Nice barebones

NewEgg has got some great barebones deals for anyone interested in a small form factor computer. Get yourself a hard drive, optical drive, operating system, and a decent processor and you're golden. The boxes are by Asus and Shuttle. They cost about $200 give or take depending on your particular flavor. The Shuttle boxes allow for an upgraded PCIE x16 card which opens up choices for graphics cards. I'd say an HD3850 or lower would do well considering the power constraint of the power supply.

Gamer's Haven over at Amazon.com

I was recently looking for some PC video games and was pleasantly surprised by Amazon.com's prices on video games. For example Sim Societies, which retails for $50, was only $30. Also, the Orange box was slightly below list at $47. World in Conflict was just $40 ($37 at newegg.com). Keep watching the prices because I saw World in Conflict at only $30 less than a week ago. Besides the good list prices all of these items ship for free with Super Saver shipping. For good prices on games be sure to check out amazon.com.

An mp3 player for everyone!

Adorama, a well known photographic reseller in New York City, is making a transition to a more general electronics reseller and doing so in an admirable fashion. An awesome deal that I have found on their website through Amazon.com is the Sansa Connect 4GB mp3 player. This is a great mp3 player for general use with music, photo, internet radio, and video (firmware update) capabilities. The neat thing about the player is that it includes a wireless network card. Through an unsecured WIFI hub the player can get access to Yahoo! Internet Radio and can download songs from Yahoo! Music Unlimited. Yahoo! Internet Radio is a feature that comes for free with all ATT DSL contracts and the Yahoo! Music Unlimited service includes all the songs you can download for $15 a month. The songs will lose their licenses when you decide to cancel your subscription. The mp3 also has the capability to expand its memory via a micro SD or microSD HC card which run for about $20 for a 2GB card shipped from NewEgg.com and from big box stores when on sale. All in all this is a great mp3 player at a stellar price.

Free Vista NOW!

For those of you who need a computer and just can't wait for Windows new operating system, Vista, to come out then your in luck. Maximum PC states in their November issue that OEMs will be shipping certificates for Vista in "Vista Capable" machines. I expect the included software will be the cheapest one, Windows Vista Basic. I suspect also that the machines are being shipped out of the manufacturers warehouses in October. To be sure of getting a certificate I would hold off as long as possible, probably about November. I doubt that the retailers will be very apolegetic if you don't get your free copy of Vista. But more importantly, why are they doing this? My hypothesis is that the manufacturers demanded that Microsoft do this so that they could try to soften the depression of computer sales that occurs when people are awaiting the next generation of anything. Who likes to be left in the dust when you thought you just bought the latest and greatest anyways?

Solid productivity and Multimedia Lightweight Notebook

For most users this is the perfect laptop at an unheard of price. Only those who demand power to game should look elsewhere. Toshiba M115 Satellite notebook is excellent. It is lightweight and an easy traveler. It weighs the same as those flashy MacBooks, but has an even bigger screen. It gets both responsive performance and excellent battery life thanks to Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology. It also helps a great deal that is has a 5400rpm hard drive that offers near desktop application performance. Since it's a Toshiba you know that it is built well and will prove to be reliable. This notebook has it all, looks, durability, looks, portability, and very good performance. Pick one up from Best Buy. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8032522&type=product&productCategoryId=cat01174&id=1157067806799

I like Macs (finally)

Though for most of my years I hated Macs, we've both been able to meet in the middle and come to agreement with each other. Macs are reliable, easy to use, high performing, and a pretty good value. I'm using a Mac Mini Core Duo right now. I have to admit, though a little different and disorienting to me it kind of makes sense the way things work. Its pretty simple too. Its a fully capable machine only about 30 minutes after taking it out of the box. Don't misunderstand me though. The notebooks are extremely overpriced pieces of semi junk. Apple is known for having problems with things the first time around anyways. The desktops on the other hand match up performance/ ease of use per price with PC competitors. If your in the market I would atleast consider a Mac desktop, but leave the cute little Mac laptops for hard core mac users. They're not ready yet.

Awesome Digital Media Center Desktop

HP's 7680 is a fully featured desktop with a tv tuner and component input. It has the capability to run its hard drives in RAID 0 to optomize the performance of all other components in the machine such as its awesome Core 2 Duo (Part II, the second,) 2.13 gHz, 2 gig RAM and a dvd burner with supporting dvd-rom drive. This computer blazing unless you plan on playing really modern games. Then opt for one of the graphics cards I recommend. http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-Media-Center-TV-PC-M7680N/sem/rpsm/oid/158002/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do