Crave

Now that you've gotten yourself a new ride by trading in your clunker, it's time to do the same with your wireless router.

Meraki, the first networking vendor to bring the Wireless-N standard outdoors earlier this year, launched Wednesday its Cash for Wireless LAN Clunkers promotion campaign.

(Credit: Meraki)

The program is for those who want to upgrade their legacy 802.11b/g network (which caps at 54Mbps) to the 802.11n (which caps at 300Mbps) network with a Meraki wireless access point. The promotion includes a $150 credit for each access point traded in for one made by Meraki.

Note that this is only for enterprise-class access points, so your old home wireless router is not qualified. Other conditions to get qualified include a new purchase of one Meraki 802.11n access point per each traded-in access point; also, the old access point must be from the following vendors: Cisco, Aruba, Meru, Motorola, HP/Procurve, Belden/Trapeze, 3Com, Xirrus, Aerohive, Alcatel-Lucent, Ruckus Wireless, Enterasys/Siemens, Extreme, Nortel, Proxim, Bluesocket, or Tropos.

This means, if you've got yourself an old 802.11g wireless access point from Meraki, you will be stuck with it unless you pay the full price for a new one.

Whether this is a good deal, Meraki's Cash for Wireless LAN Clunkers program will definitely not last as long as the government's Cash for Clunkers; it ends September 30. Until then, you can start trading in your old access point or learn more about this program on Meraki's Web site.

If you've got old (working) gadgets to spare, Radio Shack will take them back for store credit.

(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)

Starting this week, Radio Shack will pay you to bring back your old, unwanted electronics to its stores.

The retailer has launched a new in-store trade-in program that it's describing as a way to instantly upgrade to the latest technology.

It works like this: Bring in working phones, cameras, MP3 players, game consoles, video games, or GPS receivers to a store and an employee will appraise the product's value and offer a Radio Shack gift card for that amount. The gift card can be used right away, but proper ID and a current address will be taken to ensure that the person trading in the items is the actual owner.

While stores will not take large items like high-definition televisions, monitors, and notebook PCs, RadioShack.com will.

A Radio Shack representative adds this tip: Bringing in chargers, manuals, and other accessories that originally came with the device being traded in can enhance the appraisal value.

The trade-in program is handled by a third-party company, CExchange, which says that the old electronics it takes are refurbished and resold. The refurbished items are not resold through Radio Shack, according to a representative for the retailer.

The in-store program is an extension of the online trade-in program that Radio Shack has offered since October 2008.

On Thursday, Amazon announced a new program for customers to trade in used video game titles in return for credit at Amazon.com. The program is launching with around 1,500 titles, all of which can be filtered and searched by platform. Once users have picked out the games they own and would like to exchange for credit, Amazon provides a pre-paid label that covers the cost of shipping. Then, after Amazon confirms that the right games were sent (and not scratched to oblivion), it credits the user's account.

As part of its introduction, Amazon is offering those who trade in their games for credit a 10 percent markdown on games or video game accessories in the next two weeks.

What's a really big game-changer here (no pun intended) is that Amazon is, for the most part, offering higher trade-in prices than companies that have been in this business for more than a decade. And, instead of using that cash as in-store credit to buy more games, Amazon's credit can be used on anything else it sells.

Here are some examples of Amazon's pricing on popular titles from various game consoles compared to two of the largest video game retailers (highest trade-in price is highlighted in bold):

These are just a few of the titles I could find prices for across all three companies, but you can see the trend. One thing worth noting is that Game Crazy has a $9.99-a-year "MVP" program that boosts up its prices ever so slightly, and in some cases a little closer to Amazon's offering. However, for comparison's sake, the prices above were taken from non-MVP trade-in rates. Also, Toys R' Us, which has begun a limited rollout of its own games trade-in service, was not included since it's not yet a national program.

Between this and the casual games download service Amazon launched in early February, it's clear the company is trying to get its foot a little deeper into an industry that appears to be recession-proof. Last year, GameStop pulled in close to $2 billion in sales during Q2, which is due in large part to its trade-in business. With people looking to liquidate assets to pay off debt, or come up with spare cash, it could one of this year's big growth industries.

One thing still missing, however, is a storefront for selling used games back to buyers. Presumably Amazon will either be re-selling these to other used retailers, or building in its own stock of used games into its used items sale option.

Update: Corrected mix-up in sales and profits in regard to numbers from GameStop's Q2 earnings last year

Just a day after Apple showed off its new MacBooks, Other World Computing (OWC) announced on Wednesday its 4GB DDR3 memory upgrade kit for the computers.

(Credit: OWC)

The kit includes two matching 2GB modules of PC3-8500 DDR3 memory designed specifically for Apple's new MacBook 13-inch and MacBook Pro 15-inch models. It costs $140 but you'll get a discount for trading in your current Apple standard memory modules.

The company's trade-in program offers $7.50 cash back per GB of old memory, which is a savings, but not such a good deal considering the new kit costs about $35 per GB. Nonetheless, the memory kit comes with a lifetime warranty and a money-back warranty policy.

Other than the upgrade kit, OWC also offers system memory for all previous Core 2 Duo MacBook and MacBook Pro models, including the still offered MacBook "White" 2.1GHz, in a 4GB DDR2 Memory Upgrade Kit, priced at $69.99.

Feel like a sucker for buying an HD DVD player? Well, if you happen to have bought it at Best Buy, you're in line to get a $50 gift card from the retail giant as part of its pity program for HD DVD owners. OK, I'm kidding about the pity program, but the $50 gift certificate is real, and you don't have to give up your HD DVD player to get one.

According the official release, Best Buy is giving $50 gift cards to "Customers who purchased an HD DVD player or HD DVD attachment from its U.S. stores before February 23, 2008." And owners of multiple HD DVD players can receive a gift card for each player or HD DVD attachment they purchased. Best Buy says it plans to distribute more than $10 million in gift cards.

The release goes on to say that, "Best Buy will proactively mail cards to all customers that the company can identify as having purchased an HD DVD player. Members of the Best Buy Reward Zone program, customers who purchased Performance Service Plans (PSPs), or who made their purchase on BestBuy.com should look for their gift cards in the mail by May 1. Other customers who may not be easily identified can call (888) BEST-BUY to receive their gift cards with proof of purchase through a credit card or their Best Buy receipt."

There's another little tidbit in the release that's also worth mentioning. If you just want to get rid of your HD DVD player, Best Buy is opening its Online Trade-In Center on March 21 to HD DVD owners (this deal is open to any HD DVD owner regardless of where you bought your player). "Visitors to the site will receive instant estimates of the value of their HD DVD players and movies," the release says. "Those who agree with the estimates can then ship their goods to the Trade-In Center free of charge by downloading a prepaid shipping label and will receive an additional gift card as payment for their trade-in."

Best Buy isn't the first store to offer relief to HD DVD buyers. Circuit City has apparently been allowing customers who bought players within 90 days of HD DVD officially going belly up to return them for store credit.

As for for those $50 gift cards, you can buy whatever you want with them, but if you're cynical, you're probably thinking what I'm thinking: Perhaps Best Buy is hoping to entice current HD DVD owners to buy up its remaining stock of HD DVD movies, which are already being significantly discounted.

Any HD DVD owners care to comment on what they plan on doing with their $50 gift card?