Free Today Only - Laplink PCmover Download
Today only, in a promotion celebrating their 25 years in the computer connecting business, LapLink offers the download version of their PCmover software (usually a $50 program) for the just right price of free.
That’s Great. What’s A PCmover?
PCmover facilitates copying files, program settings (e.g., browser settings, e-mail accounts, etc), some operating system data such as those that govern the appearance of the desktop, and - this is the big deal - programs from one computer to another, an otherwise arduous task. According to the blurb on the LapLink site, the program can even handle moves from a PC to a Mac.
Of course, to physically move the files, one must connect the two computers but PCmover can function regardless of how the files are actually transfered: via a network, an external hard drive, a two-way USB cable, … .
LapLink has a good to excellent reputation for their products, and while I have never used this program, I snarfed it up first thing this morning based on my experience with their software and hardware over the years. The most recent review I could find in a hurried search this morning was an article in the November 2007 PC World, which was summarized in the final line
But I Don’t Need …
I realize that not everyone bought a new computer yesterday and needs to copy the files from the old machine onto the replacement today. Even if you don’t need this program today, download it and tuck it away on your hard drive or, better yet, burn it onto a data CD so that you can find it 8 months from now when you do bring home that new laptop and realize the next hours of your life are going to be sucked into the whirlpool of tedious and treacherous tasks: moving files, resetting email accounts, entering passwords, re-installing programs, and abusing your intoxicant of choice. Or you can buy PCmover that day for $50. Or you can get it now - for free - and feel smug as all get-out when you rev it up for the job.
Is There A Catch?
The download is indeed free as is the needed serial number. Unless one is careful to uncheck two boxes requesting LapLink marketing be sent and check the third box (unchecked by default) requesting they NOT send advertising, one is, I suspect, likely to receive a sales pitch or two - or a gazillion.
To access the download one must to open a LapLink account, a process which asks for name, street address, email address, and phone. No credit card info is requested.
One should also be aware that only the download version of the software is free. Buying the program on CDs with a paper manual is not free although it appears that even that format is available at reduced costs.
How?
The offer is displayed on LapLink’s home page. Just click on that link and follow the directions.
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Paste Offers Time-Limited “You Set The Price” Subscription Rate
A (Price) Cut and Paste (Magazine) Job
I was ready to renew my subscription to Paste Magazine, which I consider a bargain at $29.95 for a one year subscription (11 issues). Before sending the re-subscriber card, I thought it worth a quick Google to determine if there was a cheaper rate available.
Turns out there is.
In emulation of Radiohead’s offer to sell its new album, “In Rainbows,” at any price fans choose to pay,1 Paste Magazine is offering a time-limited Pay What You Want promotion.
While I lack expertise in publishing economics,2 it seems likely that the folks at Paste have calculated that the increase in paid circulation, an important number when one is selling ad space in a periodical, will compensate for any loss of subscription revenue.
Regardless, it’s a heck of a deal for anyone with an interest in contemporary music.
Indeed, Paste is my favorite source of useful reviews of pop music, especially indie tunes. Paste describes their range of music coverage as an eclectic blend of music from the worlds of indie rock, Americana, folk, hip-hop, electronica and more. Reviews of selected books and movies are included as well.
In addition to the textual content, …
A general description of the magazine can be found at Paste Magazine Overview
Subscriptions are available for the price you choose (minimum of $1) at Subscribe.
The offer is valid for new subscriptions, renewals, and gift subscriptions. It is also time-limited3 so if you’re interested, order now.
Credit Due Department:
I first learned about Paste from MindSpinner
Footnotes
- The Radiohead web site offer can be found Radiohead - In Rainbows; The Telegraph has a story about the phenomenon at Radiohead to give away new album ~back~
- Yes, this is an incredibly redundant statement, coming as it does within a blog that produces no revenue but does provide the author and publisher (that would be me) an opportunity to dump money and time into a sinkhole in return for the chance to cause blips in the site’s web stats. ~back~
- I have been unable to discover the cutoff date (and I’m too tired to keep trying now) ~back~
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DrHGuy’s Cyber-Bookmarks: 07 January 2007
A sporadically promulgated annotated listing of arguably worthwhile, recently published online reading, new or revised websites of potential utility or ostensible interest, and other internet-accessible experiences that, were it not for the casually collected, cavalierly collated, & capriciously collocated components comprising these posts, could easily be overlooked - which would be, in some cases, a shame
Web Sites
Amazon’s 30 Day Price Protection Guarantee
Timothy Noah has published a consumer-oriented article, Amazon’s Secret Price Guarantee, which provides the details of Amazon’s unadvertised pledge that, should Amazon lower its price on an item within 30 days of purchase, it will refund, on request, the difference between the price paid and the lowered price to the purchaser.
Readers may recall a recent (December 15, 2006) Heck Of A Guy post, Noah’s Numbers, lauding this same Timothy Noah and Slate for discovering and publishing the otherwise difficult to access customer service numbers for Amazon and iTunes.
So, is this another coup for the astute Mr. Nash? That depends, I suppose, on the timeliness criterion one uses to determine if an event qualifies as a reporting coup Vs. old news.
On January 2, 2006, you see, my regular e-mail correspondents, including Mr. Science, the Duke of Derm, the irrevocable Lawanda, Mindspin, and a few others, received an following e-mail message from me:1
Because I am indeed a heck of a guy (and have the domain name to prove it), I feel compelled to let you all know about a no-risk, low-hassle way to maximize your Amazon experience. I am, as you probably know, a big Amazon supporter; unfortunately, I receive no kickbacks or other financial rewards from the folks at Amazon.com – although God knows I’ve be happy to accept them.
Anyway, here’s the deal:
Amazon, as a courtesy, refunds any price differences within thirty days of purchase. I.e., if you buy, say, a $4,320 camera for me in gratitude and 20 days later, Amazon carries the same camera for $3,320, then you win. File a refund request with Amazon and you’ll get the $1,000 difference back as a credit. The problem is that you have to check and then notify them in order to get the credit. Well, snickerdoodles, it’s the net to the rescue. Just click your way to
http://www.refundplease.com/
Then, fill out a short form with information about the purchase, your email address, and either the ISBN#(books) or the ASIN#(non-books), which are listed on Amazon’s product page. They monitor the product prices and, if it goes down within 30 days, you’re notified. The notification provides a link to Amazon’s refund request page and instructions on filling it out.
So, does it work? Well, this morning, when the price of a gift I purchased went down by $10, I received an email informing me of the drop. I then filed a request and an hour later had a $10 credit at Amazon. No muss; no fuss. To give credit where it’s due, I found out about the notification service from one of my favorite blogs, lifehacker.com.
I don’t know, but I suspect this refund deal works only for products sold and shipped by Amazon so stuff sold by third party sellers who operate through Amazon may not be eligible. A rule of thumb is that most items that are “eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25″ are sold and shipped by Amazon.
Just thought you might want to know.
Yep, only one year before Slate broke the secret Amazon price guarantee story, Lifehacker readers and my buddies had the news.
Food Photos
What Does 200 Calories Look Like? is no more than the pictorial answer to the titular query – photos of food in 200 calorie portions. Yet, it’s fascinating.
Credit Due Department: This has been featured on lots of web sites; I believe I first saw it on J-Walk Blog
Footnotes
- This type of e-mail was a precursor to the Heck Of A Guy blog which came to life in March 2006 ~back~
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Gray Lady Puts Out, Gives It Away For Free
It appears that Philips is pimping The New York Times Online Edition, offering free access to all comers from November 6-12.
Nothing, it seems, is out of bounds, including the archives, which date back to 1851, and even the la-di-da Select Features articles and columns that are usually available exclusively on a pay to play basis.
The Times is, no doubt, offering these freebies in hopes that we cyber-moochers will find its more expensive charms addictive and start forking over cash to spend a little time together once it returns to its “No Money, No Honey” policy.
I guess that’s just a risk I’m going to have to take.
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Thinking Out Of The (Amazon) Unbox
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa1
Not only was I wrong, but I was wrong for the least likely of reasons - a failure of my obsessiveness, cynicism, and suspicion.
Recently, I recommended (see Freebie Amazon Video Download) a free introductory video download Amazon.com was offering to introduce their Unbox service.
The free video part was just that — a gratis video download. So far, so good. The problem was that I didn’t read the fine print, in this case, the fine print of the terms of service agreement to which customers had to agree before downloading a Unbox video.
And I didn’t read it, I’m chagrined to admit, because I never saw the agreement. My satellite internet access effectively blocks such sizable downloads so I couldn’t complete the transaction. I checked for other quirks (e.g., any commitment to continue the service or the necessity to opt out or be automatically charged for the next offering) but I did not think about the terms of service agreement. That, in retrospect, seems an understandable error but nonetheless an error.
And, even if I had seen the contract or thought to check it out, I might well have skipped it, partially because it is long and legalese-laden, but primarily because I would have assumed Amazon wouldn’t insist on an agreement that was incongruent with its core principles of customer service.
You see, I’ve had nothing but stellar service from Amazon; and I’ve bought plenty of books, CDs, furniture, electronics, cameras, office supplies, cosmetics, food, clothing, and much more over the years so Jeff Bezos has had a multitude of chances to increase his profits by refusing a return, for example, or by exploiting a pricing misunderstanding. When problems have occurred, they have been resolved - in every single case - in my favor, including one episode in which Amazon compensated me for a denied rebate on an item I purchased from Amazon even though the rebate had been offered (and denied) by the manufacturer and Amazon had no responsibility or even knowledge of it.
That assumption was wrong. I am formally apologizing because I continuously importune others to follow the principle of caveat emptor and because I recommended the Unbox service. Despite my sometimes cavalier tone, I take this stuff seriously, and readers have a right to expect that I practice what I preach.
The Contract
[Note: By reducing the font size to 7 and squeezing the lines together to the extent possible, I was able to reduce the agreement from its original 17 pages to only 8 pages.]
As far as the content of Amazon’s Unbox agreement, AKA Evil Incarnate, I urge you to check out Cory Doctorow’s point-by-point dissection of the contract, which can be found at
BoingBoing On Amazon Unbox’s User Agreement
The following excerpt, however, aptly characterizes the entire essay:
Amazon Unbox user agreement is only a couple femtometers2 more dignified than being traded to another inmate for a couple packs of cigarettes.
Suffice it to say that the agreement permits Amazon to install software on the buyer’s computer that could monitor licenses, report back to Amazon and others about ones viewing and listening habits, upgrade itself without the owner’s knowledge, and execute many other nefarious deeds.
I hope any of you who were interested in this service were smart enough to read the agreement first, sneer, and reject the deal. If you have downloaded from Amazon Unbox, I suggest you request a refund and delete the whole mess. (Deleting the software also deletes the movies.)
Once again, mea culpa, my bad, and extended apologies.
I’ll be more careful in the future.
Footnotes
- Don’t you agree that the more complete quote, “Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa,” (translated as “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”) excerpted from the Catholic confessional prayer, Confiteor, is much more emphatic than the typical partial excerpt, “Mea Culpa” - as per my contention in an earlier post, Quasi-Quotation Quarantine? See, I’m not always wrong. ~back~
- I didn’t know what a femtometer was either, although I suspected it was pretty small. It is. The diameter of the nucleus of the U238 atom is 13.6 femtometers ~back~
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Freebie Amazon Video Download
Friday Is Deal Day, Apparently
I thought I might have shot my lucky-wad in running across ZYB, but I was mistaken. Just now, I was roaming through Amazon.com to buy a gift1 when I found this offer introducing Amazon’s video downloads:
And, it’s not one of those “Special Sale Prices As Long As You Are Dumb Enough To Buy Crap We Couldn’t Sell To Anyone Else And That You Really Don’t Want” Deals. There are cyber-bushels of hot-shot titles. A screenshot of some of the available videos may prove instructive:
This free video download offer can be found at Amazon Unbox Video Downloads
Footnote
- No, the gift isn’t for you; it’s for my mother who won’t read about it here because she is the last of the Luddites ~back~
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A HeckOfADeal: Google Checkout Promotion
While on cyber-rounds this morning, I found this worthy tip at Lifehacker; because I know not everyone checks out even those blogs as essential to existence as Lifehacker, I’m posting this to let you know about this deal.
Google Checkout is Google’s latest enterprise (at least it is the latest I’ve heard about; I may have missed something in the past 12 minutes). To promote this service, they are offering $10 off purchases of $20 or more at “selected stores” (there appear to be 20-25 stores currently making this offer).
You’ll need a coupon code from this Google Checkout Site for the specific store, and each coupon code is valid for one discount at that store (i.e., you can hit this promotion once at every listed store). No cutoff date is listed.