Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 10:39:21 -0800 (PST) From: David Chien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Get the lowest online & freebies / Cloudy Libretto future Don't know what the future will bring for the Libertto as Toshiba Japan has removed the Libretto completely from their current PC products list, and has not mentioned a replacment at all. They usually have released a new Libretto within 6 months of the prior model for all prior models, but in this case, it has been many months past that and we've seen nothing yet. I wonder if they've moved out of the mini-notebook market, or plan on a release for early next year. (They'll miss the Xmas season this year if they don't get the product into the channels by mid next month - almost saying that they've either killed the Libretto line or are waiting until later next year.) Interestingly, they pulled out of the US market last year, while Sony continues to chug on with new Picturebooks year after year. One does wonder how large the market is and why they doesn't/can't compete. In any case, let's hope they have something new coming up. (If not, I'd hope they'll release the full schematics for the Libretto so we can go in and modify ourselves.) -- I know that many people at work often ask me where to get stuff cheap and get freebies and offers. I don't remember ever posting everything good that I've found to this list, so here goes. Hope someone saves lots of money on their next online purchase. (eg. using $20 off $100 buy.com coupon at www.dealcatcher.com, etc.) (a few of the offers below are self-serving, but hey!, you still get free stuff...and I want my candy bars paid for ;) 1. Use a price search engine. www.shopper.com, www.pricescan.com, www.pricewatch.com, mysimon.com Works on DVDs, music, VHS, computer HW/SW, etc., etc. (eg. try looking up something like "La Femme Nikita" DVD and see how low prices go online vs. locally. Try to pick a company out of state and with free shipping if among the lowest prices listed to avoid taxes and shipping fees. 2. Use a coupons & rebates & freebies page. www.dealcatcher.com, www.dealnews.com, www.fatwallet.com (forums) Lots and lots of freebies that you can get for free, like www.dealcatcher.com -> book & magazines -> efollet/gorefer's free magazine subscription offers. I'm already getting mine w/o any hitch at all! 3. Create a 'junk email' account at www.yahoo.com and others that offer free email accounts when filling in these forms. That way, you won't get junk mail. eg. for the free 2000 US Road Atlas at: http://www.safeco.com/offer/default.asp?FRIEND_CODE=1338769 You simply fill in your address (work address if you don't want junk mail coming home ;), a fake phone number if you don't want them calling you, and a junk email account. 4. Subscribe to free trade magazines. www.yahoo.com -> search "trade magazines" Suprisingly, a large number of publications are completely sponsered and paid for by the money from the advertisers. As such, you only need to ask for the free trade magazine subscriptions (fill in fake info to make you look important to them), and voila! lots of free subscriptions. The computer industry related ones are particularly interesting for this group if you want to keep up with the happenings in this industry. Naturally, once you've gotten on their mailing list, they'll send lots of junk mail (so maybe send all of it the work address! ;)-, but at the same time, lots of offers for free stuff (like what I've gotten in the past, free maglights, swiss army knives, clocks, watches, pens, etc. etc.) If you're not on anybody's junk mail list, you won't get a lot of freebies, so naturally, just sign up for tons of the free trade magazines and watch it go! 5. Fatwallet.com -> forums are especially good and fast at catching the latest freebies and such. Read it everyday and you'll really find yourself with amazingly low prices on computer HW/SW, and other freebies. eg. http://enterprisesecurity.symantec.com/content/productlink.cfm?PID=na let's you now download and use PCAnywhere 5.0 DOS and 2.0 Windows 3.1/95 for free! 6. Surf for Cash. http://4freecash.com/ The very first on the scene in a big way was AllAdvantage, which pioneered the concept of paying the user money for each hour they've spent online with the ad banner running at the bottom of their window. Self-serving link to sign up: http://www.alladvantage.com/home.asp?refid=DDS873 Most run on the idea of referals, where one person's account is refered to when signing up others. That person gets additional $ for each person that signs up with his account ID and surfs the net (they also get their own $ as well). Interestingly, while some people have said they've made $$$ off these, I've yet to see anything but a small number in my account, so it's hard to say if they actually work well (they'll work, but who knows when they'll get around to paying you). I'm sure the guy who does the 4freecash site is getting more than enough through referals as it is. Naturally, if you're using these services along with a free internet service (which puts up its own ad banner), you'd better be running at 800x600 or higher resolution or else you'll run out of screen space and literally be online and watching nothing but a screen full of advertisements! The best way to utilize an always-on PC is to have these banners up and running, then find and run an auto-web-nagivator program that pretends that you're sitting at the machine surfing web sites when you are actually away. Almost all of these free cash companies will remove your account if they find out, but on the other hand, these auto-surfing programs are becoming better and better at hiding themselves. 7. Rating products and businesses bizrate.com, epinions.com, www.deja.com/usenet/, consumerreports.org, www.pcmag.com, www.pcworld.com, www.cnet.com -> User Hardware reviews If you wonder whether a business or product is any good, these places will let you find out what others think. Any problems will be noted quickly over the Net today, and you can avoid the hassles of being ripped off by a bad company / product. Avoid the bad ones if you can, and watch out for low-ball prices (eg. Digital Dog in NY is really BAD - they toot some of the lowest prices on digicams, but rip you off by not shipping for months, if ever). 8. Cars www.carsdirect.com, www.carpoint.com, www.caranddriver.com, www.roadandtrack.com, edmunds.com, kbb.com There really isn't any reason today that you should walk into a car dealership and pay sticker price. READ that again, =no= reason why you should pay sticker price on any car! In the past, it used to be go in and haggle. If you couldn't haggle well, then you got a bum deal that everyone laughed at you for. Happily, today, places like carsdirect.com give you a fixed, low price right away that you don't have to haggle over (just point to the printed price from carsdirect if the dealer tries to squeeze you out of more) and you'll know right away how much all those added goodies (sunroof, turbo, etc.) will cost you ;) Takes the 'fun' out of buying a new car though ... (I fought my dealer for three long hours before they gave up and gave me thousands off my baby!) 9. half.com Like a used book, music, games store, but online, and often, you can find books and CDs going for just a few dollars! (eg. even the latest Tom Clancy novels are going cheap at $1-2 vs. $5-8 new) Use one of those $5 off $10 first-time Half.com customer coupons floating around. (see #2 above). 10. Try not to break the bank, but use a rebate credit card while buying. It can be addicting, so try to limit your buying to a few things a month or quarter despite the maddening prices online. You can save yourself even more money during the purchase by using a no-annual-fee, credit card that pays you cash back. You must pay them off every month in full or else the 2% rebates won't even cover the 20%+ APR interest rates charged on carried balances. http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Finance_and_Investment/Financing/Consumer_Credit/Credit_Cards/ DiscoverCard, GE Rewards, and Waldenbooks Visa all give you up to 2% of your charged amount back to you during the year. Thus, if you charge $10,000 on them during the course of a year, you get ~$200 back in cash. It's a great thing especially if you can charge all of your expenses - car payments, groceries, gas, car repairs, food, books, clothing, etc., etc. As long as you pay off the balance in full every month, you get money back while those suckers that carry balances from month to month pay you through their interest charges! At the same time, unlike writing checks or use debit ATM cards or cash, you get to keep the money in your savings account for another month or so (until they send you the bill), where it earns additional interest!! There are a lot of dummies out there carrying balances on their credit cards, and if you're smart, you'll use no-fee, rebate cards to siphon some of that interest paid for you as cash rebates. 11. Free $$$ for bank and trading accounts. Some places really do offer something like $50 for opening a $100 checking account (50% interest rate, APR!), or like Etrade, $100 for $500 (20% APR!) to open an account. You really don't have to do anything with it for the 3-6 months they usually require you to keep it open, and with the case of Etrade, you can let your money sit in their money interest account rather than in the yucky stocks (horrible performance this year) and rest assured that your money is making money in insured money accounts which perform as well, if not slightly better, than the 2-3% savings accounts pay you today. Naturally, you simply close the accounts at no cost at the end of the period, and pocket the huge bonus (which is larger than interest alone would normally pay you on money kept in a savings account anyways). Low risk and easy to do. 12. Free IRA accounts. While most banks charge you for maintaining an IRA account, online at Datek and Etrade and others, they offer free IRA accounts with no fees at all. If you don't like stocks, you can simply keep all the money in safer mutual funds and so forth while stocking away the $2000 IRA maximum you're allowed. 13. Ebay.com If you're savy and bid at the very last moment, you can often get very, very good deals on new and used items here. The best place to bid online, and I wouldn't even recommend anywhere else. Make sure the seller is rated with 30+ positive stars (read their feedback,don't just look at the number) with low negative feedback points to be safe. Pay through PayPal or other online credit card payment to ensure payment gets sent promptly (and with paypal, you're protected along with Ebay's buyer protection as well - read both sites for more info). Payment methods that work? PayPal.com, BidPay.com, Billpoint.com - I'd just not bother with anything else except a snail mailed United States Postal Service Money Order for those that don't accept online payments. shipping methods taht work? USPS priority mail, UPS/FexEX/ETC tracked & insured if necessary. david =) .. anybody see more goodies or ways to save? Post!.. ===== adorable toshiba libretto The latest news and information for the Toshiba Libretto owner. http://www.silverace.com/libretto/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Messenger - Talk while you surf! It's FREE. http://im.yahoo.com/ ************************************************************** http://libretto.basiclink.com - Libretto mailing list http://libretto.basiclink.com/archive - Archives http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/portable/faq.html - FAQ -------UNSUBSCRIBE------- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=cmd:unsubscribe --------UNSUBSCRIBE DIGEST------ Use above but add DIGEST to the subject line... **************************************************************
