Thanks to Michegianni for informing me about this deal. Apparently BigW has this 68cm/27inch LCD TV on sale on the front page of their latest catelogue. The brand is relatively unknown Aiko (I googled but can’t find anything), and I can’t seem to find the spec about this model.

Here’s is what I can read from the very fine print on the catelogue:

• HD ready
• Resolution 1368×768 at 60Hz
• 500cd/m Brightness
• 16ms Response time
• 1000:1 Contrast
• 2×8 Watt Speaker

The design itself looks not bad, and the spec on the panel is pretty generic. Moreover, it is $100 less than similar model on-sale at Deals Direct and OO.com.au. Because it is BigW, you can also visit your local branch to check out and have a look.

They are getting bloody cheap these days. What will their price be this time next year?

When they say “exclusive“, they mean “hey you are special, and don’t tell anyone else”. So there you go. If you read about this exclusive private sale here, don’t tell the others :)

Allans Music sent out an email today notifying me about their e-VIP Private Sale, exclusive to their “Preferred Customers”. Not sure why I got this email — I have only bought a cheap effect box from Musicians Warehouse before, which is part of Allans.

Anyway. At least it did make me feel somehow special for a short while, until I found out you can sign up to their newsletter and become a “preferred customer”. D’oh.

Here’s an extract:

Allans Music exclusive offer! Only available to Allans Music preferred customers.

e-VIP private sale — Tuesday, August 29. 228 Pitt Street, Sydney. 6pm-9pm

Doorbuster prices on a big selection of off-range, superceded, “scratch ‘n dent” stock. All with manufacturer’s warranty.

It’s 3 hours only next Tuesday at Allans’ Pitt Street store. Here’s a sample list of items on-sale. Our usual experience with Allans’ sale is — you can really find bargains with huge saving there, but then the stock is really limited.

Charmaine from OO.com.au has informed us about this new competition they are sponsoring, Urban Chart Hits Competition.

Two of our lucky listeners will win a 51cm Pure Flat Screen TV / DVD Combo or a Full Size 18 Speed Mountain Bike with Shimano Gears.

All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning one of these fantastic prizes, is enter your name, the email address we can contact you on, and your address for delivery. Then hold thumbs…

The last day for entry is Sunday 3^rd September 2006 and the winners will be announced on the countdown in the week ended Sunday 10^th September 2006.

I think I can put both flat screen TV or mountain bike into good use (probably prefer the bike as I seriously need to get away from computers and do some exercise), so I put in my details and press submit, even though I have never won anything from competitions…

Then it brought me to a page giving me a coupon code that gives $10 off from any purchase over $50 at OO.com.au — that’s at most 20% off! It did say “first purchase” so I am not sure whether repeated customers apply, but I might try that coupon code next time when we shop there.

Coupon code? Well I won’t reveal it here. Just sign up to the competition and you’ll have one as well.

Saw on Whirlpool about this new “auction” website, Aussie Fuel Auctions, where you can bid for Caltex fuel cards. The site design looks a bit dodgy, but $500 worth of fuel cards have been won for $14.40! Now who cares about the petrol crisis?! Everyone can now go back and buy the latest HSV E-Series as fuel will be dirt cheap.

Not quite.

If you read the instruction more closely, it says:

In our auctions, the succesful bidder is not the bidder who enters the ‘highest bid’ but the highest UNIQUE bid.

If you have entered the highest UNIQUE bid in a particular auction, the auctioned card is yours.

That “highest unique” thing sounds familiar. In fact there have been quite a few “auction” sites with similar scheme, which I have covered previously. There is indeed an “admin fee” attached, which varied from $1 to $10. You need to pay this un-refundable admin fee in order to enter into auction, and if you have guessed the right amount, you win. There’s actually a Wikipedia entry on unique bid auction, which says:

This type of auction may be regarded as having some of the elements of a normal auction (placing bids) and of a lottery (paying an entry fee and guessing the bids which may be made by other participants).

In my dictionary, it means that it feels like an auction but is in fact a lottery. Not something a true bargain seeker should attempt, if you really want to save some money.

For example, this $150 Caltex Fuel Card has been won for $6.58. 220 total bids will incur $220 in admin fees. Plus the final price, Aussie Fuel Auctions has made $220 + $6.58 – $150 = $76.58 for just hosting the auction. Moreover, many have made 10+ bids (i.e. spent $10+ on admin fees) but get nothing at the end.

Maybe I just cannot imagine how people will fall for this kind of scheme, hoping to save a few bucks.

If you actually do a WHOIS lookup on this domain, and google some of the result, you’ll find other “get rich quick online” crap. Maybe

1. Set up a unique highest bid auction site
2. ??
3. Profit!!

is one of their formulae in those eBooks they sell.

I have not been blogging about domain deals, because, well I have not been buying domains for a while. I am certainly at a stage where I am having more domains than knowing what to do with them. However I was tempted again when I received GoDaddy‘s promotional email this morning, selling .net registration for USD$5.99/year (plus 25 cents ICANN fee).

I think it is selling slightly below cost as the popular TLD are usually having wholesale price at $6/domain per year. Moreover GoDaddy is now giving a way a big list of freebies with every domain registration, like ad-supported free hosting, email hosting, full DNS hosting, etc. This offer applies to new registration, transfer or renewal. Too bad I’ve renewed two of my .net domains with GoDaddy a few weeks ago with a lesser discount :(

Promotion expires on 16 September 2006.

Privacy guard is a bit expensive at $4.99 per domain (free if you register 3+ domains). You might wish to look at NameCheap who has been offering free “WhoIs Guard” with every domain registration at the moment, if this domain privacy thing is concerning you.

What fancies me this week has been this Casio Label-Biz CD/DVD Title Printer from Deals Direct. From Deals Direct’s description:

This CASIO Label-Biz CD/DVD Printer is the perfect tool for your home or office. It allows you to perfectly title your CDs and DVDs with CASIO’s Advanced Disc Title Printing Technology without compromising your discs integrity. It comes with a QWERTY keyboard for stand-alone operation as well as a USB connection for easy hook-up to your PC.

However, after a bit of investigation, it appears that the product Deals Direct is selling is Casion CW-L300 Label-Biz Disc Title Printer. First of all, it is cool that it prints on CD/DVD — something that all geeks need. I am having heaps of DVD-Rs and CD-Rs backing up my valuable data (after heaps of disasters over the years), and I need to label them. Current I just use my trusty permanent marker, but if I have this Casio label printer, even my backup discs can look professional.

Secondly, it also doubles up as a label printer. You can buy those cut and eel sticky labels (OfficeWorks sells them), print your name on it, and stick them on everything to claim ownership. We actually have a much-simpler Brother unity at home which we used to label all our daughter‘s belongings, and found it almost essential when you have little kids who always lost stuff.

And it is not a feature-poor labellers like the Dyno you buy from Coles — it has a full QWERTY keyboard, printable in 14 languages, lots of memory, and can be connected to your PC via an USB cable.

I think we’ll buy something like this, if we haven’t already got our Brothers. It’s cheap at Deals Direct — $139 + $9 delivery. RRP is $249, but on Casio’s website RRP is USD$199 (which is around AUD$262).

Here’s another tip using Deals Direct’s website: view clearance bargain bin sorted by biggest saving %. Now, I don’t think I am interested in 28 copies of Long Way ‘Til You Drop, but I believe there will be some items that make you go wow.

Charmaine from OO.com.au has informed us this great deal.

Had to make mention of this one! Save $900 on a Hyundai 66cm High Definition Ready LCD TV — HYW260…

It’s a nice LCD TV with almost everything you would want, and OO.com.au is selling it below price. Well, 26inch/66cm is not huge — especially when you compare with this 94cm LCD TV that you did not win. At least you’ve been given a $5 coupon right?! That will make this Hyundai LCD TV even cheaper at $994.

And yes we did cover 26inch LCD TVs under $900 from OO.com.au and Deals Direct earlier this year. However I do consider Hyundai a more well-known brand than “Highlander”. Specs are similar — and I believe Deals Direct still have a “Konka” brand 26inch LCD TV for under $900 if you wish to checkout and compare.

Anyway. Here’s product details for the Hyundai:

Happy shopping!

My wife Vivian is a CPA. For those who ain’t that good at TLA’s, that’s “Certified Public Accountant” (btw, TLA=Three Letter Acronym). However she is not doing any accounting related at the moment. The only thing that reminded us her CPA-ship is her monthly subscription to the InTheBlack magazine, which I occasionally randomly scan through.

In the August issue it has an advertisement of this trade company ImportPlaza, which looks like an importer of gadgets and game/gamble related accessories (poker chip for example). It has lots of MP3/MP4 players, DVD players, GPS receivers and model cars on-sale.

Moreover, it gives 10% discount to InTheBlack subscribers when you quote their promo code when you order. The promo-code/coupon is:

ITB021

I haven’t ordered anything from them so can’t verify. On its homepage it does say:

We welcome all INTHEBLACK subscribers.

If you order through our secure shop, you shall receive your discount via a ‘cash back’ cheque.

Also not sure whether you really need to be an InTheBlack subscriber to use the coupon code. Well, give it a try if you find anything fancies you there.

I loved the Zazz! guys. They are unique. The copy is humorous. They sell geeky stuff. Most importantly, the price is cheap — only if you catch it before they sold out. It also got me a bad habit of sleeping a few minutes after the mid-night so I can see what’s on sale.

So a few minutes of coding last night I now have a little script that download Zazz!’s latest product and reformatted to a sidebar block. If Jumba‘s crontab is working properly (somehow it did not run this morning), this script should be executed at 12:05am everyday. It’ll hopefully remind me (and visitors here) what’s on sale at Zazz!

I am also planning to integrate some web services on the sidebar. For example if on-line discount stores provide RSS feed (so far I have only found Deals Direct had one), I can have an aggregator somewhere. Any other idea?

Update: Quoted from Zazz’s Mates page:

Scott and the rest of the OzBargainBlog team have been super awesome fantastic in promoting us to their readers. They even created a sidebar on their website that shows the zazz of the day! Thanks guys, we love you.

Awesome! No problem mate! Except it is only me here blogging. Now, where is my OzBargainBlog team? Are they on-sale somewhere?

Besides Deals Direct and OO.com.au, SoldSmart.com.au has been one of my favourite site recently. Like the other two, it is focusing on discounted bulk buying and great product at very good pricing.

Well, the consumer electronics category feels a bit lacking (the main category I am interested in), but I was overwhelmed by the modern musical instruments they have on sale — especially those budget guitars! Like this acoustic-electric guitar with beautiful sunburst finish, cutaway, pickup with EQ and volume control, and on-board tuner with LCD indicator! All for $139.95 + $8 delivery.

Or this funky looking acoustic-electric guitar for $89.95, or this P-bass imitator for $129, or…

(Sorry I have been a guitar fan as well.)

Well, not just guitars but also lots of other stuff that worth checking out. I’ll be reporting more bargains from SoldSmart here in the future.

Thanks to Charmaine for reminding me, OO.com.au is currently having free delivery on selected items on their home page. There are quite a large number of selection of gadgets.

• 512Mb for $34.95 and 1Gb for $49.95 Secure Digital card for your camera and PDA (note to OO — it is “Secure” not “Super” in SD cards). They are high performing 150x cards. While personally I like 512Mb version as you can dump the whole content into a CD-R, but 1Gb seems to be a good buy as it is only $15 dealer.

• 30Gb portable hard drive for $135.95. Pretty good price for a 30Gb, but there seems to be some 40Gb portable drives that are cheaper :)

• Wireless FM transmitter for MP3/MP4 players for $44.95. They are very useful if you drive an old car like mine that does not have a built in iPod connector, and you have missed this previous Zazz one day sale.

• Nokia 1100 for $78.50. Well, I can testify that this Nokia phone works great because I actually own one. Great “no-frills” phone that can stand all kinds of punishment from careless owners. Except I paid way too much for it one year ago.

There are many great deals on their website, and you can save the delivery cost which would be between $7-$10 depending on where you live. It does not really matter to me as OO.com.au’s warehouse is less than 10 minutes drive from my place, but would be good saving if you are not fortunate enough to live in the Sydney Eastern suburbs :)

Note that the free delivery deal ends Thursday 10 August.

Shan from Melbourne has sent in a discount coupon which gives you 10% off everything when you shop in Target from Friday 4^th to Sunday 6^th of August. This coupon is usually given out to staffs’ family and friends, so thank you Shan for considering us as your friends!

Well, the only things you need to do are:

1. Download this discount coupon PDF file
2. Print it out and cut out the coupon
3. Bring it to Target and shop!

Make sure you also check out their current catelogue so you know what’s on special.

I have been a loyal reader of APC Magazine for many years, and have been a subscriber for the last 9. Although I have been getting most my technology news on-line these days, I have always enjoyed reading through APC. It is informative, has great editors and columnists, and has presented technology news well with an Australian perspective.

So it is my renewal time again. I received a reminding mail in my letter box while I was on holiday. $79 for the annual subscription. Fair enough — that’s how much I usually paid. After I came back I got a bit too busy and just left the renewal form there sitting on my desk. I wasn’t in hurry. Besides, winning “TurboCAD” just doesn’t excite me…

Then yesterday I received another letter from APC Magazine asking me to renew. Except re-subscribing APC for 1 year is now only $59.95! In order to get that discount, you need to visit MagShop’s website (ACP’s online shop-front) using an alternate URL — clicking into it, and APC subscription will change from $79.95 to $59.95!

Before

After

That makes each issue of APC Magazine only $5, delivered directly to your door. That’s quality content + DVD-full of software for the price of a small value meal at Maccas. What a deal!

This offer is only available until September 15, 2006, and I am not sure whether it can be used on new subscriptions. Well, that’s another year of APC for me.

This is taken from this week’s Southern Courier, ProDigital is going to have a grand opening this Saturday (29 July) at Royal Randwick Shopping Centre (here’s their entry), and they will be having 15 cent digital printing at the kiosk, from 1^st to 8^th of August.

It’s going to be one-week only special starting from next week. Time to sort of the photos we want to have printed.

They are at shop 49, ground floor, Randwick Royal Shopping Centre.

Just then when Vivian was preparing TAT’s Bible study on Obadiah, she said she wished we have a Bible atlas because of all those map references. Behold! The 20% Off Everything at Koorong promotion email has just landed in my inbox!

Here’s quote from the email:

20% OFF EVERYTHING IN STOCK!

Save a massive 20% off everything in stock at Koorong from Thursday 27th to Monday 31st July.

For five days only you will save 20% off our huge range of best-selling books, Bibles, CDs, videos, software, gifts — every item in stock.

Shop in person, by fax, e-mail, or visit our web store at www.koorong.com

Don’t miss out on the amazing savings!

They still have the same deal on postage if you buy from their website, that all orders over $99 have free postage.