General

Palm Pre and me, at 57

Like fine wine, we're getting better with time.

Hhhheeeellllloooo, electronic world. I'm here on the planet of electronics alive and well aaannnnddd thriving. You're probably wondering who I am and what's up with all of this hullabaloo. Well, I am a 57 year old woman named Paula. Why am I giving you my age? Because most people think I'm way younger than 57 because of all the electronics I possess. We live in a technology world and with time more and more technology pop up on the world scene. So my philosophy is "Why let it pass you by with age, instead become like wine and get better with time". How about that!!!… Read more

Unwrapping Christmas, A Few Months Early

Un-boxing the Palm Pre is like tearing open the gift you think is a cd, and finding that plus a gift card to cover the home theater system you've been drooling over!

As a mom who works from home and uses technology daily to connect both socially and professionally, I am really excited about the Palm Pre.

I'm currently the owner of a Samsung Instinct, and while I applaud Samsung for some of the Instinct's advanced features I've been disappointed with it's slow run time, lack of applications for business users and a real keyboard. … Read more

Meet the bloggers

We chose ten bloggers from thousands of entries to write about their experiences with the Palm Pre on the Now Network from Sprint. We gave each blogger a phone and one month to take it for a test drive. Here's a little bit about our bloggers. … Read more

The Cheapskate's Greatest Hits:
Coupons, MP3s, eyeglasses

I've been at the helm of The Cheapskate for about 18 months now. I don't know how that works out in dog years, but I figure it's the musical equivalent of cutting six or seven albums. (Don't ask me where that math comes from. I was an English major, and I'm working toward a metaphor, dammit.)

Consequently, I decided it was time for a "Greatest Hits" post--a collection of some of my favorite money-saving tips. If you're new to the blog or just missed these the first time around, I hope you'… Read more

Score the best deals on iPhone e-books

I love reading books on my iPhone, but I don't love e-book prices. I mean, digital content requires no printing, binding, shipping, storage, or heavy lifting--so why does Amazon charge the same price for the Kindle edition of "The Kite Runner" as for the paperback?

That's a debate for another day (though let me go on record saying I'd buy a lot more e-books if they were priced in the $1 to $4 range). For now, let's look at ways you can read on the cheap--or, at least, the cheaper--on your iPhone.

Look for freebies Stanza, one of my favorite e-book viewers ( just acquired by Amazon, incidentally), connects you with thousands of freebies. For example, check out the Random House Free Library, which currently stocks 10 mainstream e-books. (Best bet: Charlie Huston's superb crime-noir series, which starts with "Caught Stealing.") Meanwhile, there's Google Book Search, a browser-based solution that connects you to a whopping 1.5 million public-domain books. Point Safari to http://books.google.com/m. Look for deals E-bookseller Fictionwise already discounts its e-books, but you can stretch your dollar even further by setting up a "Micropay" account (i.e., a debit account). Most books come with a Micropay rebate, meaning you get 10 percent to 15 percent of the purchase price added back to your account. But sometimes Fictionwise runs rebate specials, as it's doing right now with J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series: Buy any/all of the books and you get back 100 percent. You can read Fictionwise e-books using eReader or Stanza. (Just make sure to choose titles that are available in the Secure eReader format.) Try before you buy Amazon's Kindle app lets you read free of charge the entire first chapter of any book in the Kindle Store. That's a great way to see if you like a book before plunking down your $10. However, you can't browse the store from within the app: You have to queue up your sample chapters from your browser. Not so with Shortcovers, an e-book viewer with a built-in bookstore that offers sample chapters for many titles (but only forewords for others).… Read more

Come talk tech with the Cheapskate tonight!

Got plans tonight? Want to talk tech with yours truly? Live within a reasonable distance of the Wayne Public Library here in Michigan? If so, I'll be there at 7 p.m.

On the playbill for this evening: gadgets, gear, and, of course, how to score cheap deals on stuff. It's a free program, and I might just have something neat to raffle off.

Sorry for the late notice, but I hope you can make it! (Here's a map to the library in case you need directions.)

Save a small fortune on prescription eyeglasses

If you have the courage to look closely at my photo, you'll notice I wear glasses. The pair in that pic cost me a few hundred dollars--fairly typical, right? Maybe not: The pair I'm wearing right now set me back $21.85--frames, lenses, and shipping.

Yes, they're prescription. Yes, they have the all-important antiglare coating. And, no, they're not ugly plastic "cheaters" like they sell at the dollar store. In fact, they're stylish metal-alloy frames with a blue coating (to match my eyes, ahem).

I scored this deal from Zenni Optical, one of several Web outlets that sells prescription eyeglasses on the cheap--the really, really cheap.

Other popular stores for four-eyes include 39 Dollar Glasses, Goggles4U, and Optical4Less. Although ordering glasses online has its pitfalls, I think the savings greatly outweigh the risks.

Zenni, the only company I've tried thus far, offers a wide selection of frames, with prices ranging from $8-19, lenses included. All you need is your current prescription, which you can get from your optometrist.… Read more

Find 'filler' items to get free shipping at Amazon

Raise your hand if this sounds familiar: you have just under $25 worth of stuff in your Amazon shopping cart--not quite enough to qualify for free shipping--so you go trolling the site for something small and inexpensive to tip the scales.

Of course, finding the right something is never easy, so you decide to treat yourself to an item on your wish list...and end up spending way more than you'd planned. Amazing how easy it is to justify spending money to save money, no?

Superfiller makes it a snap to find "filler" items that bring your … Read more

Four cheap ways to entertain yourself

After yesterday's free-pizza minidebacle (make sure to read my final update to learn how to get a free order of Cinnastix), I thought I'd shift gears and find deals designed to entertain your brain rather than tickle your tastebuds:

DVD: Amazon has "Firefly - The Complete Series" on sale for $19.99 shipped. This is one of my all-time favorite shows. And check out the five-star ratings from nearly 3,000 reviewers! Game: Like first-person shooters? Newegg has Prey (PC) for $5.99 shipped. It has a lot of action, but very story-driven. Highly recommended. Music: … Read more