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Where is it, again, that I can put blow on my credit card?

Glad I could help. On a serious note, if you're the sharp type and good at reading fine print, you can occasionally make money with "credit card arbitrage" by taking advantage of 0% APR balance transfer options. Not for the faint of heart, of course. Or you can take advantage of the US Mint's offers to sell dollar coins at face value with free shipping to skim credit card rewards points.

Dude, you're getting a Toshiba !!1! Or maybe an Acer!11!. Seriously, there's always at least some deal going on for a low-end laptop going for about $500. Try here or here, if you decide to pass on the previous two offers.

eh, there were deals at amazon a month ago for the 8800 GT for $80. That's considered a relatively high mid range card.

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=907667

Apparently one-time use credit card numbers don't protect you either. I'd been wondering how a thief managed to charge something to my replacement credit card after I'd reported the old one stolen and had it canceled. If a merchant makes a manual (instead of electronic) claim with the credit card vendor, it will go through even if the credit card numbers are expired, the amount is over the limit, or you've been issued a card with new numbers. You can of course dispute the charge, but you have to spot the fraudulent charge first in order to dispute it. The only way to protect yourself from this type of fraud is to close the account, which is the same thing as not having a credit card.

Even better, Sprint will let you have unlimited text messages and internet data and 500 voice minutes for $30+tax a month. No charges for roaming or long distance within the U.S., but no family plan or minute roll-over. SERO plan

You don't buy phones from Palm, you buy them from the cell phone provider, who provides the service. I'm very happy with my Treo 755p. It needed service -- dust somehow get between the glass and the LCD. The Sprint store five miles from my house swapped in a new screen while I waited.

500 voice minutes, unlimited text and internet data, $30/month with the SERO plan.

In order:

Yahoo! News: Top Stories
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things http://www.boingboing.net/ - Links of cool stuff / interesting political stuff on the web
Slashdot.org (some nerd website)
Penny Arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/ - Best webcomic evar
Joystiq http://www.joystiq.com/ - Gaming news
BensBargains.net http://www.bensbargains.net/ - Website that lists awesome deals on all sorts of stuff
FOUND Magazine http://www.foundmagazine.com/ - Website where people submit random interesting/hilarious/beautiful/sad/etc things that they find (letters, pictures, notes, signs, etc.)
SlickDeals.net http://www.slickdeals.net/ - Same as above
Techbargains.com http://www.techbargains.com/ - Ditto.

First I will add a plug for https://www.bloglines.com/ â" RSS feeds where ever I can log in, via HTTPS. Great for those feeds I read whenever & everywhere; and for those I only check when waiting to board the airplane. In my bloglines collection I have around 400 feeds, which will grow after looking through these threads. :) Some selections that hopefully no one else has mentioned:

Amusement:
http://failblog.wordpress.com/feed/
All about the Fail

http://lolbots.com/?feed=rss2
Robots making the LOLz, though not updated often.

http://lolgeeks.com/?feed=rss2
Geeks making the LOLz, though not updated often.

The latest limerick database entries - http://peeron.com/tickers/limerickdb.xml

The Triumph of Bullshit - http://bullshit.tumblr.com/rss

Diesel Sweeties by R Stevens - http://www.dieselsweeties.com/ds-unifeed.xml

PHD Comics - http://www.phdcomics.com/gradfeed.php
Ever spent time in academia? You will relate to this web comic.

Unshelved - http://www.unshelved.com/rss.aspx
A web comic about a library. Ssssshhhuusshh!

Indexed - http://indexed.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Take two (or more) topics and compare them using graphs & charts â" full of insight & lolz.

Computerworld Shark Tank News - http://feeds.computerworld.com/Computerworld/Shark/Tank
Many stories, full of humor and face palm

Overheard in the Office - http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/atom.xml
Instead of what was overheard in New York, now worldwide and from your office.

Common geek topics (those blogs that seem to hit all the topics days or weeks before you see them on Slashdot):
Didnt You Hear... http://www.didntyouhear.com/feed/

The Daily WTF - http://thedailywtf.com/rss.aspx

Global Nerdy - http://globalnerdy.com/feed/

Shopping:
http://content.dealnews.com/dealnews/rss/todays-edition.xml
Many of those geek toys you need

Newegg.com daily deals: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=DailyDeals&nm_mc=OTC-RSS
Need I say more?

Slickdeals: http://www.slickdeals.net/rss.php
Need I say more?

Woot! http://www.woot.com/blog/rss.aspx

Dumb political stuff:
Homeland Stupidity: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HomelandStupidity
Government gaffes, bureaucratic blunders and incumbent incompetence

Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/backend/GrokLaw.rdf

Declan McCullagh's Politech http://www.politechbot.com/info/rss/politech.xml
Also not updated often, but on target when it is.

Cryptome: http://cryptome.org/cryptome.xml
You can get lost here for hours

Music:
House of Blues: http://hob.com/venues/clubvenues/lasvegas/
The RSS feed for the local House of B

http://www.buy.com/articles/loc/2/channeltype/2/channelid/109/subtype/1/147.html

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2054511,00.asp

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=830544

Amazon offers continued discounts on Blu-Ray media, and a number of times this year has had Blu-Ray 2-for-1 sales.

And of course, June 2-6 is "High Definition" week on Amazon's Gold Box.

Big Father's Day push for Blu-Ray at Wal-Mart. Best Buy is said to be matching the deal.

By definition, I cannot link to sunday circulars in my paper... as Father's Day draws closer we'll see more.

Just look around, at papers and others sources. Promotions continue, right now is the time when places are slowly ramping up promotions for Father's Day and so it's a little quieter right now than normal.

There is a huge promotion by WalMart. Perhaps tiny companies like WalMart and discounts that put a profile 2.0 player at $300 just slipped under your radar.

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=827856&p=11437594&highlight=blu-ray#post11437594

If you haven't seen any promotions, then you aren't looking closely. It's quite possible this is because you don't want to look closely, you're too busy declaring the death of BluRay to see that it isn't dying.

Hmm... for those not in the know, what are the tricks for a $230 PS3?

Most people should be able to get it for $280 using the following. I got an extra $50 knocked off thanks to my Amazon HDDVD credit.

1) Sign up for a Sony credit card using this URL: www.sony.com/sonycard/ps3 If approved you'll get a $100 credit off your first purchase of $300 or more (can take a few weeks for the credit to show up though).
2) Once you have the credit card, head over to Amazon and do the Gold Box trick. I actually did this a few days before I got my card and just made sure not to visit Amazon in the meantime. Once I had the card in hand, I activated it, then went to Amazon. I logged in, clicked the gold box, and the 40GB PS3 was sitting there waiting for me under the Quick Picks section.

Best Buy. Look on slickdeals.net http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=764683

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=740701&page=9

And here is from http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=740701 talking about Target and Amazon both having the same pricing mistake.

http://slickdeals.net/?permadeal=11577#direct_deal_11577

Here is a way to get out of your Verizon contract without fees and get your hands on a new iphone. Basically because Verizon is raising the cost of text messaging from $0.10 to $0.20 you can claim financial hardship and get out of your contract. Keep in mind that this only works if you do not currently subscribe to a text messaging plan and pay individually for each message. Also you have to opt-out by March 1st 2008. This can be done in about an hour, you may have to go through two or three customer dis-service agents, but it works. http://consumerist.com/342706/cancel-verizon-without-termination-fee-based-on-new-text-message-rate-increases http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=187118&t=427435

Here in the U.S., I spend $32/month for unlimited SMS and MMS, unlimited web browsing, and 500 prime-time voice minutes. It's CDMA and EVDO, not GSM, through Sprint's not-well-publicized SERO plan.

This is probably something to do with sites like Slickdeals.net that caught on the deal earlier and maxed out the freebie. Just one of their threads on this deal has over 47,000 views.

I have to say one of the most broken features (from a design POV) is the blocking of start-up programs. Great, so users are secured against programs that might start up without their permission or knowledge. Great, so I can right-click on the tray, scroll to the blocked program, and left-click to start it up.

However - where the Hell is the checkbox to remember my choice?.

Having to do this on every boot is crazy. It was funny that this issue was on the "Windows 7 Wishlist" - it should've been one of the first updates out the door after RTM, and at the latest, SP1.

In case anyone still has nightmares about this, there is a work-around apparently - http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&p=6509411

Considering I picked up two full-feature Acer laptops at Wally World two Fridays ago for under $350 each.

You mean you could have gotten that deal.

The deal specifies that any ram must be purchased before 10/31/07 - and you posted about it a few days later.

But at least I'm aware of that site now, so thanks for the mention of the link.

here's the link (and some discussion, mostly by me) for the streaming bit-perfect opensource (!) drivers for win-xp. I use that for my htpc and it passes dolby digital (ac3), 44.1, 48k - just not 96k, that's all.

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=468288

the driver, itself:

http://cmediadrivers.googlepages.com/home

and as noted, linux/bsd already have all they need in the public kernel! this is only to de-brain-damage xp and restore bit-perfect playback.

You could get 1 GB RAM from HP for $9 (look at the rebate form: it really is a $40 rebate on a $49 item). A used power supply costs $5. I never pay for a monitor, mouse or keyboard; too many are being thrown or given away these days in the rush to flat screens and wireless mice.

show off! :P

If you're in the US, it's not that difficult to get... SERO. $30/month for unlimited is pretty sweet.

Sero dude, Sero. It's US-wide. Also, Sero brought my $550 smartphone down to $125 after special pricing and rebates, so it's pretty sweet. With unlimited data you can run Skype and Microsoft's video VOIP ("Portrait") so it works out pretty well.

Easily, if you lurk around on sites like slickdeals.net or fatwallet for long enough. For example, this Dell will blow any imac out of the water once you add in a $280 8800GTS http://www.slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=584681&highlight=dell, for much less money than any mac.

Alternate links, including one for Ghost Recon can be found here: http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?thread id=597322

That's interesting you would list those features... since Sprint's SERO (google it, wealth of information on http://www.slickdeals.net/ http://www.fatwallet.com/ http://www.howardforums.com/ provides just that kind of cellphone service for those who sign-up with Sprint's not so secret discount plan.

My SERO Plan:
$30/month
Unlimited data, EVDO rev. 0, rev. A when it is out. (I bought the HTC Mogul)
Unlimited text (promotion until 9/29, probably extended).
500 minutes, 7PM nights & weekends

It's such a hassle to get a good deal from Dell. Between their rebates, coupons, instant discounts, and special offers the entire process is like buying a car!

I haven't seen a rebate on a Dell deal yet (though I may be wrong) though they do have just about every other type of discount: coupons, percent off threshold, dollars off threshold, special base configuration prices, certain upgrade promotions (double memory, upgraded hard drive, upgraded CPU, etc.) and so on.

While you can relate the process to buying a car, the nice thing about Dell is that it is all online and it is fast. The online portion is great because there's not a team of salesmen trying pull a sale out of you; it's just you and the website and a simple click ends it all. And because it is online, the smart people postpone buying until they've found a deal they like. It is very advantagous to you (the consumer) because Dell cannot sit a sales rep that will try every trick in to the book to get a profit off you right at that moment. Instead, you can just go to the website, see what's offered, and compare their offer to others on the internet. If you like it, you buy, if you don't, you just close the window. All they can do is keep putting up different offers hoping that you'll eventually bite. But sometimes, they screw up.

For example, just last week they made a small boo-boo and priced a Dell C521 with an AMD dual-core, 1gb ram machine for $219. As a side note, the deal was posted 12:17AM early Friday morning which happens to match a certain piece of information in the article. The mistake was quickly fixed but not before it had spread the internet and was posted on various websites. Many users reported their sales going through (shipped) while some reported some orders getting cancelled.

Anyhow, the point is the system actually works for you as long as you're willing to wait a bit (there are typically good deals every couple months) for a deal that suits you. If you're extremely wealthy on time (waiting about a full year), then you can eventually hit one of these rare deals and come out on top. Some people have been able to get a good car sale, but it requires a lot of preparation and research beforehand, and it requires that you know exactly what you want to buy. With Dell, you can just check the website once every day (only takes a minute) to see if a deal suits you. (But smart people will just check deal websites so that they only get fed the times a good Dell deal comes up ;)

...hat $300 Windows Vista Home Basic or XP Home PC is going to be good enough for them to use, and affordable as well. That $579 Mac Mini is going to look like it costs twice as much. They won't know that the Mac Mini has a dual-core processor, or a better video adapter, or a more energy efficient design, or a better DVD drive. All they want is something that works and fits their budget. Unless they got a $579 budget, the Mac Mini would not fit it, but that $300 AMD Septron powered PC with Windows fits their budget.

Things just got worse for you since my last post.

Dell has the Dimension C521 Desktop system with 20" widescreen digital flat panel monitor for $779 - $300 instant discount = $479 + Free Shipping.

That's quite a bit better a machine that I originally quoted.

Face it. Apple hardware *IS* still more expensive than similar (or better!) spec'ed PC's.

Duh ... there's a reason they give you a printer whenever you buy a new PC. To get the revenue from the ink replacements.
A few years ago I counted the number of color pgs and black/white pgs. Only 5 color prints happened that year. I gave away my printer and waited for a slickdeal http://www.slickdeal.net/ on a cheap laser printer. A few weeks later, a Samsung ML-1740 Laser was available for $65. That was about 3 or 4 years ago. I replaced the starter toner (1000 sheets) about a year later. We're still using the replacement toner (3000 sheets).

The inkjet would dry out at the most needed time - April 14th - USA Tax prints. That problem will never happen to me again.

Did a quick search http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 0&t=490344&highlight=samsung+printer $57 for a ML-2010 laser printer isn't bad. Folks say the ML-1720 is a better cheap printer tho.

http://www.xkcd.com/ - Fun, nerdy webcomic.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/ - Has likely the best general automotive and games forums around.
http://www.dealmein.net/ / http://www.slickdeals.net/ / http://www.bensbargains.net/ - The sites that post deals every day have gotten me some awesome bargains in the past.
http://news.google.com/ - Duh.
http://slashdot.org/ - Duh x 2.

Uhh I work in making blueprints all day for the construction/asphalt industry(5:00am-6pm in L.A. traffic since I was 16) and my computer hobby as a kid helped me in todays 'digital construction era' where everything is precise; its also not a thing of nothing better to do but waste my 'time and money' but rather a choice millions make everyday to play some NFL/NBA/shooter game with their buddies on PC/Console.
Anyways I do other things besides game and waste money in your opinion like Surf/Jog/Skate/Bike for free but I guess thats one of those whichever demographic minorities of spoiled rich kids out of the population.

Not spoiled rich kid just straight minded and hard working, I hate to burst your little bubble but this "whichever demographic" I happen to fall into of gaming happens to be a billion dollar industry of millions of users and too bad you turn a smug blind eye to it.

I also didn't know that "Ubuntu Linux with Beryl and beagle" provides all the functionality Vista provides including Directx9/DX10 and all the other goodies of compatibility with gaming or Office products.

Anyways I paid cheaply on Newegg and bought some from FRY's Electronics
$100- ASUSA7N8X-E Deluxe MB with a AMD Athlon 64 3400+ lasting 2 years so far and plan to overclock it to add 3 more years.
$120- 2GB PC-3200(have to bite the bullet on this one as prices never change; scumbags)

Old computer case free and bough a dozen pack of fans from FRY's for $8.
$140/free- 6 year old AIW 9800-Pro (great on games CS:S, BF142,BF2,BF2142 WoW/Sims for the girlfriends kids)
Total cost in last 2-6 years for computer upgrades comes out to about $300 with a free after rebate 120GB and another free 200GB HD.
Although you could just buy a whole new system that will match this performance for $399
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=4868 32
Maybe not everyone can afford the latest and greatest but there is a billion dollar industry of millions of people who are constantly buying newer hardware/laptops/desktops.

If you had patience you could practically wait for FAR(Free After Rebate) deals to pop up for computer parts on Slickdeals.net/fatwallet.com and especially that you are in the computer industry you might even be able to overclock your whole system to squeeze a lot more out by just upgrading your cooling.

This is not the first time. A few years ago there was a slick deal that made anything in your cart free. The slickdeals.net forums are full of people who used this to "purchase" largish items. I ordered an iTrip, and when I disputed the charge, Amazon reversed it.

TOTAL $499

$150 - Processor & MB Intel e4300 CPU + ECS P4M800Pro-M V2 motherboard
# 5125376 http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 62095&t=434717

$54 - Memory 512MB
http://www.pricewatch.com/memory/pc2-6400_ddr2-800 _512mb.htm

FREE - Maxtor 100GB ATA/133 Internal Hard Drive FAR PM/AR @ OD
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 15447&t=385573&highlight=hard+drive+FAR

FREE - DVD,Case,PSU,KB,Mouse Free after rebate all the time at slickdeals.net

$295 - Dell GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB DDR3 PCI E
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 15447&t=384302&highlight=8800

TOTAL $499

you can even cheaper if you want to downgrade the memory.

TOTAL $499

$150 - Processor & MB Intel e4300 CPU + ECS P4M800Pro-M V2 motherboard
# 5125376 http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 62095&t=434717

$54 - Memory 512MB
http://www.pricewatch.com/memory/pc2-6400_ddr2-800 _512mb.htm

FREE - Maxtor 100GB ATA/133 Internal Hard Drive FAR PM/AR @ OD
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 15447&t=385573&highlight=hard+drive+FAR

FREE - DVD,Case,PSU,KB,Mouse Free after rebate all the time at slickdeals.net

$295 - Dell GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB DDR3 PCI E
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 15447&t=384302&highlight=8800

TOTAL $499

you can even cheaper if you want to downgrade the memory.

TOTAL $499

$150 - Processor & MB Intel e4300 CPU + ECS P4M800Pro-M V2 motherboard
# 5125376 http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 62095&t=434717

$54 - Memory 512MB
http://www.pricewatch.com/memory/pc2-6400_ddr2-800 _512mb.htm

FREE - Maxtor 100GB ATA/133 Internal Hard Drive FAR PM/AR @ OD
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 15447&t=385573&highlight=hard+drive+FAR

FREE - DVD,Case,PSU,KB,Mouse Free after rebate all the time at slickdeals.net

$295 - Dell GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB DDR3 PCI E
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid= 15447&t=384302&highlight=8800

TOTAL $499

you can even cheaper if you want to downgrade the memory.

On the street I've heard that you can now unlock any phone from any carrier. http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?thread id=436627 IF that's true, then the iPhone is up for grabs for any carrier. :)

There's just too many product types out there to expect any site to track the feedback of, well, the entire market of stuff that's out there. For stuff I've looked for recently, garden equipment and robotic vacuums (ends up there's a bit more than just Roomba out there), I've found specialist forums and even commercial ads to be useful in tracking down details to search further on.

As far as generalist sites - I've found the eclectic community over at Slickdeals.net to be fairly useful in getting a quick grip on what to look for - but forum-goers there are intentionally against bad-mouthing products (thread-crapping), so you have to take a large variety of recommendations there with much due skepticism. Great place for leads though.

Then, of course, there's the Resellerratings-style sites. Once you've scoped product details, it's quite important to get feedback on who you're buying from. Again - due skepticism in all regards will help you in various ways, but large negatives or fake praise for rarely-rated stores can be an important part of an investigation for a large purchase.

If it's not a big purchase though, I'm usually comfortable just hitting Froogle, Amazon, or NewEgg and being done with it.

Ryan Fenton

Anyone can: http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=3853 50

Now, I know this doesn't exactly fit your specs, but its really pretty close. And, this is one example in a huge pool of similar deals.

Inspiron E1505 Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz
2GB DDR2
80GB SATA
DVDRW
WIFI
15.4" WXGA+ UltraSharp LCD
256MB ATI X1400
Vista Home Premium Upgrade

$908

http://www.slickdeals.net/index.php?to=2006-11-04& page=2&nojs=1

I'm not going to say that this is a perfect match, but its not hilariously out there either.

Basically, there is a HUGE premium attached to the GREATEST AVAILABLE market.

And, Dell allows you to opt to get slightly worse equipment for significantly lower prices.

It's not for everyone, but the coupon issue is real. Dell has large ones all the time 30% to 50% or more (no joke).

Go ahead and watch slickdeals for a few weeks. See what I mean for yourself.

http://www.slickdeals.net/#p8050 has a little blurp outlining that you can download a free tv episode (worth 1.99$) to try out the service for free. There isn't much selection, and the application you have to download doesn't work very well if you're behind a work proxy, so I have not been able to test to see if it even works. Does anyone actually have something good to say about this test?

If anyone out there watches http://www.slickdeals.net/, you can see here that you can try out a TV episode download for free (they deduct $1.99 from the bill)...worth a try, eh?

Geek out!

If anyone out there watches http://www.slickdeals.net/, you can see here that you can try out a TV episode download for free (they deduct $1.99 from the bill)...worth a try, eh?

Geek out!

There is no way to limit searches for items to be stricly from Amazon.

You can simply add "amazon.com" to your search text, or try one of the methods listed here .

I'm not even going to get into fatwallet.com...

It's too bad fatwallet is full of bastards who would sell their mother out for a quarter.

Use some other, less-evil sites instead:

http://www.dealmein.net/
http://www.slickdeals.net/
http://www.techbargains.com/
http://www.bensbargains.net/

$1200 from dell for those specs? Try about half that right now. http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?thread id=226135

A better comparison is: http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/MacBook_Pro_Comparis on_Charts

Any google search will yield a 750 off coupon for the Dell as well.

For example, you could have gotten something like this:

http://www.slickdeals.net/?fromMonth=12&fromDay=31 &fromYear=2005&toMonth=1&toDay=7&toYear=2006&site= slickdeals&pastdeals=Go#p6930

Any person savvy enough to shop online is hopefully savvy enough to check for deals, and not just buy the first price they see on the website.

Dell has it for 342 + 4 shipping = 346. See the deal at slickdeals.

Lowest price on pricewatch is 404 after shipping.

Also, BFG is a good manufacturer to buy from as they have a lifetime warranty. I actually had one of their cards die on me and the RMA process was painless (only had to pay for shipping the card out to them).