Via Weblog Tools Collection. Missed out from previous Yahoo domain sale? The sale is apparently on again!! Yahoo Small Business Domains is now offering domain names under popular TLDs for USD$2.99 per domain per year, and Y! has generously given you the whole of Octoberthis year to make up your mind!

Not as cheap as the previous $1.99 deal, but at $2.99 it is far cheaper than many others. You don’t need to buy expensive service plan to get this price either! (hint: GoDaddy).

Now I just need to figure out what I should buy next.

Update — thanks to Thomas for notifying me that Yahoo’s $2.99 deal has been extended to 31 December 2005. Another two months where you can get cheap domains. Yum…

Update 2006-05-02 — now when you go to Yahoo! Domains, the price would show $9.99. However if you use this promo URL, $2.99 per domain per year special will be shown. Expired on 30 June 2006.

Saw their ads on Southern Courier this week — Durian for $1.99/kg from Harris Farm — this Sunday (9 Oct 2005) only! Probably one of the cheapest in the Eastern Suburbs, if you go to the one in Eastgate, Bondi Junction.

It describes:

Durians are best eaten fresh; the richness of the flesh makes an excellent foil for hot spicy food like curries & chilli dishes!

No mention of its distinct smell though… I myself is not a durian fan, but I am sure many from FOCUS would be interested.

Got this email from Judy to MBF, which I shamelessly put it here :)

I bought a compact thinline ESV bible @ AUD$6.95 from the Bible Society bookshop three weeks ago…

It is cheap, and has both New and Old Testaments with even concordance. I have checked with Sydney Bible Society bookshop, they have this ESV bible at the same price, and the offer ends in one or two weeks time.

Not sure whether it’s printed by GNP or Harper Collins, as I cannot seem to find such a cheap ESV print from GNP’s online store. It is probably this one on the Bible Society website, which usually retails for $17.95.

Got this message from Koorong, the Christian bookstore that you can find most things you need at a bargain price.

Koorong is having a 5-Day Super Sale. From Thursday the 29th of September until the close of trading on Tuesday the 4th of October, Koorong is giving you 15% off everything in store, with hundreds of titles priced to clear! With an amazing 20% off purchases over $300, dont miss out on this chance to save!!

So shop in person, phone, fax or e-mail, or shop at our Web Store at www.koorong.com to take advantage of the fantastic prices.

Also note that for shopping at their on-line store, it gives you free delivery when you spend $99 or more. So I guess if you have already decided what you are going to buy, it seems shopping on-line might actually be more convenient. However experience shows that you might get more chance to score a bargain to go to the store, as you might found some specially marked items.

Funny that they are having their sales, when many of their potential big shoppers are away for the Club 5 Challenge Conference.

Anyway, I know many are waiting for it, and some might organise shopping tour to the West Ryde over the long weekend. Have fun!

Just saw it on the Coles catelogue received today.

Save on petrol – 8 cents per litre

Save 8c per litre on quality petrol when you spend $100 or more at any NSW Coles Supermarket.

Valid 12^th September to 25^th September, 2005.

I have previously covered some fuel saving tips previously, and it seems to be Coles/Shell’ latest counter-effort against Woolies/Caltex. There is no need to use a Source Mastercard this time, but depending on the size of your family, it might not be easy to spend $100+ in a supermarket…

Elsie submitted a bargain (though wrote in her blog first):

Digital photo printing at JB Hi-Fi for 15 cents each. Spotted at Chatswood JB Hi-Fi yesterday. Don’t know if its an opening special only. Note they also have Kodak digital prints for 39 cents each, so don’t get them mixed up!

This certainly beats Big W’s 20 cents print, and I hope it is true (can someone confirm it?). How is the quality of those prints, especially in comparison with those more expensive Kodak prints?

Sorry about my recent obsession with domain names. I guess it all came down to greed over “assets”, especially relatively affordable assets that give you a sense of ownership. There has been a nice comparison chart for .au domain registrars, but probably due to my lacking goolging skill, I cannot seem to find anything similar for the popular .com/.net/.org TLD domains. Most comparison charts are heavily biased as they were hosted by their sponsoring registrars.

However, I did find a somewhat independent review (sorry I haven’t done the background check). Daniel Hendricks wrote in his Domain Registrar Comparison, he said:

Recommendations

Choose the statement that best matches your needs:

1. “I’m looking for a registrar that is full-featured and offers WHOIS protection.”
   Recommendations: Namecheap.com
2. “I’m looking for a cheap registrar for a small project or to park a domain. Price is more important than features.”
   Recommendations: 1&1 Internet
3. “I’m new to this and am looking for a registrar with good customer service.”
   Recommendation: GoDaddy
4. “I don’t care about those extra features, I’m hosting my own DNS and do my own SPAM protection!”
   Recommendation: In this case, it doesn’t really matter which registrar you choose. 1&1 Internet will be the cheapest, GoDaddy will likely offer better support.
5. “I need advanced DNS features like backup mail servers and round robin.”
   Recommendation: Network Solutions

Note: If you are located in Europe, you might consider trying GANDI.

I also happened to come across NameCheap last week, and their USD$8.88/year is indeed a tad cheaper than GoDaddy, my current everything-except-dot-au registrar, and there is no tiny asterisk pointing to a hidden 25 cent “ICANN fee”! However, as someone who wants completely no-frills, 1&1’s USD$5.99 seems to be a good price to me (except maybe when Yahoo! goes crazy and gives away domains for $1.99 each).

Note 1 — just realise that 1&1, while being a Germany company, only accepts US and Canada customers, when I went and tried to register a domain. Therefore it will not be an option for non-North America residents.

Note 2 — I also found that using a reseller might be cheaper than the wholeseller. iNoun is a reseller of GoDaddy, but sells its domains at a few cents lower ($7.85* for .COM verses $8.95*).

Earlier this morning I received an email advertising ozziebids, which claims to be “a comprehensive Australian online auction website offering an alternate method of online shopping”. It lists brand new products on its website and its members can start bidding on these items.

While thinking, oh yeah, another eBay wannabe, I actually went and checked out the site. Then I saw items like a PlayStation Portable which usually retails for around AUD$400, is waiting for bidding at maximum bid of $50! That is right — the yummy PSP will sell for no more than 50 dollars. There are other “bargains” like a 42inch LG plasma TV with maximum bid of $500. How does it work? Until I read about it…

In a “normal auction”, usually it is the one who is willing to pay the most wins. However in ozziebids, the successful bidder needs to be the one offering the highest unique bid, i.e. no on else is putting in the same amount before the closing time. Being someone willing to pay the most does not guarantee you a sale, but you need to choose a number that no one else would have chosen, and has to be bigger than every other unique numbers picked by other bidders.

Moreover, there is an “admin fee” of between $10-$25 that is payable whenever you are making a bid. It is not only charged for successful bidders, but everyone who puts in a bid.

In another word, everyone puts in a fixed amount of “entry fee”, and the one who guessed the right number wins the game. He or she can then claim his/her prize by paying another 1/10 of the cost of the unit.

That sounds like gambling in my dictionary. Yeah — legalised on-line gambling, operated from Perth, hosted in Brisbane, masqueraded itself as an “online shopping site”.

To say that you can find bargain in this kind of operation is like saying you can earn good money in lottery. True for some, but totally not the case for most other participants. Finding a real bargain in ozziebids? Only for the lucky few.

Update: There seems to be quite a number of sites that use the similar strategy — winning on the maximum unique bid. Again, I’ll say none of them offers real bargain. You might buy things cheaply there, but so can you “buy” a dream home at Gold Coast for $10 if you win the lottery. Here are a list of similar sites

• Aussie Fuel Auction — bidding on fuel cards
• Bid and Win
• SMS2BID — bidding with SMS messages.

Via ThreadWatch, Yahoo Domains is now running their USD$1.99/year domain special again! And that’s after I previously blogged and paid for a $6.95+$0.50 .com domain special from GoDaddy less than 2 months ago! Aargh!! And I have not yet fully developed and publicise that .com I bought — I should have waited. :(

Anyway, this is an offer that should not be missed, and it will expire on 2 September 2005 PST time. Also, this offer is limited to new customers only, and you can only get one domain at that price. I have just registered another domain for 2 years — another .net this time. I think I will put that on the market (hint: a <6 character>.net domain with ‘blog’ in it)…

One advantage Yahoo Domains has over GoDaddy, besides much less advertisement along the registration process, is that Yahoo comes with a DNS management system, whereas GoDaddy only allows you to edit the name servers. The first thing I do after a domain registration is usually changing NS to EveryDNS (a free DNS provider highly recommended) anyway, but others might find it useful.

Opera Browser is turning 10, and it is giving away free registration code at its birthday party! And that includes all its platforms — Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Mac. Go register, and follow the instruction to download Opera 8 and turn it ads-free!

Better be hurry, as the offer is time-limited.

Opera is a fine and very light weight web browser. I have used it quite exclusively for a period of time on Linux and Windows (around 2000 I think). It is great to just have it sitting there under your Applications folder (or “Program Files”, or “/usr/bin/X11”), so I can ensure my sites would also function properly for the Opera users.

Update 21 September 2005: Now, Opera is free — forever. No more ads. No more nagging. Download 8.5 today, and make your collection complete.

As the oil prices marches towards USD$70 a barrel, it is now costing around AUD$1.30 per litre for the regular unlead here in NSW. What can I do to cut my fuel cost?

Continue reading »

Thomas wrote,

This is Allans Music‘s annual clearance sale. It’s probably the best and easiest way to get musical instruments at great price in Sydney.

Where:	40 O’Dea Avenue, Waterloo
Date:	Saturday-Sunday, 27-28 August 2005
Time:	10am-4pm

From past experience, if you really want to grab the good deals (75% off items) come before they’re open at 10am.

Thomas has also recently bought some mics from Musician’s Warehouse, which is owned by Allan’s. But don’t be surprise to see Thomas there again this Saturday :)

Tim wrote in for you voda users:

Vodafone prepaid recharge is 10% cheaper at all Woolworth, Safeway, Dick Smith, Big W and Tandy.

That seems to be most of the places that you would recharge your prepaid. Thanks!

Just ordered a new toy on-line. Behringer X V-Amp from Musicians Warehouse for AUD$113 plus $10 for delivery. Oh, I did asked wife about it :)

What is X V-Amp? A floor unit guitar amplifier modeler. 16 amplifier models. 32 effect modulation (lots of copying BOSS effects). Delay. Reverb. And an expression pedal to control wah-wah, volume and other effects. Too bad there is no chromatic tuner nor whammy, but I guess I have no complain with the price of this unit. It is even cheaper than a single Wah pedal I bought 12 years ago. I shall do a review when I actually received and played with the unit.

It was not hard to pick Musicians Warehouse when I need to fill my musician needs (which fortunately is not that often). It has a 30 day low price guarantee that you probably never need, as I have compared around 15 on-line music stores in Australia they still came down the cheapest (follow by Guitar Garage on the Gold Coast selling for $120). Unless there is a big sale (Venue/Allans usually would have one every year), or you are buying the actual instrument (not usually a good idea to pick up guitars online), then Musicians Warehouse would be a great first stop for your bargain hunting.

Thomas wrote:

Behringer is releasing their new line of effect pedals for guitar. While the effects sound like a complete rip-off from BOSS, the price isn’t. They cost around AU$40 to 50. Which is like 1/5th of what it would cost to get a BOSS.

Venue Music announced that they’d have it this month. No one has tried them yet but even if they’re only half as good as BOSS, the price is still so so low.

Link

AUD$40-50 for an effect pedal – that’s bloody cheap. Pictured Blues Overdrive pedal costs only $39. Are they made of plastic? Alternatively, if you really want to have a BOSS pedal, I’ll go to eBay to pick up some pre-loved ones at not-so-rip-off price.