Drew Budwin's Blog
a blog about me & technology
Save Money on the Internet
Aug 16th
Hundreds of billions of dollars are exchanged over the internet every year and it’s no surprise why. The best deals in the world are to be had on the internet and it’s the easiest way to shop and get unbiased reviews and comparisons of products. The internet is the cheapest place to buy items for multiple reasons. Very few stores actually have physical stores to maintain but only warehouses and some employees which helps to cut overhead costs. Online retailers know how easy it is for you to click on over to another store to buy something so they competitively price their products. The last big reason why the internet is so cheap is due to its accessibility to anyone who wants a business.
However, just because the internet is cheap, doesn’t mean you still can’t save even more money. I’m also not saying that I can get you that fancy new $2,000 TV for $1,000 either. But, in times like these where wallets are thinner than ever, it takes some creativity to find the best of the good deals. All of the tips I’ll talk about today are ones that I personally use and I decided to publish an article like this because I get asked by people all the time how cheap I can get something.
The place I always go to first when trying to find anything is Google Product Search. They scourer the internet and find all the websites that sell that item and compares the pricing. Sometimes the prices are a little outdated but overall it can be a great first place to look. Type in the product name and click search. For example; Amazon lists the Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote at $199.99 plus shipping. After heading over to Google Product Search, I typed in ‘Logitech Harmony One,’ clicked ‘Search Products,’ then clicked ‘Compare Prices,’ lastly I clicked on ‘Total Price,’ so I could see the price after shipping costs. I am able to get the Logitech Harmony One shipped to my house for $179.77 thanks to Google. That’s over $20 in savings for a minute of my time!
My next tip involves Amazon. Usually Amazon already has the best price and it’s a great website with great service and fast shipping. If you use Amazon as much as I do, sign up for Amazon Prime. I have been a member of Amazon Prime for years now and I love it! It costs $79.00 a year, but you get free 2-day shipping on most items and you can upgrade to $3.99 1-day shipping. Another plus is that you can share you Amazon Prime with up to 4 other household members. Get them to chip in to split the costs. By the numbers, if you buy from Amazon once a month or more you could be saving money and time by getting Amazon Prime.
The third tip I have for you involves a neat little site many people never heard of known as RetailMeNot.com. This website allows users to enter in promotional codes that websites use to give people free shipping or discounts. When I go there I search the website that I am interested in buying something from and I look through the various promotional codes and I try some of them out. This can be very hit or miss as a lot of the codes have expired or are not relevant to your order and some websites do not allow users to submit promotional codes. Every now and then, you find a jewel on this website that knocks 10% off your order or gives you free shipping.
The newest tip I have involves eBay. They have a brand new program called eBay Bucks that is currently invite only and I got lucky and got an invite! Soon it will be made available to everyone. It’s free and it gets you 2% back on all of your purchases on eBay. Every 3 months, eBay will issue you an eBay Bucks certificate for use on eBay towards future purchases. There are some clauses however. You must pay using PayPal and it doesn’t apply to purchases in eBay Motors, classifieds or real estate.
The last big tip I have for you applies mainly to college students. Myself being one I know how expensive textbooks are. My tip to you is to buy international versions. These are the same thing as what you can buy at your bookstore, but are made for people in developing countries. Often times they say “Not for sale in US,” and the price will be in rupees instead of dollars and they are almost always in black and white and soft cover. You are allowed to own these, it’s not illegal and some bookstores even buy them back from you too. I buy the international version of every book I can and use Google Product Search to find them. On average I save about $70 a book or $210 a semester which means $420 a year or $1,680 over my 4 years in college.
There are many more ways to try and find the best deal on the internet but these are the highlights and secrets of my success to saving hundreds of dollars or more every year on the web. The last piece of advice I have is to be creative and look around the internet, some websites sell products from several merchants and consider buying used and refurbished items. Also, keep an eye on websites like Woot.com and 1SaleADay.com.
Review of Blu-Ray Player/Burner
Apr 19th
If you’re looking for the perfect Blu-ray player/burner combo, the LG GGW-H20LK is perfect. Newegg currently lists the LG GGW-H20LK at $179.99 with free shipping. I have owned this drive since November and I have had no complaints. True, it isn’t the fastest drive on the market with a Blu-ray BD-ROM read speed of 6x and a BD-RE write speed of 2x, but at this price point it’s the best deal on the market. LG makes quality products and it has stood up to the test I’ve put it through. I have burned, played and copied several disc with no problems. It’s whisper quiet too, so there is no need to raise the volume when the LG GGW-H20LK is in use. The included PowerDVD software is handy too. It took a while to install because it made you go through all of the updates, but this just built the suspense to test the player for the first time. It takes about 45 minutes to copy a movie to my hard drive and about the same amount of time to burn a movie to a BD-R.
LG GGW-H20LK
I have only used the RiDATA BDR-252-RD-JC disc to burn and haven’t had any issues. The best part about these BD-R’s is that they are the cheapest on the market at $4.99 a pop. This is currently the one thing that is holding Blu-ray burners from being becoming more popular is the price of blank media. When this price drops, the market for burners will rapidly increased. We have seen this issue resolved before last decade with DVD’s.
The biggest pros of the LG GGW-H20LK are the quality it has been built with, its price and the fact that is just works. There are only some minor cons. I wish it came with a flat black face plate to match my computer better and as with all drives, I wish it had a better, more universal mounting/install system.
Review of the Adesso WKB-4000US
Apr 11th
My current home theater setup isn’t anything amazing right now, but it’s being improved. I currently have an HTPC that I built last May hooked up to my roommate’s 20” Sharp LCD TV which is fine for a dorm room, but my lease starts in a few weeks and some upgrades will need to be made. I also picked up the Adesso WKB-4000US wireless keyboard with built in touchpad. This is a vital upgrade for any home theater with an HTPC because it gives you access to the computer outside of Media Center.
You may be questioning what’s wrong with a regular Bluetooth mouse and keyboard combo. The issue is that I like to sit deep in my couch and having a 2.4GHz wireless keyboard touchpad in my lap is extremely convenient considering the alternative. The other plus, is that the Adesso WKB-4000US is cheaper than most midrange Bluetooth keyboard mouse combos. It retails on Amazon for about $80, I was able to snag mine off of eBay for under $70 including shipping. I’ve had this now since January and I am very pleased with it. Some of my initial concerns were that since the market for this type of product doesn’t really exist, I was concerned about the build quality. Turns out it is built great. It’s taken some
small falls and has held up great. Nothing is loose and the keys don’t stick. The batteries also last a long time. I haven’t had to change them yet! One thing that took me a while to figure out was that to wake the keyboard up after a period of inactivity is that you need to push a button twice, the touchpad won’t wake it up.
If you are used to working on a laptop, this keyboard will feel like home. Honestly, I struggle to come up with any improvement
s for the Adesso WKB-4000US other than I wish it came in black. I love the reaction of people when they see it sitting around my room. Their first impression was that I hacked a keyboard in half, then I explain what it is, and they fall in love with the concept and its execution. All in all, this will always be a stable of my home theater setup.
Multitouch Surface Computer
Apr 8th
I’m sure many of you have learned about Microsoft’s Surface. Sure it’s a cool toy, but its a $12,000 toy. After doing a bit of research and investigation, there is a whole community out there that are making their own versions of Surface, which is a multitouch surface computer at a fraction of the cost. I have read stories of people building them for less than $1,000. I have dreams of building my own and keeping it on a really tight budget, luckily, I have some old spare computers lying around which help offset that cost. I would turn mine into a coffee table with some features that I haven’t seen in other homemade MSCs which I will reveal when I get an opportunity to build mine.
The basic theory behind how this works isn’t the use of a touchscreen like you have at ATM’s or to place a sandwich order. It actually uses a projector to shine the image onto a piece of acrylic. I know what you’re thinking; the projector isn’t going to focus on the acrylic since its clear. When building it, you essentially glue on a sheet of silicon or a number of other materials which create a surface to hold an image as well as give a good feel for your hands while interacting with the computer. I also know what else you’re thinking. How does it know when I am touching it then? Simple, the edges of the acrylic are lined with IR LED which shine into the acrylic. A property of acrylic is that it doesn’t let light escape it, so the IR light just keeps bounding around in the acrylic effictivly lighting it up with an invisible color of light. Then, a modified webcam (to filter out visible color) is placed in the bottom middle of the housing of the MSC which will detect a touch from an object. When a finger is placed on the acrylic, it will cause the light to scatter from that point which enables the camera to see it. The computer on the inside has software which will eliminate noise from the camera as well as run software to provide a nice interface for the user to play with. This is only a basic explanation, a lot more detail can be found on Maximum PC’s website as well as at the NUI Group’s website. Hopefully I can start on this project early summer and have it done in a few weeks. Below is a video of Microsoft’s Surface which has capabilities beyond those of the open-source software, but doesn’t have the same amount of fun or learning experience. It’s also over $10,000 cheaper too, so I think it’s a fair tradeoff.
Hacking the Wii
Apr 8th
One of my favorite activities to do when I have some spare time is hacking the Wii, more specifically, the Wii-motes to interface and work with my computer. A lot of my inspiration for this comes from Johnny Lee, a professor of HCI at Carnegie Mellon University. The Wii-mote is an interesting piece of technology. It is readily available and affordable at about $40 each. They contain a relatively high powered IR camera along with some accelerometers and a Bluetooth connection. Plus, they are fairly durable, just ask anyone who has thrown their Wii-mote into their fancy new TV, or just go to YouTube to find out. Some of my more primitive projects regarding programming the Wii-mote are a basic mouse utility to control the mouse on my computer with the Wii-mote without using IR. The big problem–control. The motion of the mouse was strickly based on the readings from the accelerometers which can only determine pitch and roll, not yaw. This means that movement along the x-axis is controlled by roll, this is an extremely unnatural and counter intuitive to use. My next project will be to create an IR emitter which can attach to my computer via USB (I don’t have FireWire). This can be an issue because the voltage output of USB is only 5v compared to FireWire’s 12v output. Another, simpler project I did was what I commonly referred to as WiiTunes. A simple program that used the Wii-mote to control iTunes. The buttons on the Wii-mote correlated to buttons in iTunes so I could be a number of places and still control my iTunes library. Lastly, another simple project is to use it as a PowerPoint remote to control the flow of a slide show during a presentation, this will get you major geek points. A good resource to get started with programming your Wii-mote is to head over to WiiLi, a wiki based site filled with great information. Here is my favorite project by Johnny Lee, it uses head tracking to create a 3D environment.