Except it’s from Dell. According to the comments posted on OzBargain, looks like it’s going to be a repeat of last year’s pricing error, which only occured 4-5 months ago with promise that it will not happen again.

D’oh.

Congratulations to those who managed to get OfficeWorks to price match it for them, whom seem to be the biggest winner here.

Update: Here is an image of the Dell Giant Easter Deals (PNG, 912kb), just in case they have pulled the media page.

I guess the real reason for this blog post is, OzBargain has actually implemented some extra functionality just for the up-coming web browser from Redmond. Shocking! Is OzBargain selling out?! No, I am not paid by MSFT nor have they offered me a big ass table as Christmas present (except for a free lunch, thanks Deeps!). OzBargain has been invited to participate in the up-coming IE8 launch, and the challenge is — how to incorporate new IE8 features into existing website. And in my case, adding a Web Slice.

Adding OzBargain Web Slice to Internet Explorer 8

So now when you visit OzBargain front page with Internet Explorer 8, Feed/Web Slice discovery button will be highlighted to show that Web Slice exists on this web page. Click on it reveals that a Web Slice called “OzBargain Deals” is available.

Click on the “OzBargain Deals” web slice will pop-up a dialog prompting when you want to add this Web Slice to the IE Favorite Bar.

You’ll see a new button being added to your Favorite Bar, titled “OzBargain Deals”. It will be highlighted when the content of the Web Slice has changed, and when you click on it, it brings out a small chrome-less window showing (1) most voted deals from the last 72 hours, and (2) most recently submitted deals.

Cool huh?! That means if you are an Internet Explorer 8 user, you can check out probably the most relevant deals on OzBargain with one click! How awesome!

How Web Slice is Implemented

Alright. Marketing cap off, engineering cap on. It took me around 2-3 hours to add the “OzBargain Deals” web slice onto OzBargain. I did this as a proof of concept, although there are many features that I did not use. It turns out that it’s actually pretty easy to add a web slice onto IE8. There’s no ActiveX. No special browser extension. Nope. Just plain CSS and HTML.

The first thing that should be done is to RTFM, and MSDN has everything you need to implement Web Slice on your own site.

Now, there is no actual visual element on OzBargain front page that I wish to make into a web slice. So I basically create a hidden element so Web Slice discovery will detect the existence of a Web Slice on OzBargain (yet invisible to most visitors). I am using Drupal for OzBargain, and it’s relatively trivial to add this onto a front-page template:

<div id="slicedeals" class="hslice" style="display:none">
  <span class="entry-title" style="visibility:hidden">OzBargain Deals</span>
  <a rel="entry-content" href="/slice/hot-deals" title="OzBargain Deals"></a>
</div>

The key is:

• An outer <div/> that must have an id and class="hslice".
• An inner element with class="entry-title" defines what this web slice will be called on the Favorite Bar.
• An anchor with rel="entry-content" points to where the actual web slice content is.

Now the next step is to actually implement the content for your web slice. YMMV depending on your chosen CMS/framework. Again it’s easy to add an URL handler in Drupal, where I implemented the actual web slice content. Nothing fancy on this page — standard HTML, CSS and a bit of Javascript with jQuery. Moreover, I just need to make sure it looks okay on IE8 — no browser compatibility test required!

Let’s it! Now go and make your website a slice!

I would be fine if that’s all that was. Everyone makes mistakes, and I am glad that most people I’ve dealt with were very forgiving. However, before asking whether the order should be cancelled, Dell tried to sell the same system at $799 (+%5-%10 discount) — a clear bait and switch tactic. They should have apologised and then cancel the order, and at least for me I’ll be fine with their honest mistake. But don’t try to take the opportunity to sell me the same box at a much higher price.

Well. I am lazy. Meh. Most time I can’t be bothered. But from the discussion comments, people won’t let Dell get away easily. Worse, not that they had made a pricing mistake once, they did it again 4 days later, selling the same system at an even lower price. Same things happened — offer pulled and phone calls started. That’s one sure way to get all the OzBargainer fired up!

It’s also actively discussed on other forums. Then it got submitted to Slashdot on Monday, featured in Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday, and other online media.

It will be interesting to see how everything developed. You can get more info on this fiasco on the OzBargain Wiki.

It’s a great offer because you would be able to grab computers from vendors that don’t usually give massive discounts (read: Apple).

Sorry I have been slacking posting on this blog again due to being very hectic at work and at home. OzBargain is going great, thanks to the wonderful community there sharing all kinds of bargains. More about it later…

The Dell 24″ Entry E248WFP was priced at $499 earlier this year, and thanks to neosin who posted this deal on OzBargain, you can now get one for as low as $304 delivered. Although there are a few steps involved, including using a motor club (NRMA, RACQ, etc) discount (10% off) + 3% moneyback via MoneyBackCo. It’s not an UltraSharp, but it’s still a great display if all you want is screen real estate.

On another note, Ozstock is selling a ViewSonic VX2835WM monitor for $448 + shipping today (posted on OzBargain by SimBer). It’s a refurb unit with maximum 3 dead pixels. However it’s probably cheaper than many 26″ LCD TVs on the market doing much lower resolution. Only less than 3 hours to go — so head down there if you are looking for something that’s big and cheap.

• Seagate Qnap 250GB for $94.95 from MWave.com.au
• Western Digital Passport 250GB for $93 from MLN.com.au
• Western Digital Elements 160GB for $69 from MLN.com.au
• Verbatim 120GB for $59 from OfficeWorks

These portable drives are great for transporting large files (huge bandwidth between your and your friend’s computers, when you think about it). Great for backing up your Linux ISO as well :)

It’s also great to see a bit of “competition” over there at OzBargain. We have Deals Direct offering the same drive at $22.95 + free delivery. Then Top Buy countered it by offering it $19.95 + free delivery. And now it’s $15.95 + $1 postage from ShoppingSquare — great to see a free market works for the consumers!