great big monopolies that often control all the cable television and high-speed internet in a geographic area, and they know it. Nevertheless, I would like to suggest a couple of ways that you can make that fat bill you pay your provider every month a little more worth it.
Way 1:
Free Customer Service and Technical Support
A lot of people have horror stories about trying to connect with a live human being to get help with anything technology related. After pushing 1 for English, 3 for Support, 2 for Technical, 3 for does not apply, and so on for 15 minutes, only to be put on hold for 20 minutes, and then finally to be disconnected for an unknown reason, a person can be prone to just give up. Well hang in there little buckaroo, it’s not so bad as all that. I have found that most automated phone systems have a fast track to a live person if you just wait long enough to hear the right option. After a list of options, there is usually a “for all other queries” or “to speak to an operator” or something that gets you to that nice human being you’ve been hoping for.
What’s more, in my experience, technical support people at ISPs seem to be computer geniuses. Whereas their bosses want them only to stay on the line with you long enough to make sure that whatever is wrong on your end isn’t the ISP’s fault, I find that it takes very little cajoling (if any) to get them to go through every single thing that is wrong with your machine and help you fix it. I think it’s just their way of sticking it to the man. So since they seem so willing, you might as well use them. Also, just in case you get a support tech who is having a bad day and doesn’t want to be all that useful…you can always call back and get somebody else.
Way 2:
Free Software
Anyone out there getting that bug from the Norton Security Suite that came bundled on their computer last year when they bought it that says their subscription is up and it’s time to get out the credit card to keep the thing running for another year? If you have Comcast or Time Warner, you can just ignore it. Comcast offers it’s users the popular McAfee Security Suite absolutely free, including upgrades and renewals. Likewise, Time Warner will give you EA Anti-virus and Firewall for nothing. All you have to do is go to your provider’s home page and find the link. Be on the lookout for other free junk from your ISP. It wouldn’t hurt to visit their home page from time to time.
Comcast home:
http://www.comcast.net
Time Warner RoadRunner internet home:
http://www.rr.com or http://help.rr.com
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