TechBite Technology
Steve Bass's Weekly Newsletter
TechBite's columnist Steve Bass writes weekly commentary on the technology products he loves, the strategies for getting the most out of them, and the gotchas that can cause computing misery. Plus a couple of weekly laughs.
Economy Worries? 5 Net Tricks to Save You Money
In This Issue
Frugal? Thrifty? No, Cheap!
Tech Tool: PC Essentials for New XP Installs
Techy Tech Tip: DOS TAB Shortcut
Time Wasters
Whatcha Doing?
Frugal? Thrifty? No, Cheap!
"You're a bargain hunter," one of my more polite friends says. My wife's more to the point: She calls me a cheapskate. I like being frugal, but what do I know? Call me whatever you want (you will anyway), I don't like paying retail and I'm always looking for a deal, especially when shopping online.
The Internet gives me the chance to comparison shop, see how shipping figures into the price, look over specifications, and feel confident I've found the best buy. Here are some of the sites I use.
You can pick up a decent amount of background info on an assortment of activities and projects at WhatItCosts. Some of it's fluffy -- what it costs to become a stuntman or to buy a Diane Von Furstenberg dress. Other topics are worth a look: buying a hearing aid or contact lenses, hiring a landscape architect, or learning how to fly fish. [Thanks, Mike.]
The showstopper when I'm shopping online is the cost of shipping. I'll find something that looks like a bargain, say, a $3 chew bone for Popcorn, TechBite's HR specialist. When I get to the checkout page, I discover shipping's $11. I want to smack the site's owner on the back of the head. That's why I've added FreeShipping to my shopping arsenal. Sure, not everything's a good match and I often get the same info if I go directly to the site. Yet I got lucky recently when I spotted dog.com's $5 flat-rate shipping and ended up placing a $25 order. (And yes, prices were actually lower than competitors on the Water Hole water dish I was looking for.) [top]
I discovered AntiRebate a couple of months ago and now I get its daily RSS feed. AntiRebate finds bargains -- coupons, discounts, and deals -- that don't require a rebate. For instance, I spotted a 2GB microSD card for $5, including shipping, and last year I picked up a $10 Office Max gift card for filling out a short, one-minute survey for DHL. The site has mostly high-tech offers, yet I've seen occasional glassware, cookware, and furniture deals.
I hate it when I get to the end of the checkout process and I see an annoying "Enter your Coupon Code" field. So I kill 40 minutes Googling around, searching for a code, one that sometimes doesn't exist. (Yeah, sure, like you don't do it? Right.) Try CurrentCodes, a handy spot for looking up, well, the current codes for tons of online stores. Like these other sites, sometimes it's a terrific resource, other times, as Jon Stewart says, not so much.
If you clip supermarket coupons, take a look at Shortcuts, MyCoupons, CouponCabin, and CouponMom. [top]
Tech Tool: PC Essentials for New XP Installs
Let's say you just bought a PC with XP or, more likely, reinstalled XP. PC Essentials gives you a way to set up and customize your PC's configuration. It's a self-running batch file that installs 11 tools, including Avast, Windows Defender, MalwareBytes, CCleaner, Advanced SystemCare, Zone Alarm, and other utilities. It goes on to use some of these utilities to configure your PC, including setting up the LAN connection, creating administrator and new user accounts, installing Adobe Flash and Reader, and determining the computer's temperature.
Download the tool and burn it to a CD; the author has more than 200 screenshots and a step-by-step guide to help you with the installation.
Careful: This is for brand-new, or newly installed and naked (what a thought!) XP systems, not for existing XP machines. [top]
Techy Tech Tip: DOS TAB Shortcut
You've opened a CMD window (DOS box for you geeks). You have to navigate to C:\WINDOWS\system32\SoftwareDistribution\Setup\ServiceStartup\wups2.dll\. You roll your eyes and start typing, watching your keystrokes to make sure you're doing it correctly. You get there, but it's a pain in the tuchus.
Next time, type CD win and press the Tab key. Next, type soft and again, Tab. If "SoftwareDistribution" doesn'tappear, hit Tab again. I think you're getting the idea. Tab displays directory names sequentially. Try it again: Type pro from a C:> prompt and hit Tab. Neat trick, no? [Thanks to Rob from PC Pitstop.]
If you have to do this often, Carey Holzman, one of my tech editors, has a couple of suggestions. If you use XP, download and install Microsoft's Open Command Window Here PowerToy. Then load Windows Explorer, open the window of the folder you want to be in, right-click, and choose CMDHERE. The tool's built into Vista: Hold the Shift key and right-click in the directory you want the command prompt to point at, then select Open Command Prompt Here.
Now that you have the Command window open, right-click on the banner and select Properties. From there you can change font sizes, colors, and other things to customize its appearance. The changes can be set to apply only to the current session or to the shortcut that opened the window. [top]
There are lots of tricks when using a Command window.
Time Wasters
It's sure to offend Victorian-minded TechBite subscribers, but the rest of you will get a kick out of eSarcasm. It's an award-winning geek humor site that bursts through the envelope of good taste with "25 More Sexting Acronyms Parents Should Know," Dr. Smartass's "The Scientific Guide to Your Idiotic Boss," and Hump Day Hottie: Elizabeth Banks.
Have you ever used a spud gun? When was a kid, I was fascinated with the description of a potato gun I saw in a Johnson Smith Company catalog (scroll down the page to see a page from their catalog and read descriptions of some of their old products). So I asked my parents if I could buy a BB gun, figuring I'd work my way down to a harmless potato gun. They said no and still no to both.
Old Johnson Smith catalogs courtesy Old Catalogs.
The company no longer sells spud guns, but they do have some of the weird things that appealed to me when I was ten. (Check out their current site: Johnson Smith and their latest catalog of gags.)
I was still curious and ran across The Spudgun Technology Center. Here's a potato gun that you can build yourself and a video of one in action. BTW, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms says the potato gun is perfectly legal. [top]
You need some big potatoes
from Idaho for this spud gun...
Who says Nike does all the cool ads? Check out this neat commercial from Adidas.
I promise you're going to spend time with Auditorium. The trick is to experiment -- expand and contract each direction of the stream by clicking and dragging the edges of the circle. Details and instrux.
Grab the circle in Auditorium to make things happen.
Check out these old photos of America, all from around 1910.
This video shows off the talents of a guy and his bicycle. I think this kid's ready to apply as a performer to the Cirque du Soleil.
Whatcha Doing?
I'm hoping you're spending the next few minutes forwarding my newsletter to your Aunt Sally (you know you're in her will), the checker at the supermarket, and your next-door neighbor. Then suggest they sign up to get their own copy by going to: http://www.techbite.com. By the way, if you're enjoying this newsletter and getting something out of it, become a TechBite member by sending us some financial support using PayPal. I promise, good things will come your way... [top]
_____________________
Steve Bass is the publisher and self-appointed Chief Content Officer at TechBite; he continues to experience the cool feeling of having his own newsletter. Send him your feedback at TechBite. To sign up for TechBite's free Steve Bass Technology newsletter, head for our signup page.
Steve's also the author of "PC Annoyances, 2nd Edition: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Personal Computer," available on Amazon. You haven't purchased your copy today yet, have you? Don't wait, supplies are limited...
Newsletter Subscription Resources
Sign up for TechBite's free Steve Bass Technology newsletter by heading to our, well, signup page. Previous newsletters are available online.
Want a TechBite RSS feed? Here's the link to stick into your RSS reader.
To change your e-mail delivery address, or to unsubscribe, click the link at the very bottom of this newsletter.
Worried that your ISP may someday arbitrarily black list this newsletter? Us, too... So take a proactive approach: Find your ISP in our handy How To Whitelist TechBite in your Spam Filter ditty, and white list yourself. [top]
TechBite is a joint effort of Steve Bass (in broiling Pasadena) and
Mike Kronenberg (also hot in Denver).
Copyright 2009 by TechBite, LLC.
