Deals Direct is running a $10 cashback from PayPal if you spend more than $100 in an order, postage included.

Here’s the terms and conditions:

1. Promotion starts 12:01AM 22/06/2006 and ends 11:59PM 23/06/2006 AEST
2. $100 spent including shipping
3. Applies to orders paid via PayPal only
4. $10 credit will be directly credited via PayPal into your PayPal account
5. credit will be issued on the 1^st of July 2006 by PayPal
6. Valid for 1 order per customer

It is easy to pay via PayPal, as it can take your credit card details. However it also appears that you need a PayPal account to receive the cash back. You probably already have a PayPal account anyway if you eBay a lot (which all bargain hunters do).

There are many great bargains on Deals Direct that can be had for $100 (like this 1Gb MP3/MP4 player), which will now cost just $90.

However you gotta be hurry because this offer expires mid-night tomorrow night.

Update: They now have 50% off offer until 31^st July 2006 using the following coupon code:

VPS-JUL06

VPSLink, a virtual private server hosting company based in Seattle and part of Spry, has been running 50% off VPS sale if you pre-paid for more than 6 month. They use OpenVZ technology (which is an open source version of Virtuozzo). I have a server running there for the last two weeks (using the 50% discount), and it has been rock solid, so I can (sort of) recommend them.

The 50% discount applies not only for the period that you have prepaid for, but for the entire lifetime of your VPS with them. Quote from their website:

VPSLink will offer 50% discounts on all 6 month and longer subscribtions. This discount will be valid for as long as your account remains in good standing. Imagine — a year of VPS hosting for under $50!

However this 50% off discount won’t last long. I was going to write a review, but it appears that they will withdrawal this promotion after 26 June 2006. It would be difficult to get this unbeatable price of VPS hosting. Check this out:

The price up there is the monthly price if you prepaid 6 month. They are reasonably fast for Australians. VPS sets up in minutes after signing up. Have a good forum community. The VPS is unmanaged so it is probably only suitable if know what you are doing.

Yet another monthly Koorong sale to satisfy all your Christian media needs. This time, it is the end of financial year sale with 15% off everything, from 21^st to 30^th June, 2006.

From their announcement:

15% OFF EVERYTHING IN STOCK!

Don’t miss Koorong’s end of financial year clearance – with a massive 15% off everything in stock.

For nine days only — Wednesday 21st June to Friday 30th June — you will save 15% off all books, Bibles, CDs, DVDs… every item in stock.

This is a great chance to stock up on all our bestselling and new titles at bargain prices.

If you purchase on-line, you can also save on postage by spending more than $99.

Kmart is again having a 15% off store-wide sale from Thursday 15 June to Saturday 17 June. You can get “almost everything” in store 15% cheaper.

It’s World Cup fever at Kmart and for three days only we’ve got a monster 15% off storewide! No rainchecks. No deposit lay by during sale. Does not include Downloadable products iTunes, iPods, Console Hardware, Cigarettes, Gift cards, Pixifoto and Kmart Tyre & Auto Service.

15% off storewide includes the Kmart Garden Super Centre, and 15% off Exide batteries and Goodyear Regatta Tyres at Kmart Tyre & Auto Service. So make sure you run in and score a deal this week at Kmart.

I wonder whether they will run a 50% off store wide if the Soceroos get into quater-final (I am not betting on them winning the cup). :)

OO.com.au is having their $5 discount for your comments again! They had that 2 and half months ago, and they are now seeking more feedbacks from their loyal customers — with $5 discount on every order that you made before 8am, Tuesday 13^th June 2006, if you provide them a comment when you check out.

How easy!

Newman MP3/MPEG4 Player

That makes their Newman 1Gb MP3/MP4 player only $89.50, and if you can pick it up from their Banksmeadow warehouse to save $6.75 delivery cost, if you are living close by.

Newman is actually quite a popular brand in China for its MP3/MP4 audio/video players, unlike many no-brand OEM products. The one sold by OO.com.au looks like their M820-1G model, which costs $599 Chinese Yuan if you buy it from China — and that converts to AUD$99.87 from today’s exchange rate. So getting it for $89.50 right over here in the nice Eastern Suburbs sounds like a really good deal!

Well, the more I talked about it more I want to pull out my credit card so I’ll just stop it here :) Have fun shopping.

Last time they had a iPod Shuffle look-alike MP3 player that sold out in 12 hours, Deals Direct has just added a few new MP3 players onto their line-up which look remarkly like the hot-selling iPod Nano, but at a much lower price.

Deals Direct are selling those “EZCOOL MP3/MP4 Player” at 512Mb for $74.95, 1Gb for $99 and 2Gb for $139. They have the same 1.5″ colour LCD screen, although from the photo they look slightly larger than the pencil thin Nano. Moreover, they are actually MP4 players that are capable playing MP4 encoded videos, whereas Nano can only play AAC/MP3 and browse photos.

That makes them very good deal if they have iPod-alike audio quality as well, consider 1Gb Nano retails for $219 and 2Gb version retails for $299.

Looking at how quick they have sold their previous iPod Shuffle look-alike, I do not think this batch will last…

Some interesting Dell deals received today.

Inspiron 6400UMA 1600GT

First of all the Dell’s entry level dual core notebook, Inspiron 6400UMA 1600GT is on sale again. Last time it was $1,399, and now you can bring Intel Core Duo powered notebook home for $1,349. Moreover, the optical drive has been upgraded to DVD writer.

• Intel Core Duo 1.67Ghz
• 1Gb DDR2 SDRAM, shared with graphics
• 60Gb 5,400RPM disk drive
• 8x DVD writer DL capable
• Wireless
• 15 inch wide screen LCD

The E-Value code is N540604. The annoying thing is, even though it is advertised at $1,349, when the E-Value code is entered, it loads with a setup that costs $1,389. Still a notebook with a good spec.

PowerEdge SC1420 Server

I have been thinking of getting a new server for a while, but I ended up just upgrading my existing computer. If I am in the market looking for a brand new box, it is hard to go pass Dell’s PowerEdge range, especially when it is on sale :)

With E-Value code N420603 you’ll get a very beefy machine.

• Intel Xeon 64bit dual core at 3.0Ghz
• 512Mb ECC memory
• 80Gb SATA drive

And it finalises to $1,198 to bring home this Xeon box. Good price for a server-grade computer. Hmm.

What I am still waiting for however, is the return of budget server SC430.a where the current spec (Pentium D 2.8Gb, 256Gb ECC RAM, 80Gb SATA drve) used to sell at less than $400 (now is around $600). See this Whirlpool thread for details.

Update: In this forum reply, it seems you can still get a Pentium D 2.8Ghz dual core SC430 for $399 delivered, by quoting E-Value code N420600 in phone orders. Expiry 8 June.

Hans wrote:

Check out Target‘s 15% off Storewide Sale, starting tomorrow (1^st June) till Saturday.

Very nice find. Thank you Hans!

We haven’t had a department store % off store-wide sale in May, have we? (I probably have missed). Time to stock up items. However it is also a good time to be reminded to beware the big sale, as you might not always get the best discount.

Juergen sent Bargain Blog an email last week.

I would like you to check out following site… Great places to pick up
Bargains…

www.lastminute-auction.com

It’s basicly the bargain bin of eBay — that site shows up to 20,000 auctions at one dollar and with only one hour left. For some reason, eBay does not offer a list like this.

Lastminute Auction actually has an eBay Australia listing with the same criteria — it only lists items that are one hour to go, and are still under one Aussie dollar. Seems to be lots of bargains to be grabbed.

However, you need to be very careful with auctions at this price point.

1. Sometimes they have a very high delivery fee. For example a $1 gadget with $30 delivery from Hong Kong, which might not be that much a bargain. Sellers do this to dodge fees, and they are very common.
2. If there’s an item still at $1 in the last hour, it’s either (1) no one is really interested and it probably will not interest you either (2) “real action” these days usually only start at the last minute due to snipers.
3. It can sometimes caused by badly written description, i.e. casual seller who lacks HTML skill. You never know — you might find unpolished gems there.

Anyway. Sometimes it is possible to find something at great value. Like Dealzon reviewed this week, computer generated lists can really do a lot of work for you.

Koorong has their regular percentage off sale again. Now on one day only, 30^th of May 2006, there is 20% off everything web sale at their on-line store.

In order to receive this discount, you need to put through your order on the net on that very day. Also if your order is $99 or more, Koorong will deliver that to your door, free of charge. Also note this sale is on-line web store only — it does not apply to their shops.

Vivian couldn’t believe it when I received their sale news letter this evening, as she had just bought something down the road in the afternoon (from Matthias Media’s office). Oh well.

Aldi Australia has their late June sale catelogue out. Plenty of interesting bargains. One that I am particularly interested in is this Tevion analogue/digital HD TV tuner card for $79, which has reduced from $99.

It is actually 2 tuners in one. It lets you watch TV on your computer, and can receive either analogue or digital signal. It supports High Definition digital TV, and it even has a FM tuner built in.

• Watch and record analogue & digital TV on your PC
• Supports worldwide analogue & DVB-T TV systems
• Supports HDTV, 16:9 format and Teletext
• Includes software to enable Edit & Burn to DVD/VCD
• FM radio tuner
• Full featured infra-red remote control
• Supports PIP, time shifting & scheduled recording in power Off mode
• AV/S inputs connects other video sources

Feature is remarkably similar to Compro DVB-T300, a very popular analogu/digital tuner that still retails for around $110. In fact, according to this Whirlpool forum thread (from someone who has previously purchased it), which someone discovered that it uses the same Philip SAA 713X chipset as the more expensive Compro unit. In fact I have bought the Compro DVB-T300 last year, and am pretty happy about the quality.

It’s ideal for desktop users to watch and record free-to-air TV programmes. Sale starts 1 June.

* * *

Another interesting item is this slim line remote control for PC with USB interface. It is designed as remote for DVD/media players, but I wonder it can be used in PowerPoint presentation. It’s only $14.95, which is far cheaper than many presentation gadgets.

Getting a personal laser printer can be a very cost effective way to reduce cost for students or home office. They cost slightly more than a colour inkjet printer, but if you keep it for a while (3-4 years of college/uni course for example), the running cost might save you a lot. Read my previous entry on those mono personal laser printers.

I have blogged about Deals Direct’s previous budget printer Lexmark E230, which is out of stock at the moemnt. However I saw they just put another budget printer onto their product list — Kyocera FS-720 (product specification here) — and this time it is going for $129 (+$9 delivery).

Yes. A laser printer for less than $130. Maybe it is just me who need to overcome the fact that they used to cost me $600+ 6 years ago (which mine is still working fine).

Running cost is quite good as well. Its long running toner cartridge TK-110 costs around $110 and can last for 6,000 pages. Kyocera printers have permanent imagine drum which lasts 100,000 pages which further drives down the running cost.

The only issue I can see is that Kyocera FS-720 is a GDI printer, i.e. it does not emulate any standard printing language, and only Windows is supported. It is not suitable if you need a printer for your Linux or Mac computers. One step up the range, Kyocera FS-820, should do the trick as it has PCL-6 emulation implemented.

Hunting for bargain is a tedious process — I know because for the sake of writing this blog I am constantly looking for them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they just come knocking on your door?! Or, wouldn’t it be nice if a computer program is written to automatically search for the cheap deals out there?

Dealazon is the answer. It automatically grabs pricing from Amazon.com and its associated merchants, and produce categories like “Hot Deals” (items on sale), “Gift Ideas” (bargains between $10-$50 USD), “Top Discounts” (items with most % discount), etc. Everything computer generated — this website does all the hard work for you! There are also RSS feed for each category so you can track those bargains on your favourite news reader.

Do note that many merchants in Amazon.com do not ship to Australia. When are they coming to town?

Encountered a new concept the other day — do surveys and get free calls! CommuniTel is a new telecommunication company that provides override code for national/international/mobile calls on the cheap. You can choose between pre-paid and post-paid, and you just need to dial the override code (1428) before dialing the phone number. Rates are much cheaper than other big TeleCo — 29.9cents per minute for mobile phone for example.

However, many new budget telecom are also having competitive rate. What sets CommuniTel apart is that as a customer, there are some actions you can do to “earn” credits. Once you register, you can fill out personal profiles and do a short survey, which immediately gives you $2.50 credit. You can also subscribe to emails with links that you can click through to give you 10 cents per click. You can fill up more surveys, or opt in for phone surveys. You can even ask for advertisement to be played before making a phone call to earn extra credits. All these credits can be used for out-bound calls.

Because it is an override service, you can basically just sign up, do surveys, and use it for free calls.

Just then I went and tried to renew my .id.au account, and noticed that IntaServe is having a sale at the moment — .com.au or .net.au $27.95 for 2 years! That makes those domains just a tad more expensive than .id.au domains, and very very cheap in comparison with domain registrars like Melbourne IT, who charges a whooping $140 for the same thing.

I am not sure how long this great price will last, as AusRegistry, the wholeseller for all the .au domains, charges $30.50/2 years to all their accredited retail registrars.

However, the cheap price of IntaServe also comes with less than ideal services — I am mainly talking about the account management interface. Read my own experience here. Lucky you don’t need to use the account interface very often.