Adam wrote to me about their latest website, Trezr.com (pronounces “treasure” apparently). It is a social bookmarking website, where members are free to create links to the best bargains they have found on the web. From its about page,

Trezr links to the best sale and discounted items on the web each day: designer shoes, digital cameras, cashmere sweaters, travel deals you name it. Youll also find coupon codes to stores all over the web and helpful tips for saving money.

It is actually very similar to dealplumber which I looked at two months ago. Very similar concept — user generated content, user contributed rating, everyone is free to participate, etc. In many ways they are indeed very similar. For example, 3 equal width column on the home page showing the latest deals and coupons. However, there are quite a few differences.

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It is Back!!! In March Deals Direct sold these high-end HP iPAQ H5550‘s for merely $199. All sold out pretty much overnight. Well, DD promised to bring back more of these beauties, and they are now here!!!

They are powered by 400Mhz Intel PXA255 CPU, has a large 3.7″ LCD, and comes with 128Mb RAM, Microsoft Pocket PC 2003, Wifi/802.11b, Bluetooth and IrDA. It even has a finger print scanner for security. It can be further expanded with an integrated SD/MMCard slot.

Alright. Some details of the condition:

• DealsDirect have secured 500 Brand New HP-H5550 PDA’s.
• These PDA’s were going to be used as portable offices but the project was abandoned. As a result we now offer these units for sale at a enormous discount, but without retail packaging, software, USB cable or desktop cradle.
• This item comes with a car charger – so you can charge up your unit.
• The latest Active Sync application can be downloaded from the Microsoft website but you will need either a USB cable or a desktop cradle to connect this PDA to your PC.
• Whilst this does not come with a data cable/cradle, this device can communicate with a laptop using Infra-red/Bluetooth.
• You can save even more money by buying the software, USB cable and desktop cradle separately from places like Harvey Norman, Harris Technology or even ebay.
• REMEMBER – This is a very limited stock offer, do not miss your chance to own one of these PDA’s this time around.

I actually bought one the last time around. Hmmm. Should I get another one this time? Deals Direct has sourced 500 of those this time, but there’s a limit of 5 per PDA (preventing people buying box load of those and sell them on eBay I suppose). Hurry and get yours now.

Don’t forget to download Active Sync if you are getting one…

Update: By the way, Deals Direct is having site-wide free delivery this weekend. Don’t miss out!

Sarah Stokely blogged on APC Magazine on the recent price reduction of large 20+ inch wide screen LCD monitors. She took Chimei‘s CMV 221A/D as an example. A well designed high spec LCD monitor boosting 1650×1050 native resolution, 5ms response time, 800:1 contrast ration and 330 cd/m² brightness — for around AUD$500 mark if you don’t need the DVI input.

That’s cheap.

Not sure whether she has checked staticICE for the best pricing, but I’ve found Mwave Australia is selling one for $496.80. Well, it is pre-order, but a big wide-screen LCD monitor for less than $500?! Wow.

However, if you want DVI input — which should have been compulsory for monitor of this size — then it is going to cost around $40 more. Search for Chi Mei 221D on staticICE for the best price.

One great thing about these large LCD monitor is its resolution. If you need to work in front of a computer for an extended amount of time, looking at multiple windows with text and images scrolling all over the place, then you know how treasurable screen real estate is. At work I am having a 19″ Dell UltraSharp running at 1280×1024, connected to my notebook with its 14″ LCD running at 1400×1050. And it wasn’t enough — I have to run virtual desktop software to keep all the windows I need opening at the same time. Maybe I should get rid of the 19″ for a 22″ with the same vertical resolution as my notebook LCD and make a 3050 pixel wide desktop :)

Charmaine wrote to me about the deal OO.com.au is having at the moment.

There’s free shipping on all LCD TVs until Thursday 21^st September. They are usually quite heavy and shipping would be costy, but until Thursday it will be free. Moreover, the cost is spread over 3 separate payments over 3 months so it’ll be easier on your credit card. Charmaine said:

As an example for a $900 tv. It means you pay a 1/3 of the price today. In 1 month from today’s date you pay the next instalment of $300. The next month you pay the last $300. The date of instalment has to do with the day you purchase.

The same instalment payment scheme applies to cheapest 38cm unit as well as most expensive 80cm LCD TV.

Long long time ago when I was young, single and living at home with my parents, going to “pharmacy” was an idea never ever occurred to me, especially when my dad was a doctor, and we always “magically” have the right medications ready at home. Now fast forward a bit. I am no longer young, married — and with a very young child — and live far far away from my doctor dad… Suddenly (well, maybe not that sudden) we need to frequently visit the pharmacies to keep the sickness away.

Vivian my wife has kept a list of on-line pharmacies that she often visited. First of all, unless urgent, your local pharmacy shop is usually much more expensive than the ones you can buy from on-line. Well, sometimes you just can’t wait and you need that cough medicine now. In that case, do whatever is the easiest — and that’s what we did when Anna was coughing badly and we ended up getting the coughing syrup from a pharmacy on Anzac Parade. We then went to one of the online pharmacies to get more, ended up getting twice the amount of the same brand for less than we had paid the local store…

And online only means they have online presence. There are a lot of online pharmacies in Australia, but we only want the ones that are (1) cheap (that’s obvious), but also (2) local, so we can pick up or our friends who do the pick up for us, to save postage (useful when you buy something like 5litre bath oil). We also feel safer with the pharmacy stores with a shop-front/warehouse presence.

Another thing is, some of them are actually willing to do price match for you. So you might have a preferred shop which is close to you, but not always have the best price. Ask them and give them a link to the same product on another website to see whether they can match the price for you.

Okie. These are the ones we use

Epharmacy — they have shops all over Australia, and I heard that a new one is opening in Maroubra.

Pharmacy Direct — we found them quite often the cheapest. A bit far away from us (Eastern suburbs) as they are in Silverwaters.

Pharmacy Online — this is probably the one we shopped most often. They are in Bondi and often do price matching for us.

I would like to know if you know other good pharmacies in Sydney/Australia that has very good price. Another thing I would like to look into is a staticICE-like price comparison for pharmaceutical products, so people can search for price from one spot. It should be straight forward as there ain’t that many sites to scrap (comparing to staticICE that is). Maybe when I have time :)

A few very interesting deals from Dell this week — A Pentium 4 with HT desktop and 19″ LCD for less than $900 and the sub-$500 PowerEdge SC430 budget server is back.

Dimension 3100 for $898 Delivered

Thanks to recent Intel discount on their out-going Pentium 4, Dimension 3100 with 19inch LCD has been discounted to $898. Looks like quite a nice workhorse for a home multimedia computer or office work-station to me.

• Processor: Pentium 4 Processor 524 with HT (3.06Ghz)
• Memory: 512Mb DDR2
• Harddrive: 80Gb SATA
• Monitor: 19inch Dell UltraSharp LCD
• Graphics: Intel Media Accelerator
• Optical drive 16x DVD ROM
• Operating System: Windows XP Home

The integrated graphics is a bit weak, and only has VGA/D-Sub port, even though the 19″ UltraSharp has a DVI input. E-Value code is N240902, and the discount will be valid until 14 September 2006.

PowerEdge SC430 for $498 Delivered

I have blogged about the PowerEdge SC430 before here, and now it finally came back to the price that matches the crazy discount from early this year. Still — same spec with dual core Pentium D 2.8Ghz and 256Mb ECC memory, but now Dell is selling these for $498 after $100 price cut.

• Processor: Pentium D dual core 2.8Ghz
• Memory: 256Mb ECC DDR2
• Harddrive: 80Gb SATA
• Network: Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet

Whirlpool forum community has constructed a Dell SC430 wiki page that detailed people’s experience with this piece of budget server hardware, especially where you can source cheap ECC memory to use on SC430. E-Value code is N420989, and this deal expires on 28 September 2006.

I bought a Aiptek PocketDV 8900 from Zazz! more than a month ago. Just then when I was browsing through OO.com.au‘s catalogue, I saw this Yes Multi-Function Digital Video Camera for $275 + delivery, and it looks exactly the same as my Aiptek!! Same size, same spec, same bundled accessories — except it was rebranded as “Yes” instead of Aiptek. And at a price that even rivals what I paid a month ago!

So I thought I’ll do a mini-review on this model. If you are interested in getting an Aiptek PocketDV 8900 (which has also been reviewed on APC Magazine), OO.com.au’s re-branded “Yes” is a good cheap alternative.

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If you haven’t noticed, I am now putting featured products from Deals Direct and OO.com.au on sidebar, right below the spot currently occupied by Zazz. They alternate between DD and OO. Well, not exactly true as it is all determined by the random generator so you might keep on seeing products from the same company when you navigate through this site.

Featured products list from Deals Direct is generated from its RSS feed — which is so much easier to work with. On the other hand, products list from OO.com.au is generated from scrapping its home page, which is potential to break if they ever change the site layout.

Also they have relatively large featured products lists. 20+ products from both, so I am only randomly picking 3-5 products to show. Nothing contextual about the way the product is picked — all in the name of randomness.

Special thanks to Leigh from Deals Direct for letting me know about the availability of their RSS feeds, and Charmaine from OO.com.au who submitted the new products to the forums :)

Not sure why I have missed this one, as the newsletter email never came (plus I don’t watch enough TV), but thanks to Jeff who notified me that Kmart is having its Monster Storewide Sale again! And it is on now!! From Monday 4^th to Wednesday 6^th of September. Everything 15% off. Excluding all the shining gadgets like iPod, game consoles, etc of course

I actually went to Kmart for auto service this morning and had no idea that it was on. My wife went in the afternoon to pick up the car, and noticed the big queue outside Kmart and thought these were just people returning “unwanted gifts” from Fathers’ Day.

Anyway. Still 2 more days to go. And hopefully Kmart won’t miss out the email notification next time.

Looks like RTA is really trying to push E-Toll. They are currently running a toll bonus promotion, where all new accounts get $30 bonus credit if you sign up before 28 October 2006.

If you order your RTA E-Toll tag between 3 September and 28 October, you’ll receive a $30 bonus. That’s 10 free trips through the Harbour Tunnel or over the Harbour Bridge.

• The $30 toll bonus is only available to new customers who open an RTA E-Toll account between Sunday 3 September and Saturday 28 October 2006.
• Only the first account opened per customer is eligible for the bonus.
• You can receive a $30 bonus for each tag in your account up to a maximum of 3 tags.
• Unused bonuses will not be refunded.

I usually only manage to drive out into the wild (i.e. outside Sydney Eastern suburbs) once a week, and might only use toll roads once a month. Thus I have always been putting off the idea of getting an E-Toll. Now I get no execuse :)

Do you usually get a sore back after playing your latest Xbox 360 for too long? Now this comfy-looking thing is going to make your back even worse — because I am sure you can spend even more time on it. Got these “exclusive coupons” from Toys “R” Us’ September newsletter. If you purchase one of the following video game consoles and receive a U-Lounger valued at $149.99 absolutely FREE!

• Playstation Portable Console
• Playstation 2 Console
• Xbox 360 Console
• Nintendo DS Lite Console

Here’s some description about the u-lounger:

Makes the ideal seat when playing your video games. It folds up and down for relaxation. Includes foot rest, soft padding, built in pillow and durable fabric for easy cleaning.

Multi-point ratchet folding enables positioning in any way thats comfortable. Folds easily and compactly.

Normal Retail Price $149.99

Normally $149.99?! I don’t think so, but don’t we all love something that is free? :) Especially when you don’t need to spend $600 for an Xbox 360 to have it — a sub-$200 Nintendo DS Lite will get you one.

Remember you need to print out the coupon before hitting the shop. Expires 14 September 2006.

Saw this on Aldi Australia‘s website: DVD Recorder with 250GB Hard Disc Drive for $399. Looks like a good buy — it used to cost almost a $1,000 for a hard drive recorder. It is also compatible with DivX/MPEG4 so there’s a lot of TV programs that you can record. It also has iLink interface built in, i.e. you can plug in your DV camcoder and it’ll download the videos (and probably compress them into MPEG4) for you.

Here’s the spec:

• Compatible with DVD / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R / DVD+RW / JPEG / CD / CD-R / CD-RW / MP3 / WMA
• DiVX/MPEG4 compatible
• Timeshift function – record a program while watching another recorded program
• 6 recording modes, progressive scan
• Dolby Digital AC3 decoded output
• Front connections: AV in, DV in, USB in
• Rear connections: TV tuner RF input/output, S-Video, RCA input, 5.1CH audio output, coaxial digital output, i-link interface, YPbPr/YCbCr output
• Includes remote control and batteries

It comes with one year warranty.

I think one lacking feature is a digital tuner nor digital input, so even though you might have a separate digital tuner, it’ll still only record the analogue signal.

Talking about watching and recording TV, rockycape wrote in and said:

If you are one of the first 500 to take up this offer you can get 50%
off any IceTV subscription between now until the end of September — whether your are a new, old or existing IceTV customer.

Simply go to www.icetv.com.au/subscribe.php, purchase the IceTV subscription of your choice (1, 3 or 12 month) and enter the following
“discount code” to receive 50% Off the IceTV subscription;

icetvmakestvworthwatching

IceTV looks like an online TV guide and with a few clicks you can easily schedule when the programs are recorded. There’s a 14-day free trial. I don’t think the Aldi PVR supports it though. If watching TV is your thing (I spent only around 5 minutes in front of TV a week), then you might give it a try.

I once blogged about getting a 20Gb JNC MP3 Player for $180 from Deals Direct. Now you can get a 20Gb MP3 player of different brand for cheaper, without a need of coupon code.

Deals Direct gives us Omni 20Gb MP3 Player.

Omni has been sold here in Target, Strathfield, etc. It is definitely not the best looking MP3 player around, and I suspect that it’s an old model (doesn’t even have colour display). However, you get a good portable 20Gb hard disk with MP3 player, FM radio and direct MP3 encoding.

Here’s a list of features:

• 20gig HDD MP3 / WMA Player
• Direct Encoding Function (No PC Required)
• FM Tuner
• High Quality Voice and FM Live Recording by Built-in Mic
• Built-in Rechargeable Battery up to 12 Hours
• 16mb Anti-Shock Buffer
• Four Preset Games
• Recharge Through AC/DC Adapter
• Five Preset EQ Adjustment
• Sleek silver design
• Ideal for music on the go
• Great gift idea
• State of the art

From their latest RSS feed, it looks like they have quite a few new MP3 players on-sale.

Michegianni wrote in this morning to tell us about this great deal.

Yo there’s another mad deal going on. If you fill out this survey.

You get a $100 coupon code for anything on www.sonystyle.com.au as long as you
spend over $300.

Meaning you can get a $329 PSP for $229.

I already did the survey (twice) and the generic coupon code is:

SSALS762289

You might wanna make sure it works there could be hidden web design that only ties it to me (but i doubt it because it is re-usable).

So that means any multiple orders of $300 or over can be done.

From what I remember, the coupon expires 28th Feb 2007 but I can’t get back into the survey and check the expiry again (can’t be bothered).

If you’re keen it takes around 10 mins to do the survey.

I have just done the survey, and it actually took more than 10 minutes to do it. Maybe I am just slow :) However I can testify that the coupon code is indeed generic — I am also getting the same code that Michegianni is getting. This is quoted from the survey completion page:

Thank you for completing the Australian Lifestyle Survey.
You are now eligible for a Sony Style Voucher.

Please carefully write down the following voucher code.

Once you close this window you will not be able to retrieve your voucher code again.

Voucher Code:	SSALS762289
Expiry Date:	28th Feb 2007

To redeem this offer, simply go to www.sonystyle.com.au and enter the code in the “Promotional Code” box. This will automatically take $100 off your order once you have added products to your cart to the value of $300. Please be aware that this offer can only be used once per order.

Well, now I reckon you don’t even need to do the survey (unless you want to compete with me in the draw to win Sony’s entertainment system — please don’t :) Under Sony Terms and Conditions, it does say “Sony Style offers are not transferable…” Remember, neither Michegianni nor I are transfering the coupon code to you. You just somehow picked up this $100 off coupon code somewhere by accident :)

PSP is no use to me, at the moment at least. However I still have a few month to think about what I am going to buy from Sony.

FATHER’S DAY! Being a father myself, I love father’s day, although my 2 year-old daughter has not yet been able to say “Happy Father’s Day” (however I am always ready for surprises this Sunday :) One thing I like Father’s Day is — sales! Especially gadget sales.

Strathfield has lots of cool gadgets on sale in their Father’s Day catelogue, and what especially interested me are their portable DVD players. You know, those that flipped open, has a tiny LCD screen, battery powered, etc. They too have been discounted heavily over the last year, and now you can buy a small 5″ LCD unit for merely $99.95.

That’s madness. You get the DVD player, remote control and car adapter. That would be very useful for long drive with young kids.

However the carrying bag costs $29.95 more, which makes this Highlander 7″ LCD model a much better deal. Carry case is included, plus everything you need on the road — all for $149.

Deals Direct actually has a product page for this particular model, also selling at $149, but currently out of stock. However you can check the specification, and head down to Stratfield to pick one up.