General

I'm a longtime fan of Audible, an audiobook-download service that lets you burn your own CDs and/or transfer books to portable devices (iPods, BlackBerrys, etc.).

The company has offered various free trials and promotions over the years, but this is the best one I've seen: Sign up for a 30-day trial of AudibleListener Gold and get two free audiobooks.

So here's how it works: You sign up for a new account (which does require a credit card), then download the Audible software (available for Windows and Mac, or as an iTunes add-on if you're doing … Read more

Here's an interesting deal for anyone who has:

With a little coupon magic, you can score the "Monsters, Inc." and "Up" Blu-ray combo packs for $10.98 (plus sales tax).

Each bundle has four discs: two Blu-ray Discs (one with the movie, one with extras), one DVD of the movie (bonus!), and one disc containing a DisneyFile Digital Copy (for viewing on, say, a laptop or iPhone).

Start by printing this $8 off "Monsters, Inc." coupon. You'll need to … Read more

We interrupt your regularly scheduled tech deals to bring you this important bulletin...

Food!

Specifically, restaurant food. As many of you know, Restaurant.com sells gift certificates for a fraction of their face value. And right now, you can buy them for a fraction of that fraction.

For example, $25 certificates normally sell for $10, but if you enter coupon code ENTREE at checkout, the price drops to $2. And $10 certificates, normally $4, drop to just 80 cents. Yowza.

For those unfamiliar with Restaurant.com, the only real "string" attached is a minimum food or drink purchase. … Read more

I'm a longtime fan of Skinit, which sells nifty vinyl "skins" (i.e. decals) for laptops, cell phones, MP3 players, and other devices.

These custom stickers are a great way to dress up otherwise drab gadgets. For example, I slapped a big ol' Michigan State University logo on the boring black lid of my Acer Aspire laptop.

From now until tomorrow (Oct. 22), Skinit is offering one of the best deals I've seen yet: 50 percent off all skins with coupon code HALFOFF.

Shipping will run you $2.99, unless your order tops $40, in which … Read more

This post is an update of one I wrote nearly a year ago. Due to recent events, I thought it deserved a second look.

There I was, about to order a pack of paper for my new Dell Wasabi printer, when I spied one of those omnipresent promotion/coupon code boxes.

The paper was already on sale at Dell, but I figured, hey, might as well try. So I did what I always do when faced with a checkout page: I went trolling for coupons.

In other words, I searched Google for "Dell coupon codes." These searches routinely … Read more

This morning I was going to post a Fantom 500GB eSATA/USB external hard drive for $44.99 shipped--but then I saw the $20 mail-in rebate that's required to get that price.

Rebates. I know from reading nearly two years' worth of comments that many of you hold them in the same regard as telemarketing and tax audits.

Indeed, it's the rare rebate-oriented post that doesn't draw at least one "rebates are a scam!" response.

But are they? Many years back, rebates started earning a deservedly bad reputation owing to woefully complicated forms, delayed … Read more

People--supermodels, mostly--often stop me in the street and say, "Rick, your tech deals are insanely awesome, but what about food? Surely finding all those bargains makes you hungry?"

Then I say, "Yes, but don't call me 'Shirley,'" and they shake their heads sadly, having realized that bloggers are just as unfunny in person as they are online.

Anyhoo, it being Friday and all, I thought I'd take a tech break and serve up some cheap eats you can score this weekend:

Update: Dillyeo is already sold out of the shirt, but eagle-eyed reader pigmond found an even better deal: $11.67 shipped from DealExtreme!

Geek meets chic? Um, no. But if you're in the market for a simple Halloween costume or you're hip enough to pull off wearing this to a club or party, Dillyeo has a sound-activated equalizer T-shirt for $11.97, plus $5 for shipping.

Maybe you've seen this before: it's the same shirt ThinkGeek has been selling for $39.99. Check out the video to see it in action. (Note: The accompanying Kanye West … Read more

Dear e-book publishers: stop gouging us.

Look, I'm your biggest fan. I've been reading digitally distributed fiction and non-fiction since the early days of the PalmPilot.

The most frequently used apps on my iPhone, bar none, are Kindle, eReader, and Stanza.

But I'm getting increasingly frustrated with e-book prices, which rarely represent a savings over their print (aka dead-tree) counterparts.

Case in point: I just read a glowing review of Jonathan Tropper's "This is Where I Leave You." I'm sold; I want it. But something's amiss here: Amazon's hardcover price is $15.57, while the Kindle edition sells for $14.01.

Now, I understand books cost money. There's editing, publishing, and distribution. Paper, ink, trucks, gasoline. Storage, shipping, shelf space, sales staff. And the countless people involved in all those transactions.

E-books, on the other hand, consume zero trees. They weigh nothing, occupy no physical space, and don't get shipped in the traditional sense. Middlemen are few and far between. So you're left with, what, editing costs and the pittance you pay the authors?

Explain to me, then, why the e-book edition of "This is Where I Leave You" sells for $14.01. The $.01 suggests there must be some calculation at work, some formula you use to determine that Kindle and iPhone owners get to save all of a buck-fifty-six when they read green.… Read more