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.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Guy Kuo said 5:46PM on 12-14-2008
I'm a physician and I'd like to shine an extra light on this subject. There is an important failing of most electronic medical record (EMR) systems that is never written about, but is important to understanding the resistance of medical practitioners to EMRs....
EMR's are normally designed to make records that look great to programmers and IT personnel, but difficult for the actual medical personnel to efficiently interpret. Even worse, the current trend in EMR deployment is to select whatever system is easily integrated with the existing IT systems and give little heed to what is the best EMR for the practitioners. IT drives the selection, not the end users who have to use it on a day to day basis.
Rather than a concise record that emphasizes important details and relationships, one often ends up with an unfiltered database including extraneous fluff that obscures information actually needed to take care of patients. You get lots of data, but it's hard to see the important information.
For instance, when one transfers care of a patient to a recovery room nurse, important things to note such as medical conditions, airway status, consciousness state, and vitals at transfer are buried in amongst numerous automatically generated notes like the gurney wheels were locked. Those much less important "details" get injected into an EMR to meet someone's sense of legal protection coverage and end up outnumbering the actual patient care data. They also get the SAME display prominence as the info that is actually important to the patient care.
It's frustrating when it happens, too onerous to go back and remove the automatic detritis, and outright dangerous when one has trouble finding the buried important medical details when reviewing a poor EMR record to plan an upcoming case.
EMR's are usually written to create an IT database and meet a programmer's idea of what is important to display. A physician's needs of what should be in the EMR are not the what a programmer, IT department, or hospital administrator desire. Sadly, the docs are the ones who have to use the system every day to take care of patients but are the last to have any real influence on what they are made to use. It is bad enough when the non-medical hands on experienced hospital admin and IT departments determine the tools, but a national EMR system is yet another step further separating EMR design and the front line user.
Mind you, I'm very much in favor of EMR's, but they MUST be well implemented for the users. For my part, frustration with a hospital mandated, cumbersome EMR prompted me to create an anesthesia EMR, Tethys that actually is formatted and works the way an anesthesiologist thinks. A good EMR is not just a database table!
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cwnyc said 7:58PM on 12-14-2008
We also have the LOWEST medical error as compared to the private sector, and that is due to our EMRs which has been running quite well for the last 12 years...
Baron said 1:48PM on 12-15-2008
You are working with the wrong vendors/hospitals if you are getting treated like that! ;) In our IS department, the first people we consult with are the people that will actually be using the various system being implemented. They decide what system works best for their needs and we custom tailor the interfaces behind the scenes to make it all work. I'm going to say it here and I'll probably say it again in response to someone else on here, but the EMR (generally an Hl7 or x12 document) is only the data. The front end that you would see should be created or customized to suit you best. The record needs to have all the various bits of data behind it for other applications, but again, it is all about your front end that should be how the data is displayed. So, to paraphrase, the EMR is based on a universal standard (though, Hl7 is said to be the nonstandard standard since there is so much customization that goes on with it, x12 is more rigid) so it should have the same information no matter where it goes or where it comes from. That way, with just a little tweaking, it can be used in hundreds of thousands of already written applications. It comes down to your front end on how that gets displayed.
Guy Kuo said 2:11PM on 12-15-2008
Baron, that would have been wonderful. I envy your institution's approach of placing the user interface first. We got an EMR package selected for its price and ease of integration into the existing hospital IT system (Meditech).
It must be incredible to have an IT department willing to put forth the resources needed to integrate multiple systems instead of insisting on a single vendor "solution."
S ebe said 5:58PM on 12-14-2008
As a fellow physician, I totally concur with the well written post above.
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cwnyc said 7:58PM on 12-14-2008
I am not sure what type of types of EMRs are used in the private sector, but are you guys familiar with the EMRs used at the VA?
It is NOT true that EMRs has to be poorly implemented without the input of all clinicians and administrator... EMRs can be VERY well designed and perform MUCH better than the traditional paper form.
Ours at the VA, the CPRS, is time tested and has been running quite well for the past 12 years... Yes, more than a decade. It was feature in a few TV documentary shows, and ALL of our physicians, surgeons, nursing, social workers, therapists, dietitians, administrator, etc prefer it over old fashioned paper records.
As a matter of fact, many of our physicians have their own private clinics, and they always told us that they wished they had this at their own clinics and that CPRS is national instead of just at the VA.
lynn t said 9:26PM on 12-14-2008
have you ever wondered why emr's are being shoved down physicians throats? platitudes are listed that they will make patients care safer, physicians can communicate better and cost will fall. where will all the data be stored and who will be privy to mining it? every specialtity has specific needs that are not addressed.
who really benefits? politicians, insurance companies, gov't agencies, hospitals, EMR designers, patients, physicians-- why not develope a system right before mandating it's use?
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doctorspace said 9:26PM on 12-14-2008
I have written records for my OB patients and all the nurses in my hospital prefer my records over all the others. They are consise and clear and complete. The original purpose of electronic records was to print volumes on every visit to justify higher insurance reimbursement. I have steadfastly refused them because they are nearly useless and hide vital information in mountains of automatically generated trivia. I abhor them.
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cwnyc said 2:44AM on 12-15-2008
Since there is already one system of EMRs that has been working very well for the last 12 years, why not develop a nation wide system following that particular system, which is our CPRS at the VA?
Form what has been expressed here, it seems that various EMRs used in the private sector are NOT well designed as they seem to cater the need of insurance companies more than the clinicians. However, that is not to say that EMRs are inherently inferior. Furthermore, the original purpose of EMRs was not for printing volumes of records for the insurance companies, but rather the ability to instantaneous review any note, any radiograph studies (not just reports), any lab, any medication lists, AND reduce the risks of mistaking illegible hand written records, with the added benefit of knowing when a specific note was looked at, when it was signed, when an addendum was made and signed, etc, etc.
I encourage anyone who thinks EMRs as inherently cumbersome and offers no added benefits to check out how our system works... A well designed EMRS indeed makes patient care safer, reduce medical errors, decrease possible delay of proper treatments, provide better communication between all clinicians and administrators, and reduce cost in general.
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Baron said 1:53PM on 12-15-2008
I have heard nice things about how the VA system works from the IT side since it is all one product. What I have not heard though is people that have used it on specific applications liking it better than other products. i.e. using it as your cath lab system vs using a system designed specifically for the cath lab. Instead of using a system that is integrated like the VA system, we allow our users to work with many systems on the market for their specific function, let them find the best system, and we make it seamlessly integrate on the back side. You get the best of both worlds like that. I totally understand why a government institution with such far spans as the VA would need to use a system that is so integrated like the one you currently have. I can only imagine the headache that would ensue from changing a piece of such a system if it was setup like we have here.