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My favorite sites and forums:
anandtech.com
couponcraze.com
dvdtalk.com
fatwallet.com
What are yours? Usually with those and the price comparison engines such as:
pricegrabber.com
and
shopping.yahoo.com
I can get all the bases covered...

I routinely check Ben's Bargains at least once a day. It's a very good summary of all the good deals posted to message boards like Fat Wallet without the YMMV (Your Milage May Vary) or PM (PriceMatch) crap. Also, I'm sure most Slashdotters know this already but AnandTech Hot Deals Forums is a great place to get computer related deals.

Before I make any purchase online, I always send it through Pricegrabber to make sure I'm getting the lowest price, as well as check Funtasia for any coupon codes to sweeten the pot. Be sure to check the merchant ratings. It's sometimes wiser to spend a few more bucks to get it from a more reputable vendor rather than go through the headache of harassing a company to send you your stuff and later disputing a charge with the credit card company (take it from one who learned the hard way!).

Computer Geeks

Net Seller

PC Onramp aka EPC

Directron

For comparison shopping:

Price Grabber

MySimon

I often use PriceScan and PriceGrabber, among some of the others already mentioned by others. PriceGrabber even has a link under "Services" here on /.

I often use PriceScan and PriceGrabber, among some of the others already mentioned by others. PriceGrabber even has a link under "Services" here on /.

Microsoft Plus for Windows XP costs under $25 (donation goes towards Microsoft developers and their families), and has a built-in speech engine that allows you to interact via voice with MS applications, plus they provide complete speech API for free , if you're into software development.

Will these new "brain chips" be called "microsofts" and plug directly into the back of your skull, coming in all kinds of fashionable colors?

However, this still doesn't mean we can go out and buy that motherboard with that sweet bus, but does give an indication of the blurred lines that currently exist when people call Apple hardware proprietary. The most important thing to remember about why proprietary has such negative connotations is that it generally translates into more expensive hardware. [pipe_dream]And with the spate of new customers lined up for POWER-derived processors, Apple may finally be able to offer a powerful and cheap low-end computer[/pipe_dream]

MS speach recognition is awful. Try Naturally Speaking Not great but from what I've seen and read it's the best out there.

Do nott forget to use a high quality headset (NOT a standalone microphone) such as one from Plantronics* or Logitech and try to get it posistioned the same way every time.

A short history on Naturally Speaking.
It was originally created by DragonSoft. Infact there was an article on the company and the Husband and Wife who started in in MIT's Technology Review back in the good ol days (around 1998) when you'd count off the weeks until the 1 issue per quarter would arrive.

They were then bought out by Lernout and Hauspie who had their own speach recognition software. Dragon Naturally Speaking was then integrated into L&H's product. If I recall correctly the integrated product didn't work very well.

L&H was then bought out by ScanSoft where Dragon Naturally Speaking lives today.

I'm not sure why I bothered to write all this (and I've probably got some of it wrong) this early in the morning. Oh well

-TMF

I've found you can get the plantronics headsets _much_ cheaper online. For example the Audio .90 which sells at circuit city for $30 can be had for $15

Hey, if you're extremely worried about the RAM resources, are too cheap to shell out that extra $40 for 256 MB of memory, or expect to run the whole thing on TI-83 calculator, then maybe next Windows is not for you.

If you want functionality, you have to dedicate resources, if you don't want much functionality, stick to Linux on a floppy with pre-installed vi and life would be great.

Mozilla Firefox 0.8 is currently taking up 63 MB of RAM, and that's just a browser with no media players, mail clients, task schedulers, etc.

I used to have a nice, large television. Now, however, it is going into decline. I don't see any reason to buy a new one, since a nice portable projector can do 1280x1024 res, takes all sorts of inputs, and costs way under $2k.

I may be simple, but I think that for a person who does nothing but watch DVDs and play console games, this thing is perfect. (No, I don't get cable, and if a show is really that awesome, I will buy the DVD. Maybe. Some day. Or use my old Tuner card in a computer ;) )

So, therefore... why would I buy a TV?

WS

oops (again), the dvd release is 2003, but the movie is from 1939 (apparently colorized)

starring Warren Hull

The light sensitivity of a camcorder is proportional to the size of the pixels. The bigger the pixels the more photons they collect, the more sensitive they are to light. The cost of a camcorder is also proportional to the size of the pixels. The bigger the pixels, the bigger the CCD, and the more expensive the CCD. In a 3-CCD camera the cost of the CCD is multiplied by 3, so increasing the size of the CCD greatly increases the cost of the camcorder.

So, choose two, best picture quality, good low light capability, low cost.

Sony 128MB USB 2.0 Flash Drive w/ fingerprint access security

"Description for 128MB USB 2.0 Flash Drive: The Sony Micro Vault with Fingerprint Access is the safest way to transport files. The convenient docking station makes it easy to connect the Micro Vault to your desktop. ..."

found here

I just got the 20 GB IHP-120 in November. Price was $349 at ecost.com, and I think a lot of online vendors are selling it at that price or lower by by now. Given that the list price was $399 and I preordered it, a similar discount for the 40 GB version is more likely than not.
I'm sort of kicking myself for not waiting though. You can never get too big. ;D

The Rio Nitrus costs $154. The ipod mini costs ~2/3 more.

As many of you know, the "Classic" iPod models used a PCMCIA hard drive which accounted for their size and shape. As time progressed, the other "guts" of the pod got smaller, and the 2nd and 3rd generation iPods were skinnier than their predecessors. However, for all practical purposes, the iPod will not shrink until Apple chooses another type of storage. It's somewhat ironic that apple chose the PCMCIA hard drive because they were standardized, commodity items which could be used off the shelf without any R&D. But due the iPod's success, most PCMCIA drives in existance today are in iPods - this also allowed Toshiba to develop larger and cheaper drives permitting the 30gb model. Ironic, huh?

Now, the iPod mini is another story. It's MUCH smaller than a PCMCIA card. Since there is almost zero chance that Apple developed their own drive (they have never developed any form of storage mechanism. ever.), chances are that the iPod mini uses a Hitachi (formerly IBM) Microdrive - it's the only thing small enough to fit inside the chasis. FYI, the Microdrive is a hard-drive in a CompactFlash form factor (but can be rewritten many more times than CompactFlash and is much faster. Power comsumption is very low (which is good). From what I hear too, they're pretty darn durable).

Now, I hear everyone complaining about the high cost of the new iPod, but when you look at the cost of the parts, you see where the cost comes from. Right now, Hitachi is the only maker of Microdrives (from what I'm reading, they won't even be availible to the public 'til the 16th). One of these will set you back $600.

That's right, the player costs LESS than half of the cost of the only hard drive small enough to fit inside it. Now, I don't dobut that apple has tremendous purchasing power, but I don't see how on earth they are managing to make a profit on these things. There are other components inside the iPod other than the Hard Drive.

On the bright side, this will increase demand for microdrives, bringing down prices, and bringing in larger drives (good news for photographers!)

Could this just be a "loss-leader" to promote sales at iTunes?

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php?page _id=161&form_keyword=iRiver&ut=41f30282e8e5c07 1

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-fo rm/ref=br_ncs_/104-3590127-4897513

Just pray you don't get gypped on the headphones. My iFP-390T didn't come with any and the fucking son of a bitch at iRiver support lied about sending me a replacement set (and is now ignoring my emails).

Fuck him. I hope he dies in a horrible car wreck.

Yeah it's about $200... pricegrabber

Though I'm pleased with the Konqueror port (for the geek value, if nothing else), I'm particularly excited about the intentions to port KOffice as well. I have a 15" PowerBook and I was dismayed to discover that there just isn't much in the way of free office suites for OS X :-/.

Sure, there's OpenOffice.org for OS X, but it feels more like a halway-port since it requires X11 and it's stuck with Unix widgets. Really, I like OpenOffice.org as much as the next guy -- I run it exclusively on my Windows box -- but it just feels halfway-finished on the Mac (and a native OS X port is only coming in 2006 or so).

So, after setting aside OpenOffice.org, I looked to other options.. and it appears that MS Office is just about the only other choice. And that's about $200 (and, no, I'm not going to cheat and buy the academic or government editions). So, a native port of KOffice to OS X would be a real breakthrough.

Want to burn your shows to DVD-R/VCD and share with friends?

Then buy one of these.

You are aware that you can buy a tivo unit with built in DVD burner for under $700, right?

http://www.pioneerburner.com/
http://devsdeals.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.p hp?masterid=1361996&ut=c0373404f6bde38f&found=2&se arch=DVR-810H

Is your video editing and gaming that you can do on pretty much any PC woth the extra $1800? Didn't think so...

fatwallet.com
mysimon.com
pricewatch.com
pricegrabber.com ?

The first site is a great place to find great deals at larger retailer sites (and lots of not-so-large ones). People post what deals they find. The other ones are competitive shopping sites where you can compare prices. (Check more than one, and check the DETAILS!)

Movies: RottenTomatoes, imdb, and MetaCritic have saved me dozens of hours of time I might have wasted on crap (like Matrix Revolutions, or TimeLine).

Books: Amazon, despite its evils (patents/privacy), is a very nice filter (with a few shills and idiot-reviewers). I [ab]use amazon as a filter, and then buy them cheaper new or used.

News: Popular Daily News Tidbits, Blogdex, Daypop, and slashdot.

Music: iRATE radio, and word of mouth. Need more Collaborative Filtering in this area to root out the Clearchannels/RIAAs function as a giant pusher of "cool"

Ads (aka: mental engineering): I use PopFile to filter SPAM, and Privoxy to filter out slow-loading, privacy-invading, all-around-annoying ADS. I'm still missing a proxy for my eyeballs in the real world. Soooon. :)

Cheap Products: Not a quality filter exactly, but a quantity filter: PriceWatch, PriceGrabber, Froogle, Anand's Hot Deals ...

Phew, that's a lot of linkage. Anyway, I couldn't function without these and other filters; I'd really be info overloaded.

Collaborative filtering in general has a very bright future IMO.

--

Projector People

Ritz Audio Visual

Visual Apex

You can also go to Pricegrabber to do competetive price lookups.

I finally got my boss to order one yesterday. He bought a Sony HS-10 from RitzAV. By the time I jump (January), it will be between the Sony HS-10/HS-20 and the Panny LT300/LT500. My choice will depend on projector model availability, price, and my mood.

You may want to spend some time trudging through comments at AVS Forum to get some feedback on various projectors and dealers. And search the specific forums using the keyword "shootout" if you'd like some good comparative reviews.

Give me $1500 and I'll build you a server that can beat your server in storage related activities.

If you're that confident why not post the specs and prices of your $1500 system. Use the best price from Pricegrabber or any other site you'd prefer. I'm not doubting you, I'm just interested in seeing what you come up with.

Wow, this is a tough decision, give me a minute will ya?

Microsoft Windows(TM) might be able to run on intel emulation, that will allow Microsoft Windows to run on it, but frankly, who cares except Microsoft, Intel, AMD and maybe a few others?

If windows doesn't port to this processor, I am sure some other OS will take over, and everything will be rewritten for that OS. Alternately, you might go with an existing OS easier to port, like Mac OS, NetBSD or GNU/Linux. (URLs in the of this post)

A silly OS and its platform dependence isn't gonna stop development that much.

Kind regards,

/Spam .

URL's for possible alternatives goes here, I am sure I miss a lot of them:

Mac OS:

Mac OSX

GNU/Darwin

NetBSD:

NetBSD

GNU/Linux:

Red Hat GNU/Linux

Debian supports several platforms.

SuSE GNU/Linux

Mandrake GNU/Linux is a distribution from France.

Slackware GNU/Linux is a classic.

Some will charge you for GNU/Linux, and give you support or written manuals, silver-CDs or something in return. I probably missed a lot of links, but to mention some of the commercial distributions I missed, here is a comparison on price.

Microsoft Windows(TM) might be able to run on intel emulation, that will allow Microsoft Windows to run on it, but frankly, who cares except Microsoft, Intel, AMD and maybe a few others?

If windows doesn't port to this processor, I am sure some other OS will take over, and everything will be rewritten for that OS. Alternately, you might go with an existing OS easier to port, like Mac OS, NetBSD or GNU/Linux. (URLs in the of this post)

A silly OS and its platform dependence isn't gonna stop development that much.

Kind regards,

/Spam .

URL's for possible alternatives goes here, I am sure I miss a lot of them:

Mac OS:

Mac OSX

GNU/Darwin

NetBSD:

NetBSD

GNU/Linux:

Red Hat GNU/Linux

Debian supports several platforms.

SuSE GNU/Linux

Mandrake GNU/Linux is a distribution from France.

Slackware GNU/Linux is a classic.

Some will charge you for GNU/Linux, and give you support or written manuals, silver-CDs or something in return. I probably missed a lot of links, but to mention some of the commercial distributions I missed, here is a comparison on price.

I'm getting this one.

Not too shabby for $112.00 + s/h.

No parallel port. No serial port. Huge footprint.

No parallel port. No serial port. Huge footprint.

Actually, when I was checking out the links to this story, I felt like I should Compare the best prices on: Consumer Electronics/Televisions. Now, where did that come from?

Don't even get me started on this!

At these prices, the damn things better make me breakfast, you follow?

Lowest price search results from pricegrabber.com. Lowest I could find on Pricewatch was $103 + shipping.

Amazon has it for $100 after rebate with free shipping.

There was a new firmware put out about 6 weeks ago. Here's the details.

2) The only thing Google turns up is this cryptic listing that suggests that it's a cut-down version of Mandrake from HP.

3) Isn't it a little premature for "Is Mandrake Light a GPL Violation?" HP isn't shipping source CDs. (What does anyone do with those things, anyway? What would you possibly want them for -- to run some sort of homebrew Gentoo Hat?) There's nothing unusual or inappropriate about that.

Pricegrabber is your friend. Search for "Actiontec dual modem" and you'll find it in several places, the cheapest at Provantage.

The bulb lasts 3000 hours, or 4 hours everyday for 2 years. 4 hours may not seem like much, but remember some days you might be too busy to watch 4 hours of tv. A new bulb is ~$250 currently, but the price may be cheaper in 2 years.

Some people complain about needing a very dark room to see a projector. Remember that the closer the screen is to the projector the brighter the picture will be, so if brightness is a problem just move the projector closer to the screen. Might have to deal with "only" 55", but the ability to simply move the projector back a few feet and double the screen size is a nice capability. Here's a Lumen Guide that should help you decide how bright your projector should be, but according to the guide 1100 lumens should be enough for 72" with "windows open during daylight hours, lights that cannot be dimmed like in an open office settings".

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a 72" TV for less than $1000 anywhere else.

No kidding. I submitted a story about a piece of hardware that was about a hundred times more interesting than this YAMP (Yet Another Music Player(tm)) -- an autonomous robot that drives around looking for vulnerabilities (or crackers) in your network via Wi-Fi -- and it was rejected outright. What denomination of coin do you suppose is flipped to make these decisions?

Now, with that quasi-offtopic yammering out of the way...

Gateway. MP3 player. Front page of Slashdot. Hm. Does someone around here work for Gateway or something? Or own Gateway stock? Else why the blatant plug?

Someone mentioned there's no DRM; it just shows up as a drive letter. Is that supposed to be the big deal? So what? Someone already mentioned the Archos thing; a quick look-around also finds something called the Victory NEX II, which uses regular CompactFlash for storage. Which can be put in a regular CF reader. Which won't have any DRM either. Seems to me there must be many more players where this came from, too.

Next story, please. Move along, nothing to see.

HP needs to just call it quits and make a decent graphing program (or official hp emulator) for PPCs and sell it for a reasonable price (say, $49.95). Heck of a lot cheaper/easier/more profitable than producing hardware, just ask Sega.

Mandrake 9.1 isn't available from any vendors listed on PriceGrabber.com, and I doubt 9.2 will be either.

Face it, Mandrake's US channel sales suck.

So again, what's so great about the iPaq 1910?

So again, what's so great about the iPaq 1910?

Well, for one thing, it'll actually be "Digital".

My mom, despite a reasonably technical background, bought a Kodak PLUSDigital camera -- which sounded to her like a "disposable digital" camera. In reality, it was simply a standard, film-based camera with CD-ROM processing included in the price. Of course, the price was several buck$ higher than she would have paid for a regular disposable camera.

I don't think she's gotten around to developing the pix yet, so I don't know how well the concept worked.

Meanwhile, Ritz' idea sounds like a winner:

* I can get rid of the obvious "oops" pix, even without the LCD.

* I'll be able to afford $10 bucks a pop a lot easier than $200, for the small number of pix I take.

* Developing onto both CD and 4x6 hard-copy is better than I could do with a $200 camera, anyway.

* By the time I get serious about taking digital pictures, someone on Slashdot will have hacked together an interface. If they can hack Furby, a "simple" digital camera can't be that tough.

By the way, guys... when you hack the interface, don't forget the IR mods!

What, like these ones? The ones that are like $1300 American each? Not exactly the most practical option, I'd say.

Try ResellerRatings before you try Pricewatch. Pricegrabber is also pretty nice in that has both on one site.

"In my experience, anyone who is ready to try an alternative to Windows is going to be more turned off by the price of a boxed set than the amount of time it takes to download ISOs."

I didn't realize Windows XP....was only $89(Oem)...this makes it even harder for the boxed product of Red Hat to sell...Joe Consumer would probably opt for a more known name anyway and its advertised ease of use, but when he wants to write a simple document is when he pays the piper!..after reading some of the comments and checking the price of both Boxed products, perhaps it does indeed make sense for RH to leave the shelves....

"In my experience, anyone who is ready to try an alternative to Windows is going to be more turned off by the price of a boxed set than the amount of time it takes to download ISOs."

I didn't realize Windows XP....was only $89(Oem)...this makes it even harder for the boxed product of Red Hat to sell...Joe Consumer would probably opt for a more known name anyway and its advertised ease of use, but when he wants to write a simple document is when he pays the piper!..after reading some of the comments and checking the price of both Boxed products, perhaps it does indeed make sense for RH to leave the shelves....

"In my experience, anyone who is ready to try an alternative to Windows is going to be more turned off by the price of a boxed set than the amount of time it takes to download ISOs."

I didn't realize Windows XP....was only $89(Oem)...this makes it even harder for the boxed product of Red Hat to sell...Joe Consumer would probably opt for a more known name anyway and its advertised ease of use, but when he wants to write a simple document is when he pays the piper!..after reading some of the comments and checking the price of both Boxed products, perhaps it does indeed make sense for RH to leave the shelves....

Here you go!