discount

Play Left 4 Dead 4 free 4 24 hours

Update: Left 4 Dead is currently discounted on Steam's website at 40% off (from $39.99 to $23.99), but just for this weekend only.

If you haven't tried playing Left 4 Dead yet because of the price, or aren't sure about the game in general, that's OK. Valve has decided to let you try it out for free.

At 5:01 p.m. PDT Thursday, you'll be able to download and play the game for free via Steam for a whole 24 hours. Better still, to get your full 24-hour allotment of play time … Read more

Score the best deals on iPhone e-books

I love reading books on my iPhone, but I don't love e-book prices. I mean, digital content requires no printing, binding, shipping, storage, or heavy lifting--so why does Amazon charge the same price for the Kindle edition of "The Kite Runner" as for the paperback?

That's a debate for another day (though let me go on record saying I'd buy a lot more e-books if they were priced in the $1 to $4 range). For now, let's look at ways you can read on the cheap--or, at least, the cheaper--on your iPhone.

Look for freebies Stanza, one of my favorite e-book viewers ( just acquired by Amazon, incidentally), connects you with thousands of freebies. For example, check out the Random House Free Library, which currently stocks 10 mainstream e-books. (Best bet: Charlie Huston's superb crime-noir series, which starts with "Caught Stealing.") Meanwhile, there's Google Book Search, a browser-based solution that connects you to a whopping 1.5 million public-domain books. Point Safari to http://books.google.com/m. Look for deals E-bookseller Fictionwise already discounts its e-books, but you can stretch your dollar even further by setting up a "Micropay" account (i.e., a debit account). Most books come with a Micropay rebate, meaning you get 10 percent to 15 percent of the purchase price added back to your account. But sometimes Fictionwise runs rebate specials, as it's doing right now with J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series: Buy any/all of the books and you get back 100 percent. You can read Fictionwise e-books using eReader or Stanza. (Just make sure to choose titles that are available in the Secure eReader format.) Try before you buy Amazon's Kindle app lets you read free of charge the entire first chapter of any book in the Kindle Store. That's a great way to see if you like a book before plunking down your $10. However, you can't browse the store from within the app: You have to queue up your sample chapters from your browser. Not so with Shortcovers, an e-book viewer with a built-in bookstore that offers sample chapters for many titles (but only forewords for others).… Read more

Save some cash with these 18 online coupon sites

Why pay list price? Especially now, when you're probably watching every penny? One of the best ways to get a deal on anything is to use a coupon. But instead of searching around the house for scissors and chopping up circulars, check out these 18 online services that give you what you need to save you cash on your next purchase.

Adpera It might not provide coupons in the conventional sense, but Adpera finds the best e-mail ads from retailers and displays them on the site. From designer sportswear to shoes and housewares, Adpera's selection is incredible. And searching for and finding deals is made simple with the help of a prominent search box at the top of the page. Adpera is basically one big spam folder. But instead of annoying you, it actually saves you some cash.

CoolSavings If you're looking for a full-featured site that includes both printable and online coupons from retailers on a wide range of disciplines, CoolSavings is for you. The site offers coupons for companies that you might have never heard of, and some that that are probably right down the street. The sheer quantity of coupons on CoolSavings is amazing. Unfortunately, though, CoolSavings' collection of free coupons isn't that helpful. In order to access the more sought-after deals, you'll need to sign up for the site. Once you do, you'll be happy: from personal finance to groceries, there are coupons for everything on CoolSavings.

Coupious Coupious is one of the coolest services in this roundup. A mobile app, it can be installed on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android-based phone. With the help of those devices' location services, it actively searches for businesses around your location and finds coupons while you're on the go. I've tried it on numerous occasions and have been amazed at its speed and relevance. Once you're ready to use one of the coupons it finds, you need only to click "Use now" and you're all set. And it's free.

CouponAlbum CouponAlbum is huge. That's the best way to describe it. Unlike some services that specialize in a particular area, CouponAlbum wants to be your one-stop shop for everything that's on sale right now. Whether it's software, toys, sporting goods, or food, the site has it all. And since it's updated weekly, you'll never run out of deals.

CouponCabin When I'm looking to save a few bucks, one of my first destinations is always CouponCabin. Unlike other sites that throw any company's deal at you, CouponCabin sticks to major stores like Target, Walmart, GameStop, and a few others. All the coupons are up-to-date and new deals are placed on the site every week. And since you can search by company or category, you probably won't miss a single deal at the places you frequent.

CouponGood If you're an online shopper, CouponGood is a good first place to check before you decide to buy something. The site provides coupons for online companies exclusively. With the help of a simple design, it makes it easy to find any deal you're looking for. Simply input the URL of a company that you're considering buying from and the site will see if it has any active coupons available. Based on my testing, every site I searched for had at least one active coupon, ranging from free shipping to 20 percent discounts. And since the site's free, you'll only need to click a link or input a code at checkout to activate it.

CouponMom CouponMom is targeted at, you guessed it, mothers, but I'm not sure it's even worth trying out. The site requires you to sign up and promises big deals, but when I used it, I quickly realized it couldn't compete on any level with Coupons.com. It's an alternative if for some reason you don't like Coupons.com.

Coupons.com When you're getting ready to go to the local supermarket or grocery, go to Coupons.com before you leave. The site offers a variety of printable coupons on goods ranging from food to cleaning supplies and they're available for use anywhere the products are sold. I use Coupons.com each week and I save myself at least $10 in grocery costs during that time. It's an extremely useful site that's designed well and makes it easy to find coupons. It's a must-see.… Read more

Best Buy Offers Time Limited Up To $100 iPhone Discount

If you are a member of Best Buy's Reward Zone program you can save up to $100 on an iPhone 3G from Best Buy's mobile department until the end of this week. However, the full $100 discount is only offered to Premier Silver members of the program bringing down the cost of an 8GB iPhone 3G to $99.99 and $199.99 for the 16GB model. Members that are enrolled in the standard Reward Zone program can save $50 off either model.

These prices only apply to customers that were enrolled in the Reward Zone on or before … Read more

Keep your coupons close

If you're not the type of person not to say 'no' to discounts, then Cellfire's mobile coupons application could potentially preserve your savings. The deals include local restaurants and retail services in the U.S., as well as national chains. Users can also save coupons for later use and participate in Cellfire's new program for cornering additional coupons by texting a keyword to 22888, Cellfire's short code. Unfortunately, Cellfire isn't always useful if your shopping habits don't mirror the offerings. Yet it's a broad enough service for us to lament that it hasn'… Read more

RadioShack sells $99 Netbook with 2-year AT&T contract

RadioShack is selling an Acer Aspire One 3G Netbook for $99, with a two-year AT&T DataConnect contract.

The Acer Aspire One grabbed 38.3 percent of Netbook market share in the third quarter, propelling it past industry pioneer Asus and its Eee PC 4G.

Acer's Aspire One normally sells for about $300.

The RadioShack-AT&T offer, as previously reported, is valid through December 24. The 2.44-pound, 9.8-inch by 6.7-inch Netbook includes:

• Built-in 3G capability • 802.11b/g wireless (Wi-Fi) • 8.9-inch LCD screen • Built-in Webcam • Intel Atom processor •&… Read more

Before you click 'buy,' search for coupons

There I was, about to order something from Buy.com for Mrs. Cheapskate (am I way ahead on holiday shopping? Yes I am!), when I noticed the ever-popular Promotion Code box.

Rats, I thought--I don't have a promotion code. But then, a light bulb: maybe the Web does.

A quick Google search later ("Buy.com promotion code"), I'd snagged a 5-percent-off coupon. Total savings: $7.50. Not a fortune by any stretch, but a pretty good return on my 30-second Google effort.

There's also a site called DealLocker that collects coupons under one roof for … Read more

Scoop up dollar deals from eBay and Amazon

Stand back! My cheapskate senses are tingling! A new site called Daily Dollar Deals catalogs soon-to-end eBay auctions that have prices below $1. Just pick a category--anything from Antiques to Video Games--and you'll see a list of all under-a-buck auctions, sorted by time remaining. (You can also drill down into sub-categories to get more targeted listings, and there's a search option as well.)

Talk about a great way to scoop up bargains! Admittedly, sometimes the stuff that's selling for a buck isn't worth much more than that, but there are exceptions. For instance, I found four … Read more

Blockbuster discounts old 40GB PS3--still a ripoff

A leaked internal memo shows that Blockbuster will be lowering the price of the entry-level 40GB model PlayStation 3 this weekend. Kotaku was able to get a screenshot of the memo, which clearly shows a new price of $360. Also, the store-exclusive Spider-Man 3 Blu-ray/Transformers video game and HDMI cable bundle will drop to $460.

This may seem like a decent bargain, but remember that $40 more will double your hard drive capacity to 80GB. (Confusingly, the "old" 80GB model, which had four USB ports and flash media slots, has mostly disappeared from store shelves. The new … Read more