Traditionalists might balk, but the holiday shopping season is already underway. Skeptical? Head to your local department store and you'll be inundated by Christmas trees and ornaments. Bargain hunters, though, know that the real deals are more than a month away.
Black Friday, traditionally, is when retailers truly slash prices. Early birds can save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars off of their holiday bills. Switched.com checked with a few elves, who gave a sneak peek at what you can expect deal-wise this year.
Blu-ray Players and Movies: Blu-ray is shaping up to be the biggest door buster of this year's Black Friday. de Grandpre expects at least one retailer will offer a Blu-ray player for just $49. Look for bargains on Blu-ray films as well, with last year's hit titles (such as "Iron Man") to fall as low as $5.
Laptops: With the proliferation of Netbooks this year, it's never been easier to find affordable portable computing, but Dan de Grandpre, CEO of DealNews.com says it will get even cheaper on Black Friday. Look for well-equipped Netbooks to sell for $199 – and basic 15" laptops to go for as little as $249.
HDTVs (Pretty big): The holidays are typically the best time to buy a new TV – and Black Friday is the time to do it. If you're looking for a normal sized set, you're in luck. Piper Jaffrey analyst Mitch Kaiser says he expects to see 32-inch LCD sets for as low as $299. GottaDeal.com is estimating 37-inch plasma and LCD sets will fall to $399 or less.
HDTVs (Really big): Need something bigger? How about a 46-47 inch LCD set for $599 – a 25 percent savings? Or a 52-inch LCD for $999? Dealnews says you can expect both. Plasma deals will be a little harder to come by, but a 50-inch set should run roughly $899.
HD Camcorders: You've wanted to shoot your child's school play in HD for a while, but haven't been able to spring for the pricey camcorder. This might be the year. Low-end, flash-based 720p models could drop as low as $60 (though you won't be able to zoom with those). Expect a high quality 1080p HD camcorder for $349.
GPS: While navigation systems have dramatically expanded their reach this year – even making it onto the iPhone – there's still a market for car-based systems. Dealnews predicts you'll be able to find a no-name entry-level system for $49, while a Garmin or Tom-Tom brand will be as low as $69.
Digital Picture Frames: Showcasing your digital pictures consistently gets cheaper. This year, skip the 7-inch screens and focus on the 8- or 9-inch ones, which should be available on Black Friday for as little as $30.
Monitors: Computer monitors might not be the sexiest of gifts, but they're usually welcomed with open arms – and they'll be cheap this year. Name brand 22-inch LCD models may go for as low as $99, while 24-inch models will drop below $150.
Memory: Don't know anyone who needs a monitor? External hard drives are always popular, since they're an easy way to back-up data. Dealnews expects a 1TB drive to fall as low as $49 this year. Gottadeal is looking for 8GB flash drives to hit $15.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
epathchina said 9:21AM on 1-25-2008
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epathchina said 9:26AM on 1-25-2008
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shay said 3:10AM on 5-06-2008
I always knew all that spyware was a waste of time.
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Andrew Yu-Jen Wang said 8:00PM on 10-09-2008
George W. Bush’s sentence-by-sentence speaking skills are deteriorating. Apparently, this may be due to a mental illness called “presenile dementia.” Bush may or may not be secretly still drinking heavily. Bush lied, and thousands of people died. Bush suffers from narcissism and megalomania. Moreover, Bush has been arrested three times. Bush was arrested for disorderly conduct. Bush was arrested for stealing. Bush was also arrested for a serious crime—driving under the influence of alcohol. Bush unlawfully wiretapped United States citizens. There are reasons to believe that Bush suffers from a learning disability. Bush’s learning disability would explain a lot of things. All in all, Bush is a severely mentally ill individual. Bush is not fit to be the president of the United States.
Bush should be locked up.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
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Boldrini Paolo said 7:43AM on 10-26-2007
Gloster corona e consort. Allevamento canarini
Gloster corona e consort. Sito inerente l'allevamento l'alimentazione, la genetica del canarino.
Reply
Boldrini Paolo said 7:44AM on 10-26-2007
Gloster corona e consort. Allevamento canarini
Gloster corona e consort. Sito inerente l'allevamento l'alimentazione, la genetica del canarino.
http://www.glosters.it
Reply
jimmmy king said 9:19AM on 10-27-2007
IMPEACH TERRORIST BUSH, CHENEY, WHAT WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION? INTERNATIONAL CRIMINALS BUSH, CHENEY COULD GET THE WORLD OFF THE DIRTY CARBON ARAB OIL, AND ON TO CLEAN BURNING ALCOHOL FUELS LIKE THE SAME FUELS INDY 500 RACE CARS TRAVEL ON AT THE EXCESS SPEEDS OF 200 MPH, BUT CRIMINALS BUSH, CHENEY RATHER WASTE AMERICAN LIVES AND HISS AWAY A TRILLION DOLLAR FOR THEIR GREED. IMPEACH TRAITOR BUSH, CHENEY FOR A BETTER WORLD AND DUMP REPUBLICONS.
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christen said 10:34AM on 10-26-2007
always use deleting/shredding programs..
http://www.xtremegadgets.net
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monser perez said 8:54PM on 10-28-2007
Jimmy King you are such an idiot....
Muy muy idiota....................
Monser
Isabela, PR
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willowreed said 9:56PM on 10-28-2007
jimmy king..you truly are an idiot..
wils concurs.
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susan said 10:59PM on 10-28-2007
NSA Likely Reading Windows Software In Your Computer
by Sherwood Ross | Oct 17 2007 |
Sooner or later, a country that spies on its neighbors will turn on its own people, violating their privacy, stealing their liberties.
President Bush's grab for unchecked eavesdropping powers is the culmination of what the National Security Agency(NSA) has spent forty years doing unto others.
And if you're upset by the idea of NSA tapping your phone, be advised NSA likely can also read your Windows software to access your computer.
European investigative reporter Duncan Campbell claimed NSA had arranged with Microsoft to insert special "keys" in Windows software starting with versions from 95-OSR2 onwards.
And the intelligence arm of the French Defense Ministry also asserted NSA helped to install secret programs in Microsoft software. According to France's Strategic Affairs Delegation report, "it would seem that the creation of Microsoft was largely supported, not least financially, by NSA, and that IBM was made to accept the (Microsoft) MS-DOS operating system by the same administration." That report was published in 1999.
The French reported a "strong suspicion of a lack of security fed by insistent rumours about the existence of spy programmes on Microsoft, and by the presence of NSA personnel in Bill Gates' development teams." It noted the Pentagon was Microsoft's biggest global client.
In the U.S., Andrew Fernandez, chief computer scientist with Cryptonym, of Morrisville, N.C., found Microsoft developers had failed to remove debugging symbols used to test his software before they released it.
Inside the code Fernandez found labels for two keys, dubbed "KEY" and NSAKEY". Fernandez, though, termed it NSA's "back door" into the world's most widely used operation system. He said this makes it "orders of magnitude easier for the US government to access your computer." Microsoft called the report "completely false."
Apparently, agenices of the military-industrial complex take on a life of their own. NSA, for example, has long engaged in commercial espionage eavesdropping on European businesses to benefit U.S. firms, according to William Blum, author of "Rogue State"(Common Courage Press).
NSA achieves this through ECHELON("E") -- an intelligence cartel dominated by the U.S. with Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada as junior partners. Launched in the 1970s to monitor Cold War data, "E" morphed into "a network of massive, highly automated interception stations covering the globe," Blum said.
Using "E", NSA has spied on German and French businesses which, as a result, have come off second best against their American competitors. Among companies targeted were Thomson S.A., of Paris, Airbus Industrie of Blagnac Cedex, France, and the German wind generator-manufacturer Enercon. "We know this technology("E") is there and it is being used on us," Josef Tarkowski, former head of counter-espionage for the German government told The London Sunday Times Internet Edition.
"Like a mammoth vacuum cleaner in the sky," Blum documents, NSA's continuously orbiting satellites "sucks it all up:home phone, office phone, cellular phone, email, fax, telex∑satellite transmissions, fiber-optic communications traffic, microwave links∑voice, text, images." These are then processed by high-powered computers at Ft. Meade, Md., NSA headquarters.
Billions of messages are sucked up daily, Blum writes, including those by presidents, prime ministers, the UN Secretary-General, the pope, the Queen of England, transnational corporation executives, and foreign embassies. It's been estimated "E" sifts through 99.9999 percent of all global communications to get at the 0.0001 percent that is of interest to it.
Each of the English-speaking partners, Blum asserts, "is breaking its own laws, those of other countries, and international law -- the absence of court-issued warrants permitting surveillance of specific individuals is but one example."
"E" works by mining for key words that are extracted by computers and passed along to humans for evaluation.
Some NSA activities came to light during the countdown to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. At the time, the U.S. listened in on the private conversations of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, and on the deliberations about Iraq of all members of the UN Security Council. It also spied on organizations such as Christian Aid and Amnesty International. Earlier, it was said to have spied on U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond(R.-S.C.)
Less well known has been E's spying on foreign firms. In 1998, German wind generator-maker Enercon developed a cheaper way to generate electricity from wind power, but its U.S. rival, Kenetech, said it had patented a near-identical process, and got a court order to ban Enercon sales in the U.S., reporter Blum writes. NSA's role was exposed when one of its employees revealed he had stolen Enercon's secrets by tapping telephone and computer links between its research and production units.
Again, NSA, with CIA aid, Blum and other sources say, obtained covert information from French Airbus Industrie that enabled its U.S. rivals Boeing and McDonnell Douglas to win a $1 billion contract. "The same agencies also eavesdropped on Japanese representatives during negotiations with the U.S. in 1995 over auto parts trade," Blum added.
The Sunday Times also reported Thomas-CSF, a French electronics maker, lost a $1.4 billion deal to supply Brazil with radar because the U.S. intercepted details of the negotiations and passed them to Raytheon, the U.S. firm that makes the Patriot missile. Raytheon won the contract.
"E" is headquartered on British soil on a 560-acre base at Menwith Hill, in North Yorkshire, the largest listening post in the world, taken over by NSA in 1966. As well, the U.S. operates an enormous radar and communications complex at Bad Aibling, near Munich, that is also an NSA intercept station, and a dozen signals intelligence bases in Japan.
NSA also read other peoples' mail by inking a secret agreement with Crypto AG, a Swiss maker of encryption technology, to rig their machines before sale so that when foreign governments used the random encryption key the enciphered message would be clandestinely transmitted to NSA.
The result: when Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia and more than 100 other countries sent messages to their embassies, trade offices, and armed forces around the world via telex, fax, and radio, NSA spooks could read them. NSA, by the way, employs some 30,000 workers and, if it were a private corporation, would rank among the top 50 on the "Fortune 500." It's budget, of course, is secret but it's a bet NSA is cheerfully gobbling up umpteen billions of your tax dollars every year. Of course, other countries today emulate NSA's activities. China, for example, is said to have hacked into British defense and foreign policy secrets and the German weekly Der Spiegel recently reported German computers at the chancellery, and foreign, economic, and research ministries are infected by Chinese espionage programs.
Rather than shutting down or curbing NSA activities, President Bush is expanding NSA's role. Even if a rubber stamp Congress goes along, not everybody approves. The American Bar Association, our largest lawyer group, has denounced Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance program.
"The issue is whether the president can unilaterally conduct secret surveillance, taking into his hands the awesome power to invade privacy," ABA President Michael Greco said.
Greco may be upset because the Bill of Rights declares: "The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
But what did George Washington know compared to George Bush?
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Buppy said 9:58PM on 11-01-2007
I have mt tin foil hat on and Cheney's rays cannot penetrate my mind. Only Hillary can blow bullshit up my skirt. I have blotofoil underware to prevent genocide gas from Obama penetrating my reproductive organs. I shred my thoughts.
Lee Harvey Oswald is alive and has become the secret mayor of Cleveland.
Walk thru the rock& Roll museum backwards and see how Dick Cheney has turned everything around. OMG!
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Vinny said 11:18PM on 11-01-2007
Hi Jimmmy! Go back to eating the dog you're cooking. Foreign Freak!
Hi Susan! If I were you I'd be putting my tin foil hat on right about now. Paranoid freak!
The USA is a great Nation. We have checks and balances that unite our country as we grow. Take a hike to another country if you question the USA and give us some feed back on your experiences. Enjoy the day!
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Rod Gates said 11:39PM on 11-01-2007
For Vinny, AKA 'My-country-right-or-wrong-love-it-or-leave-it'(or: 'I haven't an authentic,original thought in my head!):
The Unknown Citizen
by W. H. Auden
(To JS/07 M 378 [AKA VINNY]
This Marble MonumentIs Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
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Kurt Pilker said 1:17AM on 11-02-2007
For best results, when selling your computer or otherwise disposing of it, take the hard drive out and physically destroy the casing and platters on the inside. Even the best programs that erase the drives and then write garbage over and over on the drive can still leave fragments that can be reconstructed. If selling, give new owners a new drive. Only way to keep your data, YOUR data.
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bill said 1:47AM on 11-02-2007
It is very obvious the Bush/Cheney haters are Democrats with a political agenda. They spout stupid stuff with absolutely no proof. They are still beating the worn out drum about WMD's being a lie. If it was a lie, all the major Democrats and European leaders told the same lie.
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Lee said 2:19AM on 11-02-2007
It's really quite simple. Yes, we're being spied on by our own gov't, this is nothing new.
Don't do anything wrong, and you have nothing to fear.
As far as old hard drives, i'll put this one to the torch after exposing it to an electromagnet, when i'm done with it.
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tod said 3:22AM on 11-02-2007
For those of us immune to the b.s so called security measures on the web we find it laughable @ best that consumers pay millions of dollars for spyware, etc, and etc.... I am a true hacker and probably one of most proficient and prolific there is and for me to do everything from hack your e mail to change your credit (fico) scores is near childs play! There is an old trick used by government agencies to truly obliterate your hard drive: command a function on the computer you are discarding and while its in command drop the tower hard on a solid surface and I assure you this will render the hard drive irrefragably useless forevermore!
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tod said 3:20AM on 11-02-2007
For those of us in the know .... It is an utter waste of millions of dollars annually by consumers to protect their computers..i.e, spyware, virus protection,etc! I am easily one of most prolific and proficient hackers on the planet and for myself and others like me it is laughingly easy to do everything from hack your aol email onto changing your credit (FICO) scores so your playing a futile game period. There is an old trick used by government agencies to truly obliterate your hard drive: Simply command the computer you are discarding to perform a function and while in midst of performing you take the tower and slam on a hard surface (drop it) and this I assure you will render the hard drive irrefragably and forever without hope of discern as to its content. Take it from a pro!
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sassysandy said 3:20AM on 11-02-2007
Bush is protecting your ass you idiot! remember 911?????????? would you rather us fight them here in the states! stupid is forever!
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