PawEng » Shopping

How to Sign Up For an iTunes Account without a Credit Card

PawEng — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:22:00 +0000

So you want to create an iTunes account to download the latest free iPhone apps from Apple’s App Store? The only catch is that it requires you to enter a credit card number. If you prefer not to give Apple your credit card info at this time (or some other way of getting your money), you won’t be able to open an account… that is, unless you follow the simple directions at instructables.

Do You Want a “Product Protection Plan” With That Purchase?

PawEng — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:19:30 +0000

The LAPTOP Magazine (via Slashdot) has an interesting story about the tactics Office Depot associates use to sell Product Protection Plans and other overpriced add-ons. The article describes how some associates refuse to sell products to customers who do not want the add-ons. The products are suddenly no longer in stock.

Amazon’s Kindle 2 Released

PawEng — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:11:59 +0000

Today Amazon has released version 2 of its ebook reader Kindle. The reviews are already coming in — for example, Wired and New York Times. The reviews seem to agree: The Kindle 2 is the best ebook reader around.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

PawEng — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:59:25 +0000

On September 18, 2007, Carnegie Mellon professor and alumnus Randy Pausch gave a lecture at Carnegie Mellon titled “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. Despite being diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer, Randy gave an amazingly upbeat and inspiring lecture. He described his childhood dreams including being in zero gravity and playing in the NFL, and then proceeds to describe how he achieved all of them. Sadly, Randy died on July 25, 2008 at the age of 47 of pancreatic cancer.

Watch the one hour and 16 minute long lecture on youtube, or visit the Last Lecture website.

The lecture was so popular that it is now available both as a book and as a DVD.

Amazon Introduces Kindle Version 2

PawEng — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:23:39 +0000

Amazon has introduced version 2 of their popular wireless reading device Kindle. They release it on February 24, 2009, and you can pre-order it now.

I have never been a fan of ebooks, but Amazon’s Kindle has made me change my mind. I have played round with version 1, and it looks like version 2 will be even better. My favorite part is that Amazon has a huge selection of over 230,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs that can be delivered directly to your Kindle via the cell phone network. You don’t pay for the wireless transfer, and most books are priced at a reasonable $9.99.

You can, of course, only get the Kindle from Amazon.

Circuit City Closing All U.S. Stores

PawEng — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:45:08 +0000

Electronic retailer Circuit City is closing its doors after 60 years in the business. All 567 U.S. stores are closing, but Canadian stores are not affected. There will be liquidation sales starting immediately and lasting until all merchandise have been sold.

Circuit City [Via Wired]

Combyo — Deals and Bargains Aggregator

PawEng — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:23:52 +0000

Combyo is a deals and bargains aggregator. They collect deals from many sites across the internet, and present them in one place. You can view the latest deals, deals by category, deals by store, deals by other deal sites, or you can search for deals on an item. Once you find an item, you can set a price alert, and Combyo will notify you when your item is available at that price.

We have earlier covered deal sites like Dealigg and ZingSale.

Visit Combyo to find the latest deals.

Review of Nine Ultra Compact Digtal Cameras

PawEng — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:59:08 +0000

Dpreview is at it again: They have posted a review of nine ultra compact digital cameras. This is the second round of reviews as they earlier reviewed nine budget cameras.

The nine ultra compact digital cameras are:

See the review here.

ZingSale: Find Out When Stuff You Want Goes On Sale

PawEng — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:01:14 +0000

ZingSale tracks the prices of things you want to buy, and notifies you via email when they are on sale. By default you will be notified when the price drops 10%, but you can change that. You can also use ZingSale to track prices of items you just bought as many stores offer a 30 day price drop guarantee.

While ZingSale does not mention this explicitly, they seem to get all their product descriptions and prices from Amazon. They are in beta right now, so I hope they plan to expand their price checks to other companies.

I tried ZingSale on the Linksys WRT160N Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Broadband Router. Amazon’s list price is $116.94, but if you “Click here to see the price” they show the real price as $65.99. ZingSale tells me the router costs $116.94, and then offers to notify me when the price hits $105.25. I manually overrode it and asked to be notified when the router hits $50, but I doubt that will ever happen since ZingSale can’t see the “Click here to see the price” prices. In my eyes, this is a major limitation.

ZingSale is free to use.

Review of Nine Sub-$150 Cameras

PawEng — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:15:18 +0000

Just in time for the holiday season, Dpreview has posted a review of nine budget digital cameras. So if you are in the market for a digital camera that won’t break the bank, this review is worth reading. The cameras are:

Canon Powershot A470
Canon Powershot A590 IS
Fujifilm FinePix Z20fd
Kodak Easyshare C1013
Nikon Coolpix L18
Olympus FE-360
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ8
Samsung L210
Sony Cybershot DSC-W120

Dpreview is one of my favorite websites for digital photography. Their reviews are thorough and well done, and they have active discussion groups for most digital cameras.

See the review of the cameras at Dpreview.