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Get a 20GB Xbox 360 Pro for $156 shipped

Whoa! Buy.com has the refurbished Xbox 360 Pro for $155.99 shipped. That's way less than the price of a new Xbox 360 Arcade, which has no hard drive and only a wired controller.

The Pro comes with a 20GB hard drive, a wireless controller, and...drum roll...HDMI! However, although component video cables are included, HDMI is BYO. (Meritline, always a good source, has a 6-foot HDMI cable for $4.99 shipped.)

The 360 is not only a killer gaming console, but also a damn fine media center extender (meaning it can stream music, videos, and photos … Read more

Mophie Juice Pack Air is here, and it's not perfect (review)

Following a long wait after my first blog, I finally got my hands on Mophie's Juice Pack Air for the iPhone 3G. The company announced the availability of the accessory Tuesday with a price tag of $79.95.

If you own an iPhone 3G, you know how bad the device's battery life is, especially when you have 3G, GPS, and Wi-Fi turned on. For this reason, extended batteries, such as the original Juice Pack from Mophie are a must. However, this juice pack is rather bulky and doesn't cover the top of the phone. This is where … Read more

Crippled Xbox 360s covered by Microsoft warranty

First, there was the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) epidemic. It struck thousands of early Xbox 360s and led Microsoft to announce in 2007 that it would repair all afflicted consoles free of charge and offer an extended three-year warranty on those machines.

The latest XBox 360 bug? The "E74 error," which has become enough of problem that Microsoft has had to announce that it will repair all consoles affected by it--and extend its three-year warranty to cover any potential E74 problems.

Like the Red Ring of Death, it's not hard to figure out whether you have … Read more

A media center extender with DVD for $95 shipped

Your PC's in one room, and your big, fancy HDTV's in another. How can you bridge the gap between the two? Answer: with a media center extender, which wirelessly pulls music, photos, videos, and more from PC to TV.

Newegg has the Linksys DMA2200 Media Center Extender with DVD for $94.99 with free shipping. These are new units, not refurbs, and they're rebate-free, to boot.

Easy to mistake for a DVD player, the DMA2200 doubles as one. Even better, it upscales your regular old DVDs to 720p, 1080i, and even 1080p. Given that you could easily … Read more

Samsung brings femtocell to Verizon

Samsung announced Monday that it's bringing its femtocell base station to Verizon Wireless. The Verizon Wireless Extender is similar to the Sprint Airave, which Samsung introduced last year. It acts as a miniature cell phone tower by boosting indoor cell phone coverage where the normal Verizon signal may not reach.

The Extender requires a normal power outlet and a home broadband Internet connection. If you're on the phone and you leave the house, your call will switch automatically between the Extender's coverage area and Verizon's standard network. It costs more than most Verizon handsets ($249), but … Read more

Red Hat's new support product demonstrates subscription value

Red Hat has set the standard for world class software support, consistently earning top marks with CIOs for its efforts. On Thursday, however, Red Hat outdid itself, introducing a new product support plan called Extended Update Support. In a nutshell, Extended Update Support enables customers to run their mission-critical systems for longer stretches of time without having to take production systems offline to update them.

From the announcement:

Extended Update Support allows a customer with a large mission-critical deployment to reduce server administration and management costs by standardizing on a single update release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for up … Read more

Return of the $149.99 Xbox 360 Premium

The last time I posted a $149.99 Xbox 360 Premium, it was chock full of gotchas: no headset, pricey shipping, iffy vendor, etc. Well, here's a mostly gotcha-free alternative: TigerDirect has refurbished Xbox 360 Premium systems for $149.99, plus a Web-special $1.99 for shipping.

Because it's a refurb, the warranty expires after 90 days. Also, this is the non-HDMI version of the 360, but look at the bright side: no HDMI cable to buy. (It comes with component-video cables, natch.)

Act fast: I guarantee you these will sell out. That's all I've got; … Read more

Certification credited with boosting online confidence

Extended certificate validation for Web sites has boosted online confidence in 2008, according to a statement released Thursday by the Authentication and Online Trust Alliance (AOTA).

This could help online consumers looking for sites to trust on Cyber Monday, the first shopping Monday after Thanksgiving when online purchases are at their peak.

Sites with Extended Validation Certificates (EV) added to Secure Socket Layers (SSL) encryption display their URLs in a green bar in the address field of compatible browsers. This signals to the user that there is increased scrutiny of the Web site. In Firefox 3, a user clicks the … Read more