Freegeeking: how to get free stuff online

Alright, so it's been a month off, sorry. Work is busy, blah blah blah. Also, Uncharted 2 is coming out, and I need to get ready for Modern Warfare 2. I also got into Tom Clancy's EndWar, a game where you control units with your voice. And yes, it's as cool/geeky as it sounds.

Anyway, I have a fairly quick article. A random thing I've been doing lately is getting free stuff off the internet. Some websites or companies do giveaways or after completing a survey they give you free stuff online. While it does sound kinda gimmicky/cheap, there's some pretty random freebies out there...

Things I've gotten for free in the mail:
-Toilet Paper
-Granola Bars
-Cereal
-Shampoo
-Soap
-Letter Opener
-Tools
-Toothpaste
-Shaving cream
-Chewing gum
-Coupons for frozen dinners, candy, and soda, and a Whopper burger

Checking http://gizmodo.com/search/dealzmodo and checking out the lowest section (entitled 'Hobomodo'...har har) will show you the most of the free stuff or you can also book mark http://www.cheapstingybargains.com/forums/freebies/. Dealzmodos usually happen weekdays around 3pm, while the forum is constantly updated and useful for the most up to date freebies.

Often these sites will ask for personal information and your address. I'd like to point out that most of these will ship to a P.O. Box. Also, I have an email address dedicated to SPAM. *hint* *hint*.

The downside to this stuff is that they'll usually ask you for phone number, email address, and mailing address to spam you verbally, electronically, and physically via USPS. But I haven't had any serious issues so far. Basically, use your common sense: General Mills is probably okay, but some random european website for gum might be a little shady.

Anyway, it's obviously not something to depend on for stuff, but an emergency toilet paper roll is always appreciated, and I have a section in my kitchen cabinet dedicated to freebie snacks, which come in handy.

In any case, I think I'll post up the random stuff I get in the mail as I get them just to let you know. Hopefully before I've eaten it.

The next article will come soon I promise. In the mean time, stay smart and stay cheap.

Gizmodo Gallery, cheap things to consider

Work has picked up again, and i've been busy. And much has changed

Right now there are a few things to think about for geek gadgets:

-With the PS3 now at $299, I think it's a great buy. Easily upgradeable blu-ray, great games, big roomy hard drive, and wireless, you can't get the same at that price with a 360. Speaking of which, I am still waiting to get one to play 360 games....

-On the computer side, expect prices to drop for PC hardware coming this fall. ATi just released a brand new high end 3D card, which has a tendency to cause prices for existing hardware to drop. In addition, Intel has released its new CPU architecture, which would also have the same effect for CPU prices. Also, Quad Core for under 100 bucks, though, I'm not sure Quad Core is what everyone needs right now....

-Gaming wise, there are a lot of new games on the horizon, the biggest of which is Modern Warfare 2. Expect to find discounts on a lot of other games during the holidays to give them a fighting chance at this behemoth of a game. Again, there's always Goozex...

I'll be heading to check out the Gizmodo Gallery this Saturday in NYC, should be a fun time. Stay smart and stay cheap. Look out for the next article on freegeeking soon.

FreeGeeking (a first in a multipart series): TV

Hope you guys have had a lovely Labor Day. I got my outdoor fix of Whitewater Rafting in the Poconos, drinking in Philly, and a pretty sweet weekend in NYC. Anyway, with my regular trips to nyc, my gaming habits, and my food habits, my girlfriend (an investment), I've had to become an even smarter geek when it comes to saving money. You can find many websites like the consumerist or lifehacker, both of which I follow for random little tidbits. I also have some of mine which I'll add here too, as part of a little series I would like to call FreeGeeking. Enjoy.

How to save money the Geek (and legal) way (part one of many): TV.

The Internet is your friend. As people start to watch less and less tv and start doing more online, TV shows are starting to take notice and are going online. If you are scraping for cash, ditch the cable and keep the internet and check to see if your favorite shows can be streamed online. You can watch them any time, and if you have a PS3, 360, or wii, you can put them on your tv and it's like nothings changed:



-I was surprised that youtube has a lot of full season tv shows on it now, although most are pretty old. Everything from the old school class Star Trek series to Anime like Code Geass (both seasons and dubbed or subbed) and even the original 90210 series. I'd recommend youtube for older stuff, anime cartoons as they have a lot, and a few newer shows. Course, in the end, you can entertain yourself for a whole night on the failblog clips alone.


-Hulu is probably the one to beat right now. A small sample of shows ranges from Heroes, The Office, Lost, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, CSI, Family Guy, Gossip Girl, The Hills, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Burn Notice, and Battlestar Galactica. Needless to say, virtually any show you watch on tv now is available on Hulu.






-Also, another great alternative is Netflix. For as low as 5 bucks a month, you can have a dvd a month with two exchanges and a few hours of streaming netflix (also available on 360), or 16.99 a month for 3 dvds at any time and unlimited streaming. Netflix has TV shows via dvds of most of the popular tv series, and my friends have been watching all the seasons of Law and Order: SVU on the 360 by streaming the past few weeks. Depressing, but a good show nevertheless. The only downside to this is that obviously the tv show had to have a dvd collection of it released, and netflix opted to pick it up.

-Finally for me there's sites like mysoju.com, which provide access to Asian tv shows like drama and anime. You couldn't even get this on regular tv if you wanted in the first place. It's a little grey area in terms of legitness, but it uses existing streaming sites to provide tv shows. I am not into Jdrama or Kdrama, I swear. Along those lines, there are streaming sites that offer up to date tv shows but those are almost always over night shops and disappear by the time they get popular. And there's always bittorrent.... -_-;;

More to come in my next post. Stay smart and stay cheap.

Price and other Updates

Alright, this is going to be a quick update. I've spent a week of August on vacation for my best friend's wedding, and work is hard...I need to finish my brief article on mooching online, but give me some time. I blame video games.

My girlfriend just bought a Panasonic U12 Series HDTV (42 inches) for roughly $650 for her mom.

Not a bad choice, especially if a bunch of AV Guys approve: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1139625

Probably not the best for a pro setup, but it works if you just want an overall good setup. As you can see, tv prices are dropping, and hopefully this will continue through the fall for another few weeks. If you want a tv, now is the time to get one.

Other changes:
-Goozex.com is now supporting the trading of blu-ray and dvds! Now I'm using my points to buy blu-rays that I've wanted, like Dark Knight, Iron Man, and The Watchmen. Quite handy.
-In terms of bus trips, I've confirmed that DC2NY now has both electrical outlets and wifi, so if you're up in Dupont or closer to Dupont than the Metro Center, it might be a better choice. Sadly, I'll be taking the chinatown bus to Philly tomorrow for a rafting trip, then NJTransit for New York >.<

Pray for me. Shop smart and cheap.

Buying a PC

So a good friend of mine recently asked for good brands to buy a new PC.

I didn't tell him at the time (tho he'll know now) that I bristled at the thought of buying a new computer. What I mean is, buying a machine already pre built by a company like Dell, Acer, HP, Fujitsu, etc. I'm not saying that they don't work but I am saying this about prebuilt machines:

• You are forced to choose the parts that they provide to you and the boxes are tough to upgrade. Don't need that 6GB of RAM for an additional $120, or that 2nd Disc drive for an extra $30? Too bad, it's part of the package. If there's a cheaper 3D card out there that you'd rather have, you gotta stick to whatever they give you. Also, that tiny box might not fit that new 3d card you want to upgrade, or that motherboard might not support a faster processor when it comes out, leaving you in the lurch.
  
• They build in the cost of labor and services and warranties that you might not need. Sure, it might seem nice that they threw in the 1 year service warranty, but they take it out by adding the cost of that warranty and the labor to put your machine together in the total price of the machine. Generally, and I do mean this generally, 20-30% of the cost of a pre built machine is labor alone (wholesale prices for parts aside).
  
• Their tech support sucks. You know something is fishy when Leonard from Missouri speaks like he just spent all of five minutes learning English. And I'm not criticizing or being prejudice about this either. A lot of those call centers do not have the abilty to really help customers out by expediting the process, or giving actual tech help over the phone. They're just there to process the warranties if they are deemed worth it. (Funny story: in college I worked at a helpdesk and whenever we called in machines, oftentimes they tech supports would ask our Indian ITs for scores of the cricket match of the day, as they were not able to do that at their call centers)

Bottom line is, you're often paying extra for what "they" think you need. There are some benefits to this though.

• They *think* they know what you need, and for the most part, are pretty close. Most of you (and some of my friends) are not hardcore computer gamers, so you don't need the fastest 3d card out there, or the fastest memory and cpu chip to burn through your game. Your dual core machine will do just fine chatting on Gtalk, checking email, opening Word documents, and watching Youtube clips all at the same time without any problems. So these companies will aim for system specifications that will satisfy the customer without breaking the bank: solid systems that will do what most people need it to do.
  
• I (and others like me) are not your personal IT (Jean I am looking at you). Because you paid for their services, they will help you fix your problems, even if it means sending you new computer parts to replace the broken ones. You've already paid for it after all in the initial cost. Furthermore:
  
• You do not care how computers work, you do not want to know, and for the most part, you don't need to know. I compare this to a car: most people do not want to know how a car works, they just want it to work. But others like me are curious and we take a much more hands on approach. This takes the worry off of your hands. Pick what you like, and they'll put it together for you so all you need to do is plug it in and turn it on.

That's all and good, you say, so what or where should I look for my next pc?

I must admit, I have trouble at this myself. Partially because I build all my computers by hand, so I pick the components up for cheap from the internet and put the thing together myself. However, I had to find a pre built one for my girlfriend, as I did not have the time to put one together for her. Luckily we found a sweet deal for a Dell machine, one that had everything she needed, except for a 3d card which I bought and jammed in their to make it an even sweeter machine. There's no shame if you buy a mostly prebuilt machine for dirt cheap and just change a few things to make it even better ^_^.

If you are looking for decent packaged machines, I have very limited experience, but I can make my recommendations.

• If you want a Mac, stop reading this article and go get one from Apple. You'll be overpaying of course, but we can't stop you there if you're hell bent on conformity.
• If you want just the cheapest system possible with limited support when the parts fry, go Dell. Really? Dell you say? Yes. If you shop Buxr.com or Dealhack.com, there are discounts and specials run by Dell all the time for a decently spec'd system. You can read reviews on their systems frequently on cnet.com and other sites to make sure you're getting good value and reliability. However, I'd like to point out that they recently recieved the lowest score out of all the major computer companies for tech support, so your mileage may vary.
• I like Gateway. REALLY?! WTF? Gateway?!?! Yes, and calm the hell down. We all know Gateway was awful back in the day. They were so awful they were actually put out of their misery by Acer, who bought the brand and basically made everything a hellua lot better. Their systems are pretty good, due to the fact that Acer has been around for a very long time in the background before they started to take over companies like Packard Bell. Acer is actually now the 3rd largest in computer desktop sales after Dell and HP. AND their tech support isn't half bad.
• I don't know how I feel about HP. They make printers, yes, but PCs? I unno, my Uncle works for them, and he owned a Sony Vaio, so...... O_o
• Oh and on that same topic, Sony can kiss my ass. I got screwed over a while back trying to buy an lcd when this girl sold me a Sony Vaio one that had a proprietary video cable....WTF.

Dual Core vs. Quad Core: Is four better than two? Not always. Would you really want four ears?

This topic made me want to slap someone in the face until I could see my prints on their skin. For those of you of the less technical world, you might remember the dark days when most computers had one CPU where all of the computer's thinking was handled. Then came dual core, where your machine thinking was handled by two brains. Then quad core. Now there are FOUR brains running your system. That's good right? Not necessarily. With two cores, it meant the two brains could share work easily. I get one piece, you get the other. Things get more complicated with four cores. Coordinating between four different brains requires applications to be developed with four cores in mind. Most applications aren't being programmed to take advantage of four cores yet. In addition, most people would not be taxing the system enough to merit four cores. Does your computer really run THAT slowly? Odds are, you probably have a virus hogging up most of the resources.

But what about buying a quad core now to prepare for the future?

This is about when I resume my slapping. Why would I get a quad core now for something to happen in the future? Why should I bother paying a premium for my quad core now only to really take advantage of it in a year or two? By then, even faster quad cores would be out, and my quad core would be even cheaper! So no, those of you who are thinking like this, someone needs to rub your face into your monitor and go "NO."

If you bought your quad core for $200 now and in two years show me an app that takes advantage of quad core, I will go out and buy an even faster quad core than yours for half the price you paid. In the mean time, I would be sitting pretty with a cheaper and just as fast dual core, possibly even faster per core than your four.

So there you have it. I got some steam off my chest, and you just got smarter and an entertaining read. For those of you who are reading this for my traveling advice, I am planning on trying to take a plane back and forth a weekend from DC to NYC and back for $130 round trip. Will I make it? We'll find out soon! In the mean time, stay smart and stay cheap.