"The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket." Kin Hubbard

Want some free money? OK so I’m not giving away money but I will introduce you to some sites that will help. The first one that has saved me a bundle on music is Dealnews. This site has a ton of categories that you can choose from. They seem to scour the net so they can present you the very best deals. I tend to jump on the free ones. (I’m cheap) From technology to clothing, they seem to have it all. They turned me onto Amazon’s free music list which has almost 2500 free, legit, music. They’ll even give you local discount on restaurants and other deals closer to home.
The other site is Groupon. My friend Nate turned me onto this one. You sign up and they take your zip code and assign you the closest large city. In my case it was either Providence or Boston. Both are not exactly close but I’ll take what I can get. Groupon will present you with a limited time offer that will be something like buy a coupon for $15 dollars that is actually a $30 dollar coupon at a restaurant. So in effect you get double your money. You print out the coupon and bring it to the place. It works nice and easy. I do have a couple of issues with it as much as I like it. First it requires a bit of preplanning, which I am not the best at. Also because the range of locations is so large you might get a deal an hour away. I guess that’s fine but I’m lazy but I am not running out the door for that one. You can specify the types of deals you want like food and museums and not health and beauty stuff. However it doesn’t seem to listen to those preferences. I got two for liposuction. I took it personally.
Anyway I recommend trying either one at least for a bit just to see the one you like most. I should mention that Dealnews also covers coupons from Groupon as well.

"I'm going to memorize your name and throw my head away." Oscar Levant

What's in a name? A whole heck of a lot actually. A domain name is the phrase you type into the web browser to get you where you want to go like www.example.com. A lot of students ask about creating a website but very few ask about a domain which is one of the easiest and most essential parts of a site. It is after all the very first piece of info others will know about your site. When choosing a name always consider how long and the spelling because you may be telling people about your place on the net and if it is hard to spell it can become a real pain in the neck. I personally buy domains all the time if I think of something interesting I might do. I will usually buy it before I get to work on the site. The reasons are simple they are really cheap. No really I mean really cheap and if you don’t buy the domain someone else will eventually think of it and buy it. Even if you don’t think you are going to put up a personal site I would buy your name. I bought www.ShaneSher.com just to reserve it. The same thing goes for business names as well. OK fine you’re convinced you need one but how do you go about purchasing one. There are many Domain sellers out there but the one I have found easiest is GoDaddy.com. Now I do know some people freak out about the commercials but you must admit they do get the attention they want. Anyway you head over to the site and do a few searches for the name you want. Once you find one you click add and proceed to checkout. There are two tricks with this seller. Unless you want some of their extras like email or site hosting keep looking for the small proceed to checkout button. If all you want is a domain name then skip through all that extra junk. Also make sure it says the right amount of years you want to buy it for. The other trick is if you Google search GoDaddy coupons some page will come up with coupon codes. Those codes you enter at the end. I typically buy domains for about $7.00. With your purchase you can also forward your domain meaning when you type in the address it will automatically go somewhere else on the web. This means you can create your site anywhere and have your domain point to that other place. Now I know I went on at length here but I have one more recommendation. Real Deal is a Podcast I have mentioned here before. They are not always what I recommend to a person new to tech but they had a very frank discussion about domains. Listen to it here. When you are ready to grab your special name read everything and give it a try.

“If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the Up button.” Sam Levenson

Suddenly in a flash my buttons are gone. Everything is touch screen. Whether I am at an ATM or using my phone I am using buttons that are not truly there. There are different types of touch screens. Some are pressure sensitive meaning it knows where I pushed because the screen has a barely noticeable give. Most of the screens in a store are this way. Sometimes they require you to use a stylus to make the connection. Others use your magnetic field to tell the machine where you are touching. The iPhone works this way and it works well….for the most part. If you live in New England you know that gloves are an essential part of your standard going outside gear. I realized the other day I could not answer the phone with out taking them off. For those readers in the southern climes this seems dumb. Just take the gloves off you might say but it has been damn cold. The future is apparently a buttonless world and gloveless one too. Thankfully necessity is the mother of invention and Dots gloves were invented. They are those stretchy gloves that everyone seems to wear but with a slight change. Two dots have been added to the thumb and index finger. The dots are a combination of nickel and brass that allow for the connection to be made. They are rounded so they will not scratch. Seems just right for my cold issues. More and more items will be invented that will be touch screens from restaurants to your next cars. So if we are heading into a buttonless world you might as well be warm when you get there.

“For a list Sometimes a slow gradual approach does more good than a large gesture." Craig Newmark founder of Craigslist

Craigslist is one of those wonderful sites that has been around for just about ever. For those unfamiliar, Craigslist is a giant version of the newspaper’s classified ad section. The size of the listings makes it both fantastic and a problem . To do a complete search for an item I have to check all the craigslist locales. As an example I must go to Rhode Island, SouthCoast MA, and Boston to make sure I have not missed anything. There is a better more efficient way to do a search. Now before I go on this won’t always be cost efficient for large items or local service stuff but if you are looking to buy something that you just cannot seem to find this is the way. First head to Google, click on advanced options, and then click Search within a site or domain. Type craigslist.org and then go to the top and where it says all these words and type in what you are searching for. I usually adjust the date options at the bottom to the past week because I do not care about listings that are old. This will now search all of craigslist and I mean all of it. The other day I found an item that normally would be expensive on sites like eBay or Amazon for very cheap. When I find a potential item I will email the person and ask if they will ship it. Sometimes the answer is no but I have had great luck with this. Also this is a good way to find real estate, services, jobs or anything you can think of. So anytime you need to track something down give this a try.

"We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls." Bill Bryson

Do you shop online? Are you getting the best deals? RetailMeNot is a collective of coupons for online stores and services. They say that you can find coupons for over 13,000 stores. All you have to do is pop in a search category or store and list of coupons pops up. Sometimes it is a word to use when finishing up with your order on a site to get free shipping to a special link that has the deals. There is a rating for all of them that gives you an idea if it is still working. I tried it for pizza (necessity of life) and got a bunch of different deals for all sorts of pizza places where you can order online. However just between you and me I go with the local pizza joint. If you are buying anything online check here first, at the worst there will not be a deal and at the best you will get a ton of cash off. Give it a try.

“Get your feet off my desk, get out of here, you [Steve Jobs] stink, and we're not going to buy your product [the Apple Computer].” Joe Keenan

Being a Mac user has always been a two edged sword. The positives usually outweigh the negatives by a large margin. I have been a Mac user since 92 and since then the question has always been should I buy a new model now. Historically the moment you purchase a new Mac a new cheaper one with extra stuff will be released and so you wait. The problem is that if you get into this mindset you will never purchase a new model ever for fear of making a poor choice. Generally there are a couple of rules that I live by for general sanity when it comes to the company that is Apple. One is never ever purchase anything the first year out from Apple no matter how cool it is. The early adopters will over pay and will find all the glitches. Once that period is done they will come out with a way better one. This goes for operating systems as well. The second rule is to understand that just because something is new does not mean I need to purchase it. A Mac has a long shelf life. This is why even an older one still fetches high prices while similarly aged products drop like a stone in price. Recently I came across a great site that helps to make Apple purchasing decisions a bit easier. Mactactic takes into account Apple’s replacement schedule plus anything going on in the Mac world and gives you advice on whether you should purchase. As an example the Mac Mini has not been replaced and is overdue for a new model so this is a good time to wait on that one while a new iMac is a recommended purchase. They do have a blog as well but it is not updated much because of the space between new official product info. If you are considering switching to a Mac definitely give this one a try.

" So long, Earth. Catch you on the flip side.” Jack Swigert

Do you remember flip books? Flip books were the little books that you held with two hands and used your thumb to allow it to flip giving the illusion of animation. I remember seeing all sorts of these growing up from the current cartoon to mimicking the silent movies on the old Nickelodeons. Finally a company has taken it to the next step. FlipClips is a service where you upload a video under 30 seconds in length and they transform it into little flip books. You get to choose cover and any wording on it. The price is reasonable for a cool little product that could be a neat gift to anyone. The video part might be intimidating to some because it seems like you have to buy all sorts of expensive equipment. This may not be the case. In fact you may already have the tech necessary. My cell phone which is a beat up one from three years ago can take video, grainy video but still video. Also most digital cameras now also take in digital video. Finally if you do want something a little better I have recommended to many the Flip. It is an inexpensive route into digital video world. A small camera that is a about the same size as an iPod. It usually can take up to 60 minutes worth and will cost around $100. These are cheap when compared to the next level up of digital video cameras. Also some students have told me they had good luck finding cheaper ones secondary market for less than half price on places like eBay because the company upgraded from 30 minutes worth of video to 60. Many of these made it to the. So if you want to share some captured moments but not on a computer give a flip book a try.

I have never written anything in one draft, not even a grocery list, although I have heard from friends that this is actually possible. Connie Willis

The other day I was at the grocery store without a list and realized I had no idea what I needed to buy. This pushed me to find a better way to keep track of what I need to get. GroceryLists has a PDF that you printout and just check off the items you need. It Is not a small list of the common items but a mega compilation of all the groceries I will typically forget to buy like Tomato paste. This post is for the ever increasing group that is, like myself, almost constantly distracted. I should also mention that each list has an address to be sent to if found. The site actually encourages you to leave the list behind or send in others that you find. They receive it and then post it up on their site. I really enjoyed this one just for the sheer incompressibility You can then browse through the hundreds of returned lists. It is like looking through a keyhole onto someone’s life. This is a nice simple answer to a constant nagging problem. Print it out, throw it up on the fridge and go to town. Give this a try.

“A new gadget that lasts only five minutes is worth more than an immortal work that bores everyone.” Francis Picabia

Think of the Secret Agent Man song before I start, OK got it, now onto the post.

I have always loved gadgets from my radio watch to my spy telescope and that is why I had to write about a really clever new product. The Trackstick II is a product that is devoted to tracking your position. It is the same size as a common USB flash drive but it is actually a type of low energy GPS. Let’s say you’re on vacation and you walked everywhere and you're now home and want to retrace your steps. The GPS in this model keeps track of all of your movements. All you do is plug it into your computer and open Google Earth. It then takes you on a virtual tour of your vacation retracing every step. The maker’s site talks about exploring while hiking or camping and being able to map out where you were. Looking at some of the maps on their site shows the typical confused tourist. Lots of turn arounds and backups. I love that it is so small and will run for about a week on two AAA batteries. Now this is not a cheap gadget that you pick up at a convenience store. It is currently running upwards of $200. I am not sure if I am saying give it a try but the gadgetization of our society sure is fun to watch even if we don’t buy the items.

Thanks to the blog A beef Sandwich w/ Sweet Peppers for the song.

“Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.” Bo Derek

So you are well fed and prepared for the battle tomorrow. Now I personally plan to sleep off the food coma that I plan to be in but I have know many people that will be in line looking for a deal. To prepare I give you a site I talked about last year and a new one. BlackFriday.info and bfads.net are two sites that are devoted to giving you the best info for the best buys. Both have coupons and tons of extras you will need to wade through to be efficient in your hunting of electronics or other. I wish all going out into the fray of capitalism good luck and to all I say good night.

“I don't mind that I'm fat. You still get the same money.”Marlon Brando

So you are on eBay looking for the bargain of the century but item you are looking for is overpriced because of the popularity. You could try Fat Fingers. This is a site that uses spelling mistakes to our advantage. The idea is if you are the only one to discover an auction then the competition will be nonexistent and you will get it for a cheaper price. All you do is type a search in and it will do a search for every possible misspelling of the word or words in your search. When I started selling on eBay in 1997 I learned this valuable lesson. I was selling a Transformer’s sticker album. Now proper punctuation forces me to put an apostrophe but that means that only those who type in the exact wording would have found my auction. At that time it was early days and I did not realize my mistake until the end of the auction which meant a $30 dollar item went for $5.00. If you are going to be doing some shopping on eBay give this a try.

“Everyone hears only what he understands.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A bit more on the technology front. This is not new but it is interesting. The question is one of age and hearing. There has been a ringtone that has been used by the younger generation for a while. It is called the mozzotone. The reason I say specifically younger generation is that you must be younger than 30 to hear this. It is a high pitched whine that plays in a certain range that, depending on your age, you may have lost. I have heard of this being used in schools because the teachers cannot hear it. You do not have to have bad hearing to miss it but if you want to get a taste of it click here but remember to have earphones turned up loud. It is quite unsettling to have a young person standing 10 feet away and pick up on it and I just can make out the faintest whisper of it with earphones.

Now what is an ancient one, like myself, to do if I cannot hear it? A very old technology that has been used in Japan for years is a tiny charm called a cell phone flasher. Inside the charm is a RF (Radio Frequency) detector. Essentially a small bead flashes when a phone (any phone) gets a signal like a phone call or text. I had thought for a while that teachers should buy a few of these and hide them around their classrooms. Give a listen and take a look.