The book's main purpose, as illustrated by the excerpt James has kindly permitted us to publish, is to show how education is not about pieces of paper on the walls, but the knowledge you cram inside your own head. His book is a discussion of his mindframe as he embarked on a life of self-education, as he became what he calls a "buccaneer-scholar." Here, in a riveting passage, he manages to swing a gig at the hottest company in the Valley, circa 1987:

In May of 1987, nearing my twenty-first birthday, I was down to my last hundred dollars, and the only marketable skill I had was for [programming video games,] something I could no longer force myself to do.

Then a recruiter called. She'd found a resume I had sent months before. Would I like a job in Silicon Valley?

"I thought the industry had taken a downturn. Aren't there programmers starving in the streets of Sunnyvale?"

No, actually there's lots of work available. Would I like a job at Apple Computer, for instance?

"Sounds wonderful. What kind of work is it?" All feelings of burn-out were instantly replaced by a blazing electric neon YES in my heart.

Apple Computer needs me. Needs me. I am being called to service.

The job was managing a team of testers.

"What do you mean, testers?" I asked the telephone.

The recruiter explained that testers examine a product someone else has created and find problems in it.
"They pay people to do that?" Interesting. I'd always tested my own work. Then again, I'd never worked on a team with more than two other people. In terms of the software industry, I was a crazy-eyed mountain man.

On the way to Apple I bought a copy of The One-Minute Manager. It looked thin enough for rapid learning. I skimmed it as well as I could in the hour before the interview.

Walking into Apple may have been the first time I ever set foot inside an office building. First time seeing cubicles and conference rooms. First time seeing a carnival-sized cart of free hot popcorn parked in a hallway. Imagine working near the smell of melted butter! (Your eyes sting and you come to hate the smell of butter, it turns out.)

I'd been worried about my clothes. I didn't own a suit. But looking around, I fit right in. Everyone was dressed like me.

Two guys in a conference room asked me questions. I answered them and showed the portfolio of games I'd worked on. When they asked me about management, I repeated some of what I'd read in The One-Minute Manager. When they asked me about testing, I said what every programmer says: "I've tested my own stuff." Its not a good answer, but I didn't know that. Neither did they. No one in that room knew much about software testing. There are no university degrees in it. It's one of many new crafts that have emerged along with modern technology.

After the interview, I went outside and walked twice around the building. This is where I belong, I thought. I will rock this place. Please please please hire me.

A couple of days later, they did.

***

I was a nervous man on my first day at Apple. At twenty, I was the youngest manager in the building. In all the gatherings and reorganizations we went through during the four years I worked there, I never met a younger manager. I was younger than many of the interns.

Also, I was a contractor. That meant Apple could fire me without notice or severance. I had little money and no credit.

The worst thing was that nearly everyone around me had a university degree. A good many had graduate degrees.

I had to catch up to the college kids. I brooded on it every day. I came to work with desperate fire in my soul to learn. Learn everything. Learn it now.

As a manager, I supervised five testers, but no one closely supervised me. My boss, Chris, was in meetings most of the time. He needed me to get on with the work as best I could. This meant I could sneak away and read. I spent part of each afternoon in a donut shop across the street from my building, studying without interruption.

Chris was supportive. "You should not just read about software," he suggested. "Try to find solutions to our problems in other disciplines." Maybe Chris was more supportive than he ever knew. I treated that one casual suggestion as permission to spend work time to learn anything. I browsed many of the two hundred or so academic journals that came through the library. Even crazy stuff. I read "Anthropometry of Algerian Women," and "Optimum Handle Height for a Push-Pull Type Manually-Operated Dryland Weeder."

Of course I read every testing book I could find. I discovered software testing standards and studied those, too. I studied most evenings and weekends.

At first I thought I would learn a lot from the other testers. There were more than four hundred of them in my building. But talking to them revealed a startling truth: nobody cared.

The pattern I experienced at Apple would be confirmed almost everywhere I traveled in the computer industry: most people have put themselves on intellectual autopilot. Most don't study on their own initiative, but only when they are forced to do so. Even when they study, they choose to study the obvious and conventional subjects. This has the effect of making them more alike instead of more unique. It's an educational herd mentality.

I talked to coworkers who wanted to further their education, but they typically spoke in terms of getting a new piece of paper, such as a bachelor's degree, a masters, or a PhD. For them, education was about the doors they believed would open because of how they were labeled by institutions, not about making themselves truly better as thinkers. Buccaneers, on the other hand, don't take labels too seriously. A buccaneer studies in the hope of unlocking Great Secrets! Wonder! Mastery! A buccaneer lives for the excitement of deciphering the mysteries of human experience. A buccaneer wants status, too, but only if that status is justly earned and sustained through the quality of his work.

The $13 book is a wonderful read, especially for people who take education into their own hands—or would like too. There are so many brilliant people for whom the structure of school simply doesn't work, and it takes an eloquent geek like James prove to people in similar situations that this isn't their fault, and that they can do something about it. You can check out more on James' website, and you can follow him on Twitter at @jamesmarcusbach. Thanks again, James—and yo ho ho, matey!

Last updated Nov 25th, 2009 but we'll update this list as the new stuff replaces the old and crusty. We read and write reviews so you don't have to!

Smartphones

• The Best Smartphones: We like the iPhone, the Motorola Droid because it runs Android 2.0 operating system, and the Palm Pre for people who have stuck with Sprint. We do not like anything Symbian or Windows Mobile 6.5, for the time being. (But are excited for Windows Mobile 7.)

• Cheapest Android Phones: Droid Eris and HTC Hero.

• The Best Smartphones, By Carrier: We sorted out theses answers on Nov 24th, but this category moves quickly so stay sharp when researching.

• Best Windows Mobile Phone We Wish Didn't Run Windows Mobile 6.5: The HTC HD2

• Best BlackBerry: If you're into phones with exceedingly reliable push email, the Bold 9700 is your phone. (We don't like Blackberry's touchscreen interfaces, so the Storms are no good.)

• Non-Smartphones: You mean dumbphones? No thank you.

Computers

• Netbook: If you must get one of these small, cheap and utterly slow machines, the HP Mini 311 with ion graphics is a good one.

• Netbook for Hackintoshing: Dell Mini 10v (and it must be the v) is the top choice. Here's our guide to making it run OS X.

• Laptop: Our bias for OS X and Windows 7 becomes apparent in our choice of hardware that can run both without hacking. Macbook Pros. (Plus, we like unibody construction.)

• Best Non-Apple Laptops: Dell's Adamo XPS may not be fast but it is "insane," raising the bar on design and quality outside of Cupertino. We also like Thinkpads in general, like the X series and the new multitouch t400s. (It's probably also worth noting that Asus and Toshiba recently came out on top in reliability.)

• Gaming Laptops and Desktops: Our friend Will Smith at Maximum PC likes these two laptops and two desktops. I personally like Xbox.

• All in One: We like the iMac, the HP Touchsmart and although we haven't used it yet, the Sony Vaio L because it can double as a TV even when the PC is off. The PCs here have infrared touchscreens, so they do multitouch, but in a really shoddy way.

• MIDs: We hate MIDs. Always have, always will. Intel said they had the tech to make them; but the world never had the need. It either fits in a backpack and lets you do real work on a real screen and keyboard, or it fits in your pocket. There's no real need for anything inbetween.

• Operating Systems: Windows 7 or Snow Leopard

• Network attached storage: We like the HP Mediasmart series with upnp, iTunes and Time Machine servers among other things. But the Iomega NAS is only a little less fancy and costs half the price.

Audio

• The Best receiver under $1000: We haven't tested one in awhile, but we're going to go out on a limb and say we like Onkyo, Denon, Yamaha and Pioneer gear. While some of our own testing is in progress, we'll go with what our friends at Sound and Vision like: The Onkyo TX-SR706 7.1 receiver with 4HDMI ports and THX certification for $900.

• The Best High-End Portable Media Players: Zune HD and the iPod Touch. We Like the Zune pass system a lot, which allows you to keep 10 songs a month out of your unlimited downloads, even after you stop subscribing. But the iPod Touch's large app library makes it a powerful little computer.

• Best high-capacity media player: iPod classic is pretty much the only one left, since Zune has been discontinued and Archos is a mess.

• Flash Media Drives: We've always loved the screenless shuffle's utility, but there are other drives to be had with more functionality for cheaper. Especially now that the buttonless iPod shuffle is sort of annoying to use. We like the Sandisk Sansa Clip+.

• Surround Soundbar: There's only one series of soundbars that uses cold war submarine tech to bounce soundwaves off your walls for surround, and they're made by Yamaha. I tested the YSP-4000.

• iPod Speaker Dock: JBL OnStage 400p (A winner from last year — I'm almost certain we should be retesting this category)

Video

• Best HDTV under $1000: Panasonic's X1 series plasmas, and four more here.

• Best HDTVs, period: Here.

• 1080p Projectors Under $1000: The Vivitek H1080FD is one we like, although we have not tested many.

• Best Monitors: If your'e a Mac user, the 24-inch Cinema Display has a built in magsafe adapter. The Asus 23-inch VH236H is good deal at about $230, but Samsung and Dell are our solid choices for monitor brands, as well.

• The Best Pocket Projectors: There is no such thing, friend. Wait a generation or 3.

• Blu-ray player: The LG BD390 with WiFi with Netflix and DivX playback is awesome, but we'll never leave out the PS3!

• Media Streamers for People Who Hate iTunes or Love Piracy: The WDTV Live is a good one for people who like it easy, but hackers will probably choose Popcorn Hour, both which did well in our battlemodo. (Stay tuned, cuz that $99 Asus O!Play may soon be the champ.)

Cameras

• Best Entry-Level Video-Capable DSLR: Canon T1i

• Best Midrange DSLR: The Nikon D90 has the same sensor as the D300 at a better price.

• Best Prosumer DSLRs: The Canon 7D is great at shooting video and has great low light performance for an 18MP camera.

• Best Flash Camcorder: The Flip Ultra HD.

• Best Quality Point and Shoot: We like the Canon G11 (which is pretty big, but pretty wonderful.)

• A Camcorder We Like: We haven't tested any in awhile, but we tend to like DSLRs that shoot video or cheap flash camcorders. If you must have a camcorder, our friends at CamcorderInfo liked the Panasonic HDC-TM300 for ~$1000.

• Best Point and Shoot: We like the Canon S90, even though we're sure there are slimmer cameras. This uses the same sensor as the G11 and a faster lens, so it takes great shots for a slim.

• Best Rugged Cameras: The Pentax W80 is the best all around camera because of it's depth and temperature ratings and size. The Lumix has the best picture quality but is a bit of a wimp with low thresholds for dives and temperatures. Canon's the best for water only because of its huge nose. And the outstandingly rugged Olympus has a fatal flaw, which is its terrible video.

• Best Helmet Camera: We love the GoPro Hero HD Wide because it mounts anywhere, is really waterproof and lives in a protected case. Plus, 1080p for $250 bucks.

• Best Slow Motion Pocket Camera: Casio EX FC100

Random Stuff

• The Best iPhone Apps: Here's our monthly list of iPhone Apps, as well as our weekly roundups of the best new releases.

• The Best iPhone GPS Apps: Motion X GPS is our favorite value GPS app, but ALK's CoPilot is another cheap champ. Navigon is still the classiest, but it costs a lot. (We're hoping for free Google Maps with Navigation to come to iPhone.)

• The Best Android Apps: There aren't as many Android apps out, but here are the ones we think are worth checking out.

• Ebook reader: Until we review a Nook, the Kindle 2 is still king.

• USB drive: The Patriot Xporter is fast, but if you have cash to spare, the Corsair Voyager GT is slightly faster and has 128GB of space.

• The Best Video Game Console: Xbox 360

• The Best Video Service: Anything, really, combined with Hulu and Netflix (for free old stuff).

• Best mid-tier office chairs: Herrman Miller Setu and Steelcase Cobi.

• Vacuums: We will always be loyal to Sir James Dyson because he tried to sell bagless vacuum tech to big vacuum corporations and they shut him down motivated by the profitability of bag sales. Then he started his own company. His machines are loud, but you can't argue with their industrial design. Here's his latest handheld and ball vacuum.

• Routers: D-Link Dir685. I know it has a digital picture frame built into it, but it also has a HDD and a bittorrent client. And Jason says it's been more reliable than the top line Linksys he tested it against. I also like the Time Capsule, but haven't yet tested the one with 2x the wireless performance.

• The Best Headphones: For in ear buds, we like the Shure SE110/SE115, Ultimate Ears Metro.fi and Etymotics hf5 won our tests. (The Last updated August 2008, so look for updates to winners.) We like the Klipsch Image S4i earbuds for people who want to use the iPhone's voice control or iPod shuffle's Voiceover function. For Bluetooth stereo headsets, we like the Motorola s305.

• Rechargeable Batteries: Duracell destroyed Energizer, and kept up with the legendary Sanyo Enerloops.

• Mice: For gaming, the Microsoft Sidewinder X8. The Logictech MX1100 for regular mousing. And the Magic Mouse is not amazing, but it's pretty good if you have a Mac—the best mouse Apple has ever made.

• Keyboard: We like the Logitech DiNovo.

Suggestions? Requests for review? Leave em in the comments or email us!

Price

$250 with mixamp needed to combine chatting and surround sound.

Verdict

I still vastly prefer the convenience of Turtle Beach's wireless X41 headset, but I have to admit, the Astro A40 sounds better.
Playing Borderlands, everything from the growls of skaggs to the cadence of machine gun fire sounded richer and rounder on the A40s than my X41s. Maybe the sounds weren't always as distinct, but especially when cranking the volume on each headset, I realized the general listenability—the whole package of sound—was more pleasant with Atro's product, making me long for hearing loss. It's a difference in mid range that, while not absolutely Earth-shattering, will probably be noticeable to most in a side-by-side test.

Both headsets have extremely similar sound localization. And chatting, on both, is an equal joy.

But there's one, huge, horrible, despicable Achilles' heel to the Astro A40s. To connect the headset to an Xbox 360 (or PS3/PC), wires will invade your entire living room because the console needs to plug twice into a mixamp (the big, retro box you see in the lead photo), then the mixamp connects your headphones and controller. That's confusing, I know. Here's the full workflow:

Xbox 360 optical out and USB cord => A40 Mixamp => Headphones/Mic and Xbox 360 controller.
Ultimately, not only are you negotiating four wires for this one headset, but you'll still be tethered close to your console because of one, generally short/inflexible wire: the optical cord from your Xbox to the Mixamp (you can always opt for stereo plugs, but that sort of spoils the fun).

So while I knew the A40s sounded a bit better than my X41s, I couldn't kick back and enjoy the game in the same way. For one long cord or tight quarters PC gaming, I might opt for the A40s. For four cords sprawled across my living room, I'm sticking with the X41s—especially since they're $50+ less.

Maybe you'll feel differently.

Excellent sound

Headphones work with any 3.5mm source, too

Wiring gets obnoxious

Note: Due to the unprecedented price fluctuations seen on TV pricing this week from online retailers, don't be startled if the prices we brazenly quoted here are off—by pennies or by hundreds. The model numbers are there for a reason, so you can check prices yourself when you're ready to cash out.

Panasonic X1 Plasma Series

Plasma HDTVs provide the best picture performance and these 720p Panasonics—shown up top—are the value champs. Plasma screens have a wider viewing angle than any LCD panel, excellent contrast and color fidelity. The X1s include 600Hz refresh for full motion resolution, an SD card reader for digital photos and an anti-reflective screen coating (the shiny one). Available in 42-inch and 50-inch screen sizes. If you're going to set it up at a distance of 9 feet or more, it's almost silly to spend extra for more resolution.

The best deal is the TC-P50X1, a 50 incher selling for $689.98 at Electronics Expo (via Amazon).

Panasonic S1 Plasma Series

The S1s are Panasonic's least expensive 1080p line to feature its energy saving, high contrast, deep black level Neo PDP plasma technology. In addition to the full 1080 line motion resolution and an anti-reflective screen coating (the shiny one), there's an SD card reader. If you're looking for a Full HD 1080p TV with the excellent performance and don't care about features like internet connectivity or THX-certified picture and sound modes (which the step-up G10 line has), these are the HDTVs for you. Available from 42-inch to 65-inch screen sizes.

Under $1,000, your best shot is the TC-P42S1, a 42-inch set now selling for $797.95 at Amazon.

LG LH30 Series

LG's LH30 is the first step-up from the baseline, maintaining a nice low price but delivering surprisingly good picture quality. This model has a wide-viewing-angle IPS LCD panel, dull-finish anti-glare screen coating (better than the shiny anti-reflective coating at cutting down natural-light reflections, but at a slight cost of contrast), pro color-calibration mode and "Picture Wizard." They add 1080p resolution and Smart Energy Savings for low power consumption. Offered in a range from 32 inches to 47 inches.

We were impressed to find the 47-inch 47LH30 locally for $900, and on Amazon for $938.15.

LG LH40 Series

The LH40 line adds 120Hz to plenty of models below $1000. If that's something you value, this is your best bet. Everything else here comes in the LH30 line, too. It's available in screen sizes ranging from 32 inches to 55 inches.

Locally, we spotted a 47-inch 47LH40 for $980, though it was over $1000 on Amazon. The 42-inch 42LH40 may be the best pick: It's currently $823 on Amazon.

Samsung B550 Series

This series represents Samsung's top 60Hz 1080p HDTVs. They provide excellent overall performance without any of the fancy features found on its higher-end models. They incorporate Samsung's Touch of Color bezel and its 6ms response time LCD panel, and are available in 32-inch to 52-inch sizes. Currently, the 46-inch LN46B550 is priced at $999 on Amazon.

For this story, Gary picked out 10 total deals. He is running the other five on HD Guru, so go have a look. If you came across any other good deals lately, let us know in comments, but be ready to defend the quality, not just the super sick price.

Gary Merson is the HD Guru, the industry's leading HDTV journalist. He's been reviewing TVs for well over a decade, and recently wrote a guide to choosing an HDTV.

1. Go to Google.com.
2. Once it loads, enter this code into your web browser's URL address field:

javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com");

There shouldn't be any http://google.com in front of that. Just that code.

3. Hit enter.
4. Reload or open a new Google.com page and you will have access to the new user interface.

It's fast and sweet, although the changes don't affect all the available sections. [Thanks Matt Karolian]

In other words, many of these "deals" really aren't deals at all. Often, Black Friday sale products are priced differently between stores, or they are priced at or above deals you can find elsewhere any day of the week. You might see a particularly juicy deal in a flyer on a big ticket item like an HDTV, only to discover that the store only had a few units to sell. The bottom line is that you need to do your homework, and this is a good place to start.

After digging through a mind-numbing quantity of deals, I came away with a few impressions about how some major retailers do business. Simply put, they are taking advantage of the herd mentality. Losses taken on truly great deals (which are often in limited quantities), are made up by selling high volume products or crap products at or above their normal retail value.

The companies examined here have different angles on Black Friday, though. Amazon always has volatile pricing, so some of its Black Friday prices are already above the current going rates. Besides that, because it shows you its own prices and prices of its third-party vendors during searches, sometimes its own prices look high. Walmart has great prices, but you have to watch out for crappy products. And Sears and Best Buy, well, they just have bad deals—many of the hottest items on their list are available cheaper right now at other retailers.

The way I see it, your odds of scoring a big-time deal at a brick-and-mortar store are slim, and catching the best deal online is often based entirely on timing, maybe even watching the price of a product over an extended period of time. So this year I plan on skipping the crowds (and a potential trampling) on Black Friday in favor of shopping through some online comparison engines, setting up price alerts and doing some price trending analysis to give myself the best chance of scoring real deals.

The following lists feature some of worst deals on hardware offered up by four major retailers. At the bottom is a supplemental list of products you should avoid at all costs.

Best Buy

While Best Buy's offerings during Black Friday are decent, there are an alarming number of instances where they are getting beat on the price—sometimes badly.

• Cellphones: Motorola Droid priced at $199.99 w/contract, available at Dell Mobility for $120.
• Cellphones: Motorola H710 Noise-Canceling Bluetooth Headset priced at $39.99, currently available from Wireless Emporium (via Amazon) for about the same price with shipping.
• Electronics: Bose in-ear headphones priced at $89.99, found on Amazon for $89.95 right now with free shipping.
• Home Theater: Monster HDMI Cable priced at $49.95, see our piece on the Truth About Monster Cable
• Home Theater: Sony 7.1 Channel 770-Watt A/V Receiver priced at $279.99, currently available on Amazon for $262.91
• Home Theater: Samsung Home Theater System priced at $399.99, currently available at Best Buy and Amazon for the same price.
• Televisions: Sony 46" 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV priced at $852.99, but on Black Friday, Walmart will sell it for $798
• Televisions: Sony 40" 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV priced at $662.99; Walmart's Black Friday price is $598
• Televisions: Samsung 42" 720p Plasma HDTV priced at $547.99, only $2 cheaper than current Amazon price with free shipping
• Televisions: Samsung 40" 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV priced at $597.99, only $2 cheaper than current Dell price with free shipping
• Televisions: Samsung 32" 720p LCD HDTV priced at $397.99, only $2 cheaper than current Amazon price with free shipping
• Portable Storage: Sandisk Cruzer 8GB priced at $19.99, available at Office Depot and Office Max for $14.99
• Blu-ray: Samsung BD-P4600 Blu-ray Disc Player priced at $279.99, available online for $278.75 with free shipping
• Blu-ray: Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-ray Disc Player priced at $149.99, currently available from Amazon for the same price with free shipping
• Digital Media Cards: Sandisk 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo priced at $14.99, on Black Friday available from Staples for $12.99
• Digital Media Cards: Sandisk 8GB SD Card priced at $19.99, on Black Friday available from several retailers for $14.99
• Digital Cameras: Nikon Coolpix P90 priced at $299.99, currently available at Adorama (via Amazon) for the same price with free shipping

Walmart

Not surprisingly, Walmart is pretty good about setting the lowest prices. They don't always have the most eye popping offerings, but their deals are solid. Out of their Black Friday electronics lineup, I only found a few questionable (and relatively minor) issues.

• Blu-ray: The hot $78 Magnavox NB500 Blu-ray Disc Player deal is well priced, but keep in mind that this is the same player they have discounted during the holidays for the last couple of years. It's great for entry-level users, but don't expect streaming Netflix or Amazon on demand, or any of the other features found in sub-$200 Blu-ray players.
• Digital Media Cards: Sony 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo priced at $20, available from ABX ProTech (via Amazon) for $13.63 with shipping
• Electronics: Philips 6-foot HDMI cable priced at $19. While that's still a lot cheaper than Monster cable, it's overpriced. You can get cable just as good at Monoprice.com or Amazon for under $4.

Sears

Sears has something of a reputation for bad Black Friday deals, and this year appears to be more of the same. Looking through their offerings, I noticed a significant number of electronics being sold at or above prices that you can find at other retailers on any given week.

• Digital Cameras: Sony DCR-SR47 60GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder priced at $299.99, on Black Friday available at Best Buy for $249.99
• Televisions: Sony 52" LCD HDTV (Model KDL52V5100) priced at $1599.99, available for less than $1400 from several online retailers with free shipping
• Televisions: Sony 46" LCD HDTV (Model KDL46V5100) priced at $1239.99, available for less than $1000 from several online retailers with free shipping
•Televisions: Sony 40" 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV priced at $664.99, on Black Friday available at Walmart for $598
• Televisions: Samsung 55" LED HDTV (Model UN55B6000) priced at $2469.99, currently available at or below that price from several online retailers with free shipping
• Televisions: Samsung 50" Plasma HDTV (Model PN50B530) priced at $899.99, currently available from Crutchfield for the same price with free shipping
• Televisions: Samsung 46" LED HDTV (Model UN46B6000) priced at $1599.99, currently available via ecomelectronics for $1574.95 with free shipping
• Televisions: Samsung 46" 1080P Class LCD HDTV (Model LN46B500) priced at $899.99, on Black Friday available for $848 at Walmart and Best Buy
• MP3 Players: GPX 4GB MP3/4 Player priced at $32.99, available from Kmart for $24.99
• Home Theater: Sony Bravia 5.1 Channel 1000 Watt Integrated Home Theater System DAV-HDX589 priced at $329.99, available at Best Buy for $279.99
• Home Theater: Panasonic Blu-Ray Home Theater System (Model SC-BT200) priced at $399.99, currently available at 6ave (via Amazon) for $376.84 with free shipping
• GPS: Magellan RoadMate 1220 GPS priced at $89.99, on Black Friday available at Kmart for $84.99
• Blu-ray: Sony BDP-S360 Blu-ray Disc Player priced at $149.99, on Black Friday available via Target with a $20 gift card and currently priced at Amazon for $133.89 with shipping
• Blu-ray: Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-ray Disc Player priced at $149.99, currently available from Amazon for the same price with free shipping
• Digital Media Cards: Sony 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo priced at $12.99, currently $12.82 on Amazon with shipping

Amazon

While I expected Amazon's prices to fluctuate from one minute to the next, I did not expect some of their current prices to be far below the price they planned to offer as part of their Black Friday deal. It's almost like they are using Black Friday fever as an opportunity to jack up the profits on certain items. Both price points are competitive, but it appears that scoring the best deal is more about price trending over an extended period of time than it is about Black Friday. Amazon also has a funny situation with its third-party retailers. You can see in the list below that many partners are already underselling Amazon's Black Friday prices. It's a good issue to have if you're in the market for particular items—provided you trust the third-party retailer.

• Computers: ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-PU1X-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook priced at $349.99, amazingly it is currently available on Amazon for $339.99—so the promoted Black Friday price is $10 higher.
• Computers: Samsung N120-12GW 10.1-Inch White Netbook priced at $363.32, again, Amazon is selling it cheaper right now—only $319
• Computers: Toshiba Satellite T135-S1307 TruBrite 13.3-Inch Ultrathin Black Laptop priced at $699.99, selling on Amazon right now for $599.99
• Electronics: Archos 5 250 GB Internet Media Tablet priced at $259.95, currently selling on Amazon for $229.99
• GPS: DeLorme Earthmate PN-30 Green Handheld GPS priced at $224.37, currently selling on Amazon for $179.99
• GPS: DeLorme Earthmate PN-30 Realtree Handheld GPS priced at $236, currently selling on Amazon for $179.99
• GPS Garmin Nüvi 780 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with MSN Direct Service priced at $179.99, important to note that MSN Direct is shutting down in 2011
• GPS: Magellan RoadMate 1220 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator priced at $96.94, currently available on Amazon for $89.99
• GPS: Magellan RoadMate 1440 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator priced at $149, currently available on Amazon $138.91 with shipping
• GPS: Magellan RoadMate 1470 4.7-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator priced at $149, currently available from Electronics Expo (via Amazon) for $139.39 with shipping
• Home Theater: Denon S-32 Internet Radio with Built-in Speakers and 2-Alarm Clock priced at $319, currently available from One Call (via Amazon) for $299
• Television: LG 37LH55 37-Inch 1080p 240Hz LCD HDTV priced at $866.97, currently available from Adorama (via Amazon) for $849.99
• Television: Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P42G10 42-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV priced at $909.69, currently available on Amazon for $897.87 with shipping Update: price jumped overnight to $916.42

The Worst Gadgets of The Year

There are bad deals, and then there are bad products. Except where otherwise noted, the gadgets in the lists above are more or less worth it if you can find the best prices. The stuff below appear under the Worstmodo tag; it's the stuff we don't want to see any of you people buying. We've mentioned a bunch more Don't Buy products our continuing gift guide series, but here are the most egregious offenders of the year.

TwitterPeek: If you are going to make a gadget that only handles Twitter, it had damn sure better provide an experience that outstrips what I could do with just about any ordinary cellphone. By most accounts, the TwitterPeek fails in this regard. If you spend $99 for 6-months or $200 for a lifetime of service on this, you have lost your mind.

Garmin Nuvifone G60 GPS Phone: As our review clearly states, the Garmin Nuvifone G60 should be taken out back and put out of its misery. Besides functioning poorly, it charges you for what other devices can do better, and for free.

Sony PRS-600 Touch Edition Reader: Sony has long been a proponent of the e-ink ebook, but they keep messing it up by overlaying it with a resistive touchscreen. The trouble is glare—even in the gentle light of a reading lamp, you can see your reflection as you try to make out the page. Some reviewers don't mind this for some reason, but we do, and besides, with so many ebook options out there, why settle for a compromised machine? (We haven't reviewed the upcoming Sony PRS-900 Daily Edition, but we have been told that the touchscreen is constructed the same. This is bad news for Sony. Steer clear!)

Windows Mobile 6.5: With the bar being set by the iPhone and Android, and the Palm Pre doing a nice job of keeping up, Microsoft needed to get their act together with Windows Mobile if they really wanted to compete. The 6.5 update doesn't bring anything new to the table outside of some UI tweaks. As we noted in our review, it's a major letdown...and then some.

Panasonic SDR-SW21 Waterproof Camera: Despite a $400 price tag, the SDR-SW21 takes 640x480 SD video and 0.3MP stills, putting it the same league as some of the crappiest cameraphones. It's also billed as being waterproof and rugged, but can only be used at depths above 6-feet. A complete piece of garbage, pure and simple.

CatGenie Litter Box: A litter box that does all the cleaning for you sounds like a cat lover's dream come true—that is until you realize that the CatGenie creates as many problems as it solves. It cleans up well, but it's also an enormous, power sucking money pit. Check out our review for the full details.

Cell-Mate Hands Free Cellphone Holder: How could wearing a Bluetooth headset in public make you look like a bigger idiot? Answer: when the Bluetooth is coming from the phone strapped to your head. The product page doesn't explain where you can actually buy one of these cellphone-holding headsets, but if you come across the Cell-Mate in the wild, just keep on walking.

[Image via Flickr]

Desktop Replacement Notebook: iBuypower M865TU

You want a speedy desktop replacement notebook wrapped in an unassuming, businesslike shell? That's precisely what the iBuypower M865TU delivers, courtesy of an 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo Mobile and a GeForce GTX 260M under the hood. Like the classic mullet, this speed machine lets you work all day then party all night, for a mere $2000. [Review]

Inexpensive Gaming Laptop: Asus G51Vx-RX05

If all you wanna do is have some fun, the G51Vx-RX05 gives you all of the raw gaming performance of the M865TU—it sports the same GeForce GTX 260M GPU—but instead of a spendy 3.0GHz Core 2 Duo, the Asus economizes at 2GHz. While the G51Vx's dual-core is down two cores and about a gigahertz from the iBuypower machine, when it comes to games, the big videocard is all that matters. For a cool grand, you can pick up this laptop exclusively at Best Buy. [Review]

Over-the-Top Crazy-Awesome Desktop: Velocity Micro Gamer's Edge DualX

What do you get when you put a Core i7 CPU overclocked beyond 4GHz, three GeForce GTX 285 GPUs in tri-SLI, four lightning-fast Intel solid-state drives running in RAID 0, and a shiny new copy of Windows 7 Ultimate in one case? Enough computing power to make your Xbox 360 piss itself and run screaming for mommy. This machine doesn't just demolish benchmarks, it rapes and pillages them, leaving nothing behind but a smoking crater and a host of lesser machines. The downside? It costs $9000. [Review]

"Cheap" Crazy-Awesome Desktop: Falcon Northwest Talon

From one of the original boutique PC manufacturer's comes the Talon. Packing 90% of the raw performance of Velocity Micro's $9000 wonder for a mere $4000, the Talon's watchwords are "extreme" and "efficiency." With a new Lynnfield Core i5 CPU and a pair of ATI's hot-off-the-presses Radeon 5970, this rig uses all four GPUs and all four CPU cores to deliver kick ass performance. [Review]

Will Smith is the Editor-in-Chief of Maximum PC, not the famous actor/rapper. His work has appeared in many publications, including Maximum PC, Wired, Mac|Life, and T3, and on the web at Maximum PC and Ars Technica. He's the author of The Maximum PC Guide to Building a Dream PC.

The Price

$100ish (cheaper at retail)

The Verdict

If you upgrade to the new Xbox 360 Wireless Adapter from the old, 802.11g version, you won't notice any difference while gaming. But media streaming over your home network will see a legitimate speed increase.

For a moment, let's ignore Microsoft's traditionally ridiculous price for their Xbox 360 Wi-Fi adapters. Instead, let's just focus on performance.

Upgrading from 802.11g networking to 802.11n has a few key advantages: range is longer, speeds are faster and, since 802.11n sits on the 5GHz band, you won't interfere as much with 2.4GHz frequencies used by 802.11g and basically everything else in existence.

But there's one big thing that stops 802.11n from being any better than 802.11g for gaming: latency. Overall throughput may be faster on 802.11n (the pipe is bigger), but latency is really no less present than on 802.11g (it takes just as long for that first burst of water to come through). So those quick gaming commands aren't faster on n, and my multiplayer testing (Modern Warfare 2 and Borderlands...it was a real chore) confirmed it. Then again, I didn't really notice any lag over my 802.11g adapter to begin with.

Media streaming, however, is where those big throughputs pay off. Using Connect360, I streamed HD episodes of Mad Men from my Mac to the Xbox. I timed from the moment I hit play to to the first frame of video playback. And the difference was noticeable.
Buffering occurred between 2 and 3x faster, which was well beyond my expectations, despite how fast 802.11n is on a spec sheet. Clips went from taking as many as 15 seconds to playing (rounding up) to actually breaking the 5 second barrier. I'd love to have tested 1080P streaming over Live as well, but my DSL is the bottleneck in that scenario.

Yes, the Xbox 360 Wireless Adapter is still profanely expensive. No, if you have an older adapter (or you're just using some other solution), I wouldn't recommend the upgrade (nor do I think Microsoft is even marketing it that way). But it's nice to see a tangible improvement all the same.

Streams intra network media between 2 and 3x faster

Tiny formfactor still unique to the industry

No perceivable speed increases gaming

It's $100.

Costs half the price of a new 360

It'll set you back a month of dinners at McDonalds

I don't even want to think about what that is in White Castles

If you hate the gallery format, click here.

All pricing shown is with a new 2-year contract, and some deals may be temporary.

AT&T

iPhone 3GS
The iPhone 3GS is the best overall smartphone you can buy. It's really that simple. Best user interface, best internet, best apps, best media support—the list goes on. Okay, not the best network, but nothing's perfect. $199

BlackBerry Bold 9700
I miss the original BlackBerry Bold's king-sized keyboard, but the Bold 9700 squeezes the best of the BlackBerry for CEOs into an impressively tight form factor—faux leather back included—making it very possibly the best BlackBerry you can buy. $10

Bonus: Nokia e71x
It's free, and an actually good smartphone—my favorite Nokia phone on the planet. Free

Verizon

Droid
It's a terminator. A huge, disgustingly high-res screen, Batman-worthy industrial design, and the full power of Android 2.0 make it the best phone on Verizon—and the fact that it's running on arguably the best network in the US make it the second best smartphone you can buy, period. $150

BlackBerry Tour
Sure, it's notorious for trackball problems and it's missing Wi-Fi, but this is the BlackBerry of choice for email warriors if they're not on AT&T or T-Mobile—and it sure as hell beats anything running Windows Mobile. $50

Bonus: Droid Eris
If you're desperate to save $100 over the Droid, the Droid Eris will run Android 2.0 soon enough, and is smoother, smaller, and friendlier, if a little blander. $100

Sprint

Palm Pre
The Pre offers one of the best user experiences of any smartphone with Palm's webOS, and it's probably the best phone on Sprint, hardware build issues and comparatively dinky App Catalog aside. $80

HTC Hero
The best Android phone not running Android 2.0, HTC's Sense UI makes the sometimes confusing Android interface more digestible and has a few nifty tricks of its own, like integrated social networking. $100

Bonus: There is none. The Pixi's close ($25), but the fact that you can get the Pre for nearly as cheap undercuts a lot of the value, as much as we like the design and form factor.

T-Mobile

Motorola Cliq
Motorola's other Android phone is gussied up with Blur, a custom interface that's bright and friendly, with widgets for keeping track of everything happening on your social network. It's our favorite Android phone on T-Mobile. $100

Unlocked iPhone
No, I'm not kidding. A jailbroken and unlocked iPhone, even without 3G powers, is the second best smartphone you can use on T-Mobile.

Bonus: BlackBerry Bold 9700
The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is the first BlackBerry with 3G on T-Mobile, which is reason enough, really, but it's good the reasons listed above, too. $130

First Place
"Smoke Signal was taken with an Olympus sp350 set to night scene. This was taken with a color changing led rave light about six inches long by 1/2 inch wide that I wrapped with electrical tape to create a candy cane stripe. I placed the light on my record turn table at a slow RPM and swiped the camera vertically to create the spinning stripe"
- Brad Bogle

Second Place
"No photoshop! To take this photo, I set up some white paper for a background in a dark room. I laid strawberries on a table and separately stood up a banana with some cardboard and tape. With the lights on, I set up a quick-release tripod properly framing the banana (this makes it much easier later). Now the lights are off. So now I set my camera to bulb and used my built-in pop up flash to shoot straight down on the strawberries, filling the frame. Keeping my finger on the shutter button, I put my camera on the tripod and then hit the pilot button on an external flash. The flash hits the white background behind the banana, silhouetting it briefly. Effectively, this washes out all of the original photo of the strawberries except for where the silhouette is, thereby superimposing the first image into the second. And you get a cool glossy product-shot-reflection-look that results from the shadow drop off of the external-flash (although if you look closely, you'll notice the "reflection" is actually just other strawberries from the initial shot) And now you can have a strawberry-banana! Canon 20D 17-55 IS lens @ f/22 ISO 200 13s (multiple focal length)"
- Jason Yore

Third Place
Nikon D5000; Nikkor 18-200mm VR; Exposure: 36.5 seconds; Aperture : f/5.0; Focal Length: 38mm; ISO: 400; WB: Daylight. I had a friend spin some burning steel wool in an eggbeater attached to a lanyard at the top of the overpass. What you're seeing are the resulting spark trails. More here. [Ed note: the umbrella shots are even more impressive]
- Dan DeChiaro

These placements are almost unfair with so many good shots being in the mix. I wish that I could honorable mention you all. Check the gallery. It's well-worth a waste of 10 minutes.

And I'm not sure that the solution is just a refresh away.

The Mac Pro was once the only viable option for a OS X lover in need of serious horsepower for tasks like editing media. Now, with the new iMac? I think it's straight up stupid to buy a Mac Pro.

The $2,500 Mac Pro, desperately in need of a refresh, gives you a 2.66GHz Quad-Core Xeon (essentially an i7), 3GB of RAM (triple channel, but seriously?), 640GB hard drive (again, seriously?) and a nominal graphics card. Spend $800 more and you'll get a another processor and 3GB more RAM.

The $2200, 27-inch iMac obviously includes a screen, plus you get a 2.8GHz Quad-Core (i7), 1TB drive, 4GB of RAM and a nominal graphics card.

But beyond those clock speeds, the Mac Pro's i7 processor is the more premium Bloomfield edition, while the iMac uses the Lynnfield. (More on those differences here.)

Still, the bottom line is that the iMac's Lynnfield processor is newer, and it shows in performance.

Macworld benched the new iMacs against the latest Mac Pros. And, you know what? The i7 iMac more than held its own. It basically defeated the 4-core Mac Pro across the board.

And other than a few specific tasks in which the most expensive Mac Pro's 8 cores proved beneficial (Handbrake, Cinebench, etc), the iMac outperformed the competition or kept things close enough not to be relevant, plus it straight-up won in the eyes of Speedmark 6.

Performance-wise, the base Mac Pro makes no sense at all. The 8-core Mac Pro offers a touch more power, sometimes, and other times (in many day to day tasks) even it is outgunned.

Of course, any Mac Pro still allows multiple internal hard drives, three PCI slots, more FireWire ports (four vs one) and more room for RAM expansion (32GB vs 16GB). But once again, even in the worlds of professional media creation, that's a pretty questionable upsell, especially with external storage solutions and the fact that most high, high end media pros (like special effects artists) turn to dedicated render farms to do their heavy number crunching anyway.

With the new iMac, Apple has shrunk the Mac-Pro-needing niche even smaller. And I can't tell anyone with a straight face that a handful of expandability is worth $300-$1100 with no monitor, no matter how deep their pockets are.

Apple needs to reexamine their pricing model. Even with an inevitable processor refresh (i9, anyone?), it's time for a price drop and/or some free with purchase displays. Just because you're a pro doesn't mean you're a sucker.

This started when Microsoft and Google paid for access to Twitter's millions of tweets and Bing paid Facebook and Twitter for access to their pages. Think about this perspective, if you ran Fox the WSJ and other major content makers, wouldn't you think that your content is worth more than all those 140 character posts? Right, you would. And if those sites are charging 100s of millions and up, for their content, wouldn't you ask for a lot more? You probably would, and if you're Murdoch, the most powerful man in media, you'd probably get what you want. Pulling out of Google would be just another part of Murdoch setting up his paywall. But it's going to set a nasty precedent for the rest of the short tail of mega media companies to get a lot of Google's cash. Maybe a lot of these companies value Google's help in promoting their stuff, but it never hurts to ask for money, especially when media and publishing are super duper hard up on cash these days, in general. I'm not an investor in big media or any tech companies, so its not a problem to me, in that way. But it is a problem to me as a guy who lives and works through search engines.

Microsoft is just being evil again. Now, this isn't typical Microsoft bashing — someone has to fight Google. And in a way, you have to hand it to Microsoft. They're the underdog here fighting a Google that grows in power every day, and their Facebook content deal won't likely be matched by Google any time soon. But this is so typically Bad Microsoft, because they've cleverly short cut the straightforward fight for marketshare by features and gone for a deal-based solution to the problem. Like the PC and OS fight in the 80s they're competing with business tactics instead of quality. (And Bing is great, so I'm not making a complete 1:1 comparison to Windows.) We're sort of left with—instead of a David and Goliath—a Clash of the Titans situation with pieces of rock and lighting falling from the sky and crushing us. Microsoft fails to see/care that the fragmentation that Microsoft is trying to achieve is not only going to hurt Google — it is going to hurt YOU AND ME.

This is the Microsoft we know from the last century, before great underdog products like Xbox and Zune. This is from a company who's CEO recently told us that sales are more important than critical acclaim, preferring profit over better product. And this is a company that gets in its anticompetitive digs when it can: For example, in Internet Explorer, it's really hard to set Google as your default browser, not being listed in the alternative choices to Bing. Yet, in Google Chrome, it's easy to set Bing as the default search.

Again, imagine that half of the top 500 media companies are delisted from Google. And imagine that Google stoops to this strategy and buys out the other half of that 500. Now imagine you have to search for something and now have to type it in twice because who the fuck is going to remember (no one) which search engine covers which content? *

People, I'm telling you, this is bad news. People talk about net neutrality like it's only about the data's prioritization over the pipes. But what good is equivalence in data speed and prioritization if you can't find it in the first place?

*the fix for all this is that we'll use search engine aggregators, which is just another layer of bullshit to sort through.

You don't have to use a smartphone for more than a few weeks to amass a staggering amount of stuff on it, from text messages and phone numbers to personal settings and photo libraries. And as with your laptop or desktop, a significant portion of this stuff is stuff you want to keep, whether you know it or not. And cellphone backup isn't just a matter of keeping copies of data that you consciously archive every day, like contacts, photos and notes—it's about keeping copies of information that you didn't even know you wanted. How many times have you needed to dig through an old text message conversation? Referred back to your received call list to recover a number you didn't save? In a lot of ways, your smartphone is more closely tied to your personal identity than your computer is. So, people: back it up. You'll feel better.

By platform:

iPhone

If you've got an iPhone, there's a good chance you've already sat through—and been annoyed by—its backup routine. iTunes updates your iPhone's backups at every sync, which makes users' lives a bit easier, and guarantees some kind of safetly net by default. But! As with most fully automated systems, iTunes backup is kind of enigmatic. It just sort of... happens, and it's not clear what you're saving, where it's going, and how to keep it truly safe.

What it's doing is performing a full backup equivalent. In other words, instead of just mirroring your entire device as a big image file, it's extracting all the useful bits, so it can restore your iPhone as if it had undergone a full, mirrored backup. This includes, among other things, bookmarks, app settings and data (including in-app purchases, but not the apps themselves), contacts, call history, Mail accounts, SMSes, videos and photos. In other words, pretty much everything. Backups are performed automatically, and restoring to one is a simple matter of plugging in your iPhone, alt-clicking on its icon in iTunes, and selecting "Restore from Backup."

Crucially, this is different from selecting "Restore" in the device summary page: doing that will revert your device to a clean, factory-default image, which will delete all your personal data. Which isn't what we're trying to do here! (In fact, it's the opposite!) If you attempt to do this, you will be prompted to perform a backup, which should be a red flag.

iTunes stores its backups as archived files in semi-cryptic directories, so if you want to pull them out of the closed iTunes system for proper backup, i.e. to an external HDD or online storage solution, you can find them here, as per Apple's useful support page on the subject:

On a Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

On Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

On Windows Vista: \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

To add a backup to iTunes, simply copy it back to its default directory, and it should show up as a restore option, labeled by date, when you're setting up a wiped or recently capital "R" Restored iPhone or iPod Touch.

Android

Google's position Android backup and sync has been translucent, perhaps to a fault: Since it depends so much on web services, it doesn't need to be backed up, right! It's already backed up, in the cloud! We're freakin' Google, y'all! THIS IS THE FUTURE! (Carried to its logical conclusion, this is the Chrome OS ethos. Anyway.) To a certain extend this cloud-focused cheerleading is fine, and can be put to good use. Gmail and Gcal are always safe, and your contacts can be added to your Google account too—should you designate them to be saved as Google contacts, not just SIM or Phone contacts. To do this:

1. Open your Contacts list
2. Press the Menu button
3. Select Import
4. Tick the "Google Contacts" box

But for anyone who wants to back up more than their Google-service-based info, this doesn't really help. For that, you'll need to go third-party. There are lots of backup apps for Android, but most of them are paid, either immediately or after a free trial. I assume just go with the best free(ish) solutions, all of which you can find by searching for their names in the Android Market.

Backup apps on Android are split into two types: the all-in-one apps that sync your data to a single file, and the piecemeal apps. Unfortunately, the AIO apps tend to be paid; doing this for free takes multiple downloads. Download these three apps: SMS Backup and Restore, Call Logs Backup & Restore, and APN Backup & Restore. Each one backs up its respective data to your microSD card (in /sdcard/*appname*BackupRestore/) for easy restoration on another phone. Using these apps is self-explanatory, since there are only three buttons: Backup, Restore and Delete.

Astro File Manager fills a remaining gap: app backup. It's a free file browser at heart, so the backup option is kind of hidden—once in the app, press the menu button, then click "Tools." Select "Application Manager/Backup," and you'll be able to backup your apps to your SD card. To restore, just install this same app on the device, insert the old SD card, navigate to the same "Application Manager/Backup screen" again, and select the "Backed Up Apps" tab. Astro is also a solid file browser, you can can manually move your data—like photos and videos—to a microSD card, where you should probably be storing them by default anyway. [Pic via]

There! Sprite Mechanic does the same in a slightly simpler way, but I'm hearing reports that it's a bit buggy on certain handsets (the Hero variant and Droid, specifically). Still, it's free, so it may be worth a try.

Lastly, if you've got a rooted phone, Backup for Root Users backs up virtually everything, and it's totally free. That catch? You need to have a rooted phone, or else it won't work. Which is either a crying shame, or a great excuse to root your phone.

Palm Pre/Pixi

Where Android's cloud-based not-really-a-backup system doesn't feel remotely complete, the Pre's is actually pretty good: Backup is performed automatically, every day, and linked to your user account. This just covers the basics, though. For example, a list of apps is kept server-side, but the app data itself isn't backed up; browser bookmarks are remembered, but no form data or website passwords. Media isn't backed up at all. Here's the full list. The solution is a bit hackish, but it works fine for most data. From PreCentral, a brief guide on backing up using either Microsoft' Sync Toy for PC, or with slight, obvious modifications, ChronoSync for Mac:

1. Plug in the Pre and select USB Drive.
2. Download SyncToy and install.
3. Click SyncToy on your desktop to run SyncToy for the first time.
4. Click Create New Folder Pair. For the Left Folder, Browse to the Pre's Drive (maybe E: or F:)
5. For the right folder browse to your documents folder and create a new subdirectory such as PreBackup and select it.
6. Choose to Synchronize and name your folder pair something easy to remember like PreBackup.
7. Click Run.

What you're doing here is essentially backing up the Pre's internal storage, bit for bit. Unfortunately, this doesn't back up settings and some application data, so restoring from this image won't ensure that you don't lose some data; just media, ringtones, etc.

Between this, Palm's backup and the natural backup inherent in being tied to online services like Gmail and Flickr, the only notable things not really backed up properly are specific application data and SMS conversations.

Windows Mobile

Microsoft has always offered some kind of backup out of the box, and as of the release of version 6.5, there are multiple options. The core backup utility, of course, is Windows Mobile Device Center, or as it's known in XP, ActiveSync. Pairing your device with these apps is quite simple, and gives shelter to most of the data you could want to back up, including contacts, calendar appointments and media.

In XP, download and install ActiveSync, and when you plug in your phone, start the ActiveSync app, which you should be prompted to open anyway. Set up a pairing relationship, select the data you want to backup, and you're good to go.

In Vista, you'll need to download Windows Mobile Device Center and do the same; in Windows 7, you should be prompted to install Windows Mobile Device Center as soon as you plug in a WinMo handset.

Now, let's assume you're not using a Windows PC, or you don't want to bother with setting up a sync relationship with a computer. You've got two free options, which together back up even more data than ActiveSync, without and external machine.

My Phone, another Microsoft app, is available for free to any Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1 or 6.5 user. It's a misleadingly basic-seeming little app, which backs up nearly everything you store on your phone:

[By default]: contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, photos, videos, text messages, songs, browser favorites and documents between your phone and your My Phone web account.

Restoring from MyPhone is just a matter of logging into your Live account from within the app. You get 200MB of free storage, after which you've got to pay. Still: pretty fantastic, especially if you set it up to do scheduled backups.

If you want to back up your phone's data without a PC or a cloud-based service, there's PIM Backup. This utility feels and looks kind of ancient, but it's great at what it does. And what does it do? Everything:

- backup/restore appointments
- backup/restore call logs
- backup/restore contacts
- backup/restore messages (SMS, Mails, ...) NEW !!!
- backup/restore speed dials
- backup/restore tasks
- backup/restore custom files

Best of all, it stores your backup in a single file, which can be restored on any device using the same app. The procedure is dead-easy: Download the PIM CAB file to your device, install it, open it, check the data you want to back up off the list, and go. To restore, you go through the exact same interface, selecting "Restore" from the app's pulldown menu instead of "Back Up." In the spirit of safety, you may want to back up PIM's backup files on some kind of external storage. PIM lets you designate where you'd like to store its backups: select your microSD card if you have one, after which you can transfer it to any media your want. If not, you may want to transfer your backup to a PC or external storage device. (Unfortunately, the easiest way to do this is probably with ActiveSync or Mobile Device Center, since most WinMo phones don't allow you to browse the root storage in Explorer.)

BlackBerry

RIM has made life easy for BlackBerry users, who can back up their entire devices using BlackBerry Desktop.

First, install the app.

Under "Backup," select "Options," where you can specify encryption and data type parameters (encrypt the data for safety if you want, but make sure to select "Back up all device application data."

Click "Back Up," and select the destination directory for your backup. It's a single file, so it's easy to throw on an external HDD, USB stick or microSD card for safe storage.

That's it! Further instructions, including a detailed restore guide, are available here. [Pic via]

Symbian

Depending on which brand of handset and Symbian shell you're using, your backup options are going to differ. The Ovi Suite will do the trick. It's a full, automated backup suite, but it's PC-only and works exclusively with Nokia phones. Using it is as simple as setting up a sync relationship—just install the suite and plug the Nokia phone in via USB, and follow the wizard prompts—and it'll keep contacts, calendar items and media backed up. [Pic via]

Non-Nokia Symbian users—Samsung folks, listen up—can use a free app called The Symbian Tool. This will actually pull a full image copy from your Symbian phone, meaning that you can restore your phone bit-for-bit to the state it was in at the time of backup. There are also less severe options for basic media backup, or selective sync. More details here.

So, that's it! If you have more tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our How To guides, and your collective troubleshooting efforts have SAVED HUNDREDS OF LIVES, possibly. And if you have any topics you'd like to see covered here, please let me know. Happy backups, folks!

To view as a single page, click here

Voices: There are a few voice modulation apps on the shelves of the App Store, but none has captured Jesus' heart like Voices:

Retro tape recorder and microphone, cute icons, simple touch interface, and sharing via Twitter, Facebook, and email, so you can spook everyone with that infernal Reverse Voice effect. For $1, it's impossible to resist.

Zosh: Signing things over email: a thing that is dumb. Zosh: a thing that makes that process much easier.

Zosh is a $3 app that allows you to sign attached documents on your iPhone. Basically, you forward the emailed document to Zosh from the iPhone's mail app, then you open the Zosh app to sign it (plus you can add a date and stuff).

I especially like this one because it's not just a good way to sign documents on the iPhone, it's a good way to sign documents in general. I mean seriously, who wants to scan their signature, or jitter one out in MS paint? One catch: it only supports PDFs for now, so convert or die.

CatPaint: Negative space, as defined in the eminent McFairlyshire Encyclopedia of Artistic Principles (1904): An area, perimeter or measurable expanse that lacks cats. And one of the first thing they teach to you any good art school is to fill it up, with cats. Facts! Enter CatPaint:

Cats can be added to preexisting photos or cat-scarce shots from the iPhone's camera, and either saved to your camera roll or sent via email. Using it takes a while to get used to: Once you've selected a cat from the app's animal palette and set the slider for size, each tap on the photo instantly splashes a new cat at the point of contact, which can't be edited, save for a temperamental shake-to-delete function.

It is the best thing, this app. A dollar.

Knocking: Live Pic Sharing: Uses server-side galleries to let you view photos in sync with other people, which you can send or flip through by "knocking." Ideal scenario: You're talking to your friend over the phone, you want to show him a gallery of pictures, you tell him to jump onto Knocking, and suddenly you're in control of his viewing experience. It pretty much works like that. Free.

Blower: Real Air: Can you guess what this one does? Really, no? Then you're probably a good candidate for spending money on it. For what it's worth—something?—Blower explores the iPhone's absurd novelty potential in a completely new way. From the reviews, a perfect description: "It feels like an ant blowing on you."

Call of Duty: The control scheme isn't perfect, and the price ($10) is high, but it's tough to argue with a Nazi Zombie shoot 'em up with the Call of Duty name. Protip: switch to the tilt controls, because the overlaid joystick is not good. (They never are!)

Magellan: It's a late entrant into a crowded field, and without extensive testing it's hard to recommend plunking down for Magellan RoadMate's $80 introductory price. That said, for Magellan devotees, which probably exist somewhere, RoadMate is great news.

FunMail: MMSes are a bit of a conundrum. Like, it's great that you can send pictures and sounds and all, but phones—even the iPhone—aren't exactly the best tools for creating media, so you usually end up sending some pretty basic stuff: pictures of puppies, brief voice recordings, hot nudez, etc. FunMail takes whatever you type and converts it into an MMS-able image, generally with some kind of punny adornment. Call someone an ass, and there's a picture of a donkey. Say you want to get coffee, and your recipient gets your message overlaid on a picture of a mug. It's earnestly cheesy and a lot of the images look like clipart, but this isn't always a bad thing. FunMail works over MMS, email or Facebook, and it's free.

Fit or Fugly: Rounding out our cr-appier selections for the week, an app that purports to measure your beauty according to some kind of mathematical equation. It's not a good way to actually tell if someone is attractive, nor is it a particularly well-executed app. It is, however, a good excuse to tell your friends that their faces are asymmetrical, which evokes surprisingly intense responses. Try it! (The face thing, not necessarily the app.)

Google Earth 2.0: You can create and store your own customized maps in the desktop version of Google Maps, and save them to your account—this is great for keeping running routes, sharing driving directions and the like. You can view them in the new version of Google Earth for the iPhone now, which is useful, and also sort of hilarious, since you can't even access them in the official Google Maps app. Sound silly? Welcome to the iPhone, y'all!

Konami Apps: Whooooole bunch good stuff discounted to $1 for a few weeks, including: Field Prowlers, Frogger, Metal Gear Solid Touch, Silent Hill: The Escape, Silent Scope, Krazy Kart Racing, DanceDanceRevolution S, DanceDanceRevolution S+ -Power Pros Touch. Decent stuff to take a look at, with a few gems—especially MGS:T.

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory. Have a great weekend, everybody!

If you have a problem with you TV, like a certain 70-year old Missouri man did with his converter box during the DTV transition, DO NOT get loaded, shoot it and engage in a standoff with the police. [Link]
If you work in a tech-related retail store, DO NOT do what 29 year old Aaron Seiber did and stab yourself so you don't have to go. Making up a phony story about a skinhead attack to the police doesn't help matters either. [Link]
If you have trouble getting up the stairs, escalators are a real lifesaver. However, DO NOT use one like the man in this video.
If your phone dies, DO NOT take it to get fixed and threaten to shoot it in the store with the 9mm concealed in your jacket. There are no cellphones in prison—unless you have a really good hiding place (and there is only one really good hiding place). [Link]
If you have a tall hedge, and no gadget designed to trim it, DO NOT raise your ride-on mower up with a crane to do the job like this lunatic from New Zealand. [Link]
So you have bought a new phone and you are not sure what to do with your old one. Unless is is complete garbage, DO NOT smash it. Get some money for it or donate it to charity. If you want an iPhone to smash, there are cheaper ways to do it. [Link]
If your kid acts up in a Verizon store, DO NOT drag him around on the floor with a leash. Someone with a cameraphone is bound to make a video of the whole incident and share it with the police.
If your internet connection goes down while playing an online game, DO NOT vent your frustrations by grabbing a knife and stabbing the first 15-year old girl that walks down the street near your home. You could wind up in a mental hospital with pending manslaughter charges. [Link]

Panasonic Z1

Panasonic's flagship HDTV is its thinnest 54-inch plasma HDTV ever, with only 1-inch depth. They did it by eliminating a third sheet of glass found in all other plasmas except Pioneer's Kuro, and bonding the anti-reflective coating directly top glass. The Z1 employs SiBEAM's 60GHz 1080p for wireless glitch-free images sent via the included transmitter/media box from up to 30 feet away. The Z1 has THX picture mode and a custom calibration mode, plus nice bonus features including VieraCast Internet connectivity for YouTube and Amazon VOD and an SD card reader for photos. The Z1 delivers amazing performance with full 1080 line motion resolution, accurate HD color, deep black levels and 96Hz for judder free movie viewing.

The sexiest HDTV of 2009, the TC-P54Z1 will set you back $4000.

Update: Many of you have commented that you prefer Panasonic's excellent Viera V10 series, and to Gary's credit, he gave the TV his highest rating, and is including it in his top 10 list, which he'll publish next week. There's nothing wrong with that TV, and if we indicated six here, it would certainly be shown. It has the same NeoPDP panel as the Z1, but it's not the same picture, because it has the third separate piece of glass with anti-reflective coating.

Pioneer Kuro Signature

You know it's been a weird year for TVs when not one but two of our top picks are no longer being manufactured, but are still being sold. Pioneer's sweetest (and last) Kuro line is technically a monitor: There's no tuner or audio. But the Signature models offer the deepest black of any high definition display on the market—without any white-letter-on-black-background halos occasionally seen on LED-based LCD TVs. The Signature models features hand selected parts, 2.5-in. depth, Custom Calibration, 72Hz refresh and control over the internet via its Ethernet connection. The Pioneer uses a single top sheet of glass to minimize internal reflections, with the anti-reflection coating bonded directly to the surface.

The Signature models are available at scattered retailers around the country in the 50-inch size (PRO-101FD) for about $3000 to $3500, and 60-inch size (PRO-141FD) for $4000 to $4800.

Samsung LNB8500

The 8500 series is Samsung flagship LED LCD TV. It feature packed with thin 1.6-inch depth, white LED local dimming backlights for improved uniformity, dual-chip 240 Hz plus a scanning backlight for excellent motion resolution and the best black level of any LED LCD observed to date. The 8500 features four HDMI inputs plus internet connectivity with Flickr, YouTube, weather, news and other widgets. It also has a PV+C input for connection to your computer or HTPC. This is a benchmark LED LCD to judge against every other make and model.

All this performance comes at a price. The LNB8500 series comes in 46-inch (UN46B8500) and 55-inch (UN55B8500) screen sizes, currently on Amazon for $2620 and $4020, respectively.

LG LH90

This LG has all the hot LCD performance features video freaks crave, including white LED dimming backlights for excellent black levels, wide viewing angle LCD IPS panel, accurate color, and 240Hz (120 refresh + scanning backlight) for excellent motion resolution. This LG also has all the tweaks anyone could ask for including ISF CCC mode for calibration, THX certification and LG's "picture wizard" for user set-up without calibration discs or external test signals. The LH90 isn't the thinnest LED LCD, but it more than makes up for it with its price.

The LG LH90 series is available in 42-, 47- and 55-inch screen sizes at street prices that are considerably lower than many competitors' edge lit 120 Hz LED edge lit models. The 42LH90 is online for $1200 to $1500; the 47LH90 sells in the $1700 range; and the 55LH90 goes for $2200 to $2800. In case you couldn't tell, the LH90 series is the value/performance leader of the pack.

Sony XBR8

A comparable model never replaced Sony's 2008 flagship model in 2009. It is the only HDTV available with separate red, green and blue LED backlights (rather than all white), with local dimming for deep black levels. Though slightly thicker than other TVs in its class, the XBR8 has accurate HDTV color, enough brightness for a beach house, a non-glossy anti-glare screen coating (rare for 2009), 120Hz refresh rate and Sony's Bravia Engine 2 signal processing.

You can still find the XBR8s—we spotted the 46-inch KDL-46XBR8 for under $2200 and the 55-inch KDL-55XBR8 for under $4000.

Gary Merson is the HD Guru, the industry's leading HDTV journalist. He's been reviewing TVs for well over a decade, and recently wrote a guide to choosing an HDTV.

Not All Deals Are Created Equal

Check here for a breakdown of the not so great deals to avoid from Best Buy, Sears, Amazon and Walmart.

Recent Changes

Updated November 25 - [Vizio]
Updated November 24 - [Amazon]
Updated November 23 - [WireFly], [HP], [Newegg]
Updated November 20 - [Best Buy], [Staples], [Office Depot], [Office Max], [Dell]
, [Sears], [Target], [Wal-Mart], [K-M]

Table of Contents

Page 1 - Cell Phones, Computers, Digital Cameras, DVD Players, GPS and more
Page 2 - TVs, Video Games, Printers, Software, MP3 Players and more
Page 3 - Movies and TV Shows (DVD and Blu-ray)

Doorbuster items marked with an *

Cell Phones

AT&T Blackberry Bold 9700 (Bold2) - Free for new activations, $29.99 for current [WireFly]
BlackBerry Bold 9700 Phone - $149.99 [Amazon]

AT&T Sony Ericsson W518a - Free w/2 Year Contract * [Best Buy]

HTC Pure Windows Phone (With New AT&T Service Plan) - $0.01 [Amazon]

LG Xenon GR500 Cell Phone (With New AT&T Service Plan) - $0.01 [Amazon]

BoostMobile Motorola Clutch i465 - $59.99 [Best Buy]

DLO Jam Jacket For iPhone - $9.99 [Best Buy]

Jabra BT-2080 Bluetooth Headset - $19.99 [Best Buy]

MiFi 2200 By Novatel Wireless - Free with 2 year contract [Best Buy]

Mobile Broadband Card 598U By Sierra Wireless - Free with 2 year contract [Best Buy]

Motorola S9 HD Stereo Bluetooth Headset - $49.99 [Best Buy]

Net10 Samsung T401G - $39.99 [Best Buy]

Sprint BlackBerry Curve 8330 Smart Phone - Free with 2 year contract [Best Buy]

BlackBerry Tour 9630 Phone (With New Sprint Service Plan) - $49.99 [Amazon]

Sprint Samsung Instinct S30 -Free with 2 year contract [Best Buy]

Sprint Samsung Moment - $79.99 for new activations, $99.99 for current customers [WireFly]
Samsung Moment M900 Phone (With New Sprint Service Plan) - $79.99 [Amazon]

T-Mobile Motorola Renew Phone - $7.99 [Best Buy]

Verizon Wireless DROID - $199.99 with 2 year contract [Best Buy]

Verizon Wireless Motorola Rival - Free for new activations * [Best Buy]

Verizon LG Chocolate Touch - Free with 2 year contract * [Best Buy]

Verizon BlackBerry Storm2 - Free for new activations, $29.99 for current customers [WireFly]
BlackBerry Storm2 9550 Phone (With New Verizon Service Plan) - $149.99 [Amazon]

Virgin Mobile Kyocera X-tc - $49.99 [Best Buy]

Motorola TalkAbout Earbud with Microphone for All Series - $12.05 [Amazon]

Plantronics Discovery 975 Bluetooth Headset - $84.99 [Amazon]

Plantronics Voyager PRO Bluetooth Headset - $70.00 [Amazon]

Computer Accessories


APC 450VA Battery Backup - $19.99 [Staples]

APC 550VA Battery Backup - $24.99 [Office Depot]

All Case Logic Laptop Sleeves - 50% Off [Office Depot]

Altec Lansing VS2621 PC Speakers - $19.99 [Staples]

Any Business Case, Sleeve, or Backpack - 40% Off [Staples]

Antec USB Powered Notebook Cooler - $19.82 [Amazon]

Belkin 6-Outlet Surge Protector w/Left Extension Cord Combo - $5.99 [Staples]

HP Wireless Mouse (Black) - $9.99 [Staples]

Logitech C600 Webcam - $39.99 [Staples]


Logitech QuickCam Pro Webcam - $49.99 [Office Max]

Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 - $75.99 [Amazon]

Logitech Z13 Speaker System - $29.99 [Office Max]


Logitech LX6 Cordless Optical Mouse - $7.99 [Office Depot]


Logitech V220 Optical Wireless Mouse - $9.99 * [Office Max]


Logitech V450 Wireless Laser Notebook Mouse - $14.99 [Staples]

Logitech MX 1100 Cordless Laser Mouse - $49.99 [Amazon]

Logitech G9 Gaming Mouse - $49.99 [HP]

Logitech Illuminated Keyboard - $29.99 [Staples]

Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave Combo - $39.99 [Office Max]
Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave Pro - $59.99 [Amazon]

Logitech Black Cordless Ergonomic Desktop Wave Keyboard/Mouse Combo $46.99 [Newegg]

Microsoft Lifecam VX-5000 Webcam - $9.99 * [Office Max]


Microsoft Mobile 300 Mouse (Pink) - $4.99 * [Office Max]

Microsoft 4000 Wireless Laser Keyboard/Mouse Set - $29.99 * [Staples]

Microsoft Digital Media Keyboard 6000 - $12.99 [Office Depot]

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 USB Keyboard - $19.99 [Dell]

Microsoft VX-3000 LifeCam Webcam - $9.99 [Staples]

Height-Adjustable Mobile Laptop Cart - $17.99 [Office Depot]

Moble IT Retractable USB Hub - $4.99 [Office Depot]

Targus 208-CD/DVD Album - $9.98 [Staples]

Targus Chill Mat Notebook Fan - $9.99 [Staples]

USB Web Cam - $9.99 [Office Depot]

iHome Wired Optical Mouse - $6.99 [Office Depot]

Computers


Acer Aspire One 10.1" Netbook w/ 1GB RAM, 160GB HD, Windows XP - $149.99 * [Office Max]

Acer Aspire One Black Intel Atom N270(1.60GHz) Netbook $189.99 [Newegg]


Acer Netbook 10.1" Netbook w/Intel 1.6GHz Atom Processor N270 - $199.99 [Office Depot]

Acer Aspire 15.6" Widescreen Notebook Computer w/AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core Processor L310, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive - $379.99 [Office Depot]

Acer 17.3" Blue Laptop w/4GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive and Windows 7 Premium (Online Only) - $498.00 [Wal-Mart]

ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-PU1X-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook - $349.99 [Amazon]

Compaq Presario Dual-Core Desktop w/ 3GB RAM, 500GB HD, Windows 7 - $239.99 * [Office Max]

Compaq CQ4010F Desktop Computer w/AMD Sempron LE-1300 Processor, 2GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive - $229.99 [Office Depot]

Compaq Netbook w/Intel Atom Processor, 1GB Memory, 160GB Hard Drive - $179.99 [Best Buy]

Compaq Netbook w/Intel Atom Processor, 1GB Memory, 250GB Hard Drive - $229.99 [Best Buy]

Compaq Presario AMD LE-1300 Desktop w/18.5" Monitor - $329.99 [Office Depot]

Dell 10.1" Inspiron Mini 10V Netbook w/Atom 1.6Ghz Processor N270 - $249.00 [Dell]

Dell 10.1" Netbook w/Intel Atom Processor, 1GB Memory, 160GB Hard Drive - $379.99 [Best Buy]

Dell 14" Inspiron 14 Notebook w/Intel T4300 Processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive - $599.00 [Dell]

Dell 14" Studio XPS 13 Notebook w/Intel P7450 Processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive - $999.00 [Dell]

Dell 15.6" Inspiron 15 Notebook w/Intel T4300 Processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive - $549.00 [Dell]

Dell 15.6" Studio 15 Notebook w/Intel T6600 Processor, 4GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive - $499.00 [Dell]

Dell 15.6" Studio Laptop w/Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 Processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive - $599.98 [Staples]

Dell 16" Studio XPS 16 Notebook w/Intel P7450 Processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive - $999.00 [Dell]

Dell 17" Studio 17 Notebook w/Intel T4300 Processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive - $749.00 [Dell]

Dell 20" Studio XPS 8000 Desktop w/Intel i5-750 CPU, 6GB RAM, 750GB Hard Drive - $899.00 [Dell]

Dell Desktop PC w/AMD Athlon X2 215 Processor, 4GB RAM, 640GB Hard Drive, 20-inch LCD Monitor - $499.98 [Staples]

Dell Inspiron 537s Desktop w/Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 Processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive - $349.00 [Dell]

Dell Inspiron 537s w/Intel E5300 Processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, w/20" LCD Monitor - $499.00 [Dell]

Dell Inspiron w/Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 Processor, 3GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive - $499.00 [Dell]

Dell Studio Desktop w/Intel E7500 Processor, 6GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, w/18.5" LCD Monitor - $699.00 [Dell]

Dell Studio Desktop w/Intel Q8300 Processor, 6GB RAM, 640GB Hard Drive, w/20" LCD Monitor - $749.00 [Dell]

Dell Studio Slim Desktop w/Intel E5400, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, w/18.5" LCD Monitor - $599.00 [Dell]

Free Software w/Purchase of Computer - Free [Office Depot]

HP Notebook Computer G60-508US w/Intel Celeron Processor 900 - $299.99 [Office Depot]

HP Notebook Computer G71-343US With Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T6600 - $449.99 [Office Depot]

10.1" HP Mini 110-1037NR Pink Netbook - $339.95 [Amazon]

10.1" HP Mini 110-1109NR White Netbook (Windows XP) - $199.99 [Amazon]

13.3" HP Pavilion DM3-1030US Silver Laptop - $499.99 [Amazon]
13.3" HP Pavilion dm3z AMD Neo Laptop w/4GB RAM, 320GB HD - $529.99 [HP]

15.6" HP G60-507DX Laptop with Intel Celeron 900 MHz, Windows 7, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD - $197.00 [Best Buy]

HP 15.6" Laptop w/Intel Celeron Processor 900, 3GB RAM, 160GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 - $299.98 * [Staples]

HP 15.6" Notebook w/Intel Processor, 3GB Memory, 250GB Hard Drive (Model # G60-519WM) - $298.00 * [Wal-Mart]

HP 15.6" Laptop w/Intel Pentium Processor T4300, 4GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 - $399.98 * [Staples]

HP 15.6" Notebook w/AMD Turion II Dual Core Processor M500, 6GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 - $599.99 [Best Buy]

HP 15.6" Notebook w/AMD Turion II Dual Core Processor M500, 8GB Memory, 500GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 - $699.99 [Best Buy]

15.6" HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition Laptop w/i7 Processor & HD LED Display - $999.99 [HP]

HP 17" Notebook w/4GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive (Model # G71-329WM) - $398.00 [Wal-Mart]

HP 17.3" Laptop w/Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 Processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive - $599.98 [Staples]

HP Desktop AMD X4 Quad Core, 8GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive w/20" Monitor, HP Deskjet DJ350 Color Printer & Windows 7 Home Premium - $499.97 [Best Buy]

HP Pavilion Desktop P6229PG w/20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - $499.99 [Office Depot]

HP Pavilion Elite e9250t w/Intel i5 Processor, 6GB RAM & 500GB HD - $799.99 [HP]

HP Pavilion p6280t Desktop w/Quad Core Processor, 6GB RAM & 640GB HD - $569.99 [HP]

HP Pavilion All-In-One 19" Desktop w/4GB Memory, 500GB Hard Drive, MS213 AMD - $598.00 [Wal-Mart]

HP Pavilion Desktop w/AMD Processor, 3GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive, w/20" Monitor (Model # P6243w-b) - $398.00 * [Wal-Mart]

HP Pavilion Slimline s5210t Desktop w/Dual Core Processor 640GB HD & 3GB RAM - $349.99 [HP]

HP Pavillion Slimline s5220f Desktop Computer w/Intel Pentium Processor E5300, 4GB RAM, 640GB Hard Drive - $369.99 [Office Depot]

HP Pavillion Slimline Intel E5300 Desktop w/20" Monitor - $519.99 [Office Depot]

Macbook 13.3" Notebook w/2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 Memory, 250GB Hard Drive, w/$150 Gift Card - $999.99 [Best Buy]

10.1" Samsung N110-12PBK Netbook - $326.95 [Amazon]

Sony 15" Laptop w/Intel Dual Core Processor, 4GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 - $399.99 [Best Buy]

Sony 15" Laptop w/Intel Dual Core Processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD, Windows 7, Sony Headphones, Built-In Blu-ray, Blu-ray Movie - $479.97 [Best Buy]

Sony 15.5" Laptop w/Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 Processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive - $649.98 [Staples]

13.3" Toshiba Satellite T135-S1307 TruBrite 13.3-Inch Ultrathin Black Laptop - $699.99 [Amazon]

Toshiba 15.6" Widescreen Notebook w/AMD Turion II Dual-Core Processor M500, 3GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive - $469.99 [Office Depot]

Toshiba 16" Laptop w/Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 3GB DDR3 Memory, 250GB Hard Drive (Model # L505-S5984) - $399.99 [Best Buy]

Toshiba 16" Laptop w/Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 4GB DDR3 Memory, 320GB Hard Drive (Model # L505-S5984) w/Printer and Case - $499.97 [Best Buy]

Toshiba 17" Notebook w/AMD Turion II M500, 3GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive - $499.99 [Office Depot]

Toshiba L505-S5998 T4300 4GB RAM, 320GB HD Notebook - $399.99 [Office Max]

Wacom Intuos3 6x8" Pen Tablet - $199.99 [Amazon]

eMachines 15.6" Notebook w/AMD Processor, 2GB Memory, 160GB Hard Drive (Model # EME627) - $198.00 * [Wal-Mart]

eMachines Desktop w/AMD Athlon Processor, 3GB RAM, 320GB HD, Windows 7, w/18.5" LCD Monitor and HP Deskjet Printer - $299.97 [Best Buy]

iBUYPOWER Gamer Extreme 938i Intel Core i7 860(2.80GHz) Desktop PC - $799.99 with Free Shipping [Newegg]

CyberpowerPC Gamer Ultra 2019 Athlon II X2 245(2.9GHz) - $399.99 with Free Shipping [Newegg

Digital Cameras


Ativa Digital 1080p HD Video Camcorder 4x Optical Zoom - $89.99 [Office Depot]

Canon 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera, EOS Rebel XS - $569.99 [Sears]

Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS 10.0 MP Digital Camera - $149.99 [Best Buy]

Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS 10.0 MP Digital ELPH Camera - $149.99 [Office Depot]

Canon PowerShot A1100 12.1 MP Digital Camera w/4x Optical Zoom, 2.5" LCD (Silver) - $129.99 * [Staples]

Canon PowerShot SD780 IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera - $179.99 [Office Depot]

Canon Powershot SD780 IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera - $179.99 [Sears]

Canon 980IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera - $279.99 [Sears]

Canon Rebelx XS Digital SLR Camera & Canon EF 75-300MM Telephoto Zoom Lens - $669.98 [Sears]

Canon EOS Rebel T1i D-SLR Camera w/18-55mm IS Lens - $699.99 [Best Buy]

Canon Rebel Tli Camera w/55-250mm IS Telephoto Lens and Lowepro D-SLR Bag - $849.97 [Best Buy]

Disney Pix Micro Digital Cameras Designed For Just For Kids - $9.99 * [Sears]

Flip Ultra Camcorder w/2" LCD - $129.99 [Staples]

Free Canon Photo Printer With Purchase Of Any Digital Camera (After Rebate) - $0.00 * [Staples]

Fuji J29 10MP 3X Zoom 2.7" LCD Digital Camera Bundle - $89.99 * [Sears]

Fujifilm FinePix A170 10.2 Megapixel 3x Optical Zoom Digital Camera (Silver) - $59.99 [Dell]

Fujifilm Finepix Z37 Polka Dot 10.0 Megapixel Digital Camera - $119.99 [Best Buy]

Fujifilm Finepix Z37 10.0 Megapixel Digital Camera w/Extra Battery and Case - $149.97 [Best Buy]

GE A1250 12MP Digital Camera - $69.99 * [Sears]

Hi Pro Camera Kits - 50% Off * [Sears]

Insignia 720p HD Camcorder - $69.99 [Best Buy]

Insignia NS-DSC10A 10.0 Megapixel Digital Camera (Pink) - $49.99 * [Best Buy]

Insignia NS-DSC10B 10.0 Megapixel Digital Camera (Blue) - $49.99 * [Best Buy]

Jazz T20 4X Digtal Zoom 1.5" LCD Camcorder - $19.99 * [Sears]

Jazz T55 Camcorder - $49.99 * [Sears]

Kodak EasyShare CD80 Digital Camera Bundle - $79.99 [Office Depot]

Kodak EasyShare C140 Digital Camera With 7" Kodak Digital Photo Frame - $109.99 [Best Buy]

Kodak EasyShare M381 Digital Camera w/Case & Tripod - $169.99 [Office Depot]

Kodak EasyShare Z915 Digital Camera w/Case & Charger - $199.99 [Office Depot]

Kodak M1063 10.3MP Digital Camera - $89.99 [Sears]

Kodak 10.0 MP Digital Camera w/Memory Card And Bag - $79.99 * [Staples]

Kodak CD80 10.2 MP, 3x Zoom Digital Camera 2.4" LCD 2GB Card And Case - $79.99 * [Sears]

Kodak EasyShare C180 10.2 Megapixel 3x Optical Zoom Digital Camera w/Kodak P820 8" Digital Picture Frame - $99.99 [Dell]

Kodak EasyShare C182 12.0 Megapixel Digital Camera - $69.00 [Wal-Mart]

Kodak Z950 12 Megapixel Digital Camera - $149.99 [Office Max]


Nikon L20 10 Megapixel Digital Camera - $79.99 [Office Max]


Olympus X905 10MP Digital Camera - $49.99 * [Office Max]

Nikon COOLPIX L20 Digital Camera - $99.99 * [Sears]

Nikon CoolPix S230 10MP Digital Camera - $139.00 [Wal-Mart]

Nikon Coolpix 12MP S570 Digital Camera - $149.99 [Sears]

Nikon Coolpix S60 10.0 Megapixel Digital Camera (Red) - $179.99 [Best Buy]

Nikon Coolpix S60 10.0 Megapixel Digital Camera w/Extra Battery and Case - $209.97 [Best Buy]

Nikon Coolpix L100 10.0 MegaPixel Digital Camera w/15x Optical Zoom, 3" LCD (Black) - $199.99 * [Staples]

Nikon Coolpix P90 12.1 Megapixel Digital Camera - $299.99 [Best Buy]

Nikon Coolpix P90 12.1 Megapixel Digital Camera w/Extra Battery and Case - $329.97 [Best Buy]

Nikon Coolpix S570 12.0 MegaPixel Digital Camera - $149.99 * [Staples]

Nikon Coolpix S570 12.0 Megapixel Digital Camera - $149.99 [Office Depot]

Nikon D3000 10.0 MegaPixel Digital Camera - $499.99 * [Staples]

Nikon D3000DX 10.2 Megapixel D-SLR Digital Camera w/10-55mm VR Lens - $499.99 [Best Buy]

Nikon D3000DX 10.2 Megapixel D-SLR Digital Camera w/10-55mm and 55-200mm Lens and Bag - $599.97 [Best Buy]

Olympus Stylus FE 4000 12.1 MP Digital Camera - $99.99 [Sears]
Olympus Stylus FE 4000 12.1 MP Digital Camera - $99.99 * [Staples]

Samsung SL40 12.2 MP Digital Camera - $79.99 [Sears]

Samsung C10 SD 1200 Digital Zoom 10X Optical Zoom 2.7" LCD Camcorder - $149.99 * [Sears]

Samsung Compact Full HD Camcorder - $399.99 [Sears]

Sony 4GB Camcorder - $249.99 [Sears]

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC S930 10.0 Megapixel Digital Camera - $79.00 [Wal-Mart]

Sony Cyber-Shot W180 10.1 MP Digital Camera - $99.99 [Sears]
Sony Cyber-Shot W180 10.1 MP Digital Camera (Black) - $99.99 [Best Buy]
Sony Cyber-Shot W180 10.1 MP Digital Camera w/Flexpod and Camera Case - $119.97 [Best Buy]

Sony Cyber-Shot W220 12.1 MegaPixel Digital Camera w/4x Optical Zoom - $129.99 * [Staples]
Sony Cyber-Shot W220 Digital Camera - $129.99 [Office Depot]

Sony Cyber-Shot W290 Digital Camera w/Case & Charger - $229.99 [Office Depot]

Sony Cyber-Shot H20 10.1 MP Digital Camera - $249.99 [Sears]

Sony DCR-SR47 60GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder - $299.99 [Sears]

Vivitar Digital Camera Bundle - $49.99 [Office Depot]

Digital Media Cards


Olympus 2GB xD Memory Card - $4.99 [Office Max]


PNY 4GB Flash Drive - $9.99 [Best Buy]

PNY 4GB MicroSD HD Memory Card - $9.99 [Best Buy]

PNY 4GB SDHC Memory Card - $9.99 [Best Buy]

SanDisk 2GB SD Card - $5.99 [Sears]

SanDisk 4GB Memory Cards Or Flash Drive - $8.99 * [Sears]


SanDisk 4GB SDHC Card - $4.99 [Office Max]
SanDisk 4GB SDHC Card - $8.00 [Wal-Mart]

SanDisk 4GB Ultra II SDHC Memory Card - $12.99 [Office Depot]

SanDisk 4GB microSD Memory Card - $7.99 [Office Max]

SanDisk 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo - $14.99 [Best Buy]

SanDisk 8GB SDHC Memory Card - $14.99 [Office Depot]
SanDisk 8GB SDHC Card - $14.99 [Sears]
SanDisk 8GB SDHC Card - $19.99 [Best Buy]
SanDisk 8GB SHDC - $19.99 [Office Max]

SanDisk 8GB Memory Stick PRO Duo Memory Card - $24.99 [Office Depot]

SanDisk 8GB Ultra II CompactFlash Memory Card - $19.99 [Office Depot]

Sony 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo - $12.99 [Sears]

Sony 4GB Memory Stick - $20.00 [Wal-Mart]

DVD Players

Coby 7" Portable DVD Player - $49.99 [Staples]

Curtis DVD Player AR - $17.99 * [Sears]

GPX 8" Portabe DVD Player PD808BU - $79.99 [Sears]

GPX BD707B DVD/CD Boom Box w/7" LCD Display - $99.99 * [Sears]

Insignia Blu-ray Disc Player (Model # NS-BRDVD3) w/Superman Returns or Beetlejuice Bluray - $99.99 [Best Buy]

Memorex 1080P HDMI Upconvert DVD Player - $29.99 [K-M]

Magnavox DVD Player with VCR - $49.99 * [Sears]
Magnavox DVD Player with VCR - $49.99 [K-M]

Magnavox NB500 Blu-ray Disc Player - $78.00 * [Wal-Mart]

Memorex Compact DVD Player With Progressive Scan - $19.99 [Target]

RCA 7" Portable DVD Player - $47.00 [Target]

RCA 7" Dual Screen Portable DVD Player With Car Adapter - $88.00 [Target]

Samsung BD-P1590 Blu Ray Player (Saturday) - $148.00 [Wal-Mart]

Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-Ray Disc Player - $149.99 [Best Buy]
Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-Ray Disc Player- $149.99 [Sears]

Samsung BD-P4600 Blu-Ray Disc Player - $279.99 [Best Buy]

Sony DVD Player DVP-SR200P - $34.99 [Sears]

Sony BDP-S360 Blu-Ray Disc Player - $149.99 [Best Buy]
Sony BDP-S360 Blu-Ray Player with $20 Gift Card - $149.99 [Target]
Sony BDP-S360 Blu-Ray Player - $149.99 [Sears]

Sony BDP-S369 Blu-Ray Player - $148.00 [Wal-Mart]

Sylvania 7" Portable DVD Player - $49.99 * [Sears]
Sylvania 7" Portable DVD Player - $49.99 * [K-M]

Electronics


1.5" Digital Photo Frames - $7.99 [Office Depot]

2GB Pulse Smartpen w/$30 Gift Card - $169.99 [Best Buy]

4-Device Universal Remote - Free After Rebate [Staples]

AT&T DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone System with 4 Handsets - $59.99 [Sears]

AT&T DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone With Digital Answering System - $49.99 * [Staples]

All Philips HDMI Cables With Any TV Purchase - 15% Off [Sears]

Ativa 8" Digital Photo Frame - $49.99 [Office Depot]

Belkin HDTV Starter Kit - $34.99 [K-M]

Bose In-Ear Headphones - $89.99 [Best Buy]

Brother P-Touch PT-1290 Electronic Labeler - $9.99 [Office Depot]

Canon Vixia HD HF20 Camcorder - $499.99 [Best Buy]

Canon Vixia HD HF20 Camcorder w/Extra Li-Ion Battery & 8" HDMI Cable - $599.97 [Best Buy]

Casio Keyboard With Stand And Song Book - $49.99 [Target]

Cobra Radar Detector - $29.99 * [K-M]

Cobra Two Way Radio Pair - $19.99 * [K-M]

Coby 7" Digital Photo Frame - $29.99 * [K-M]
Coby 7" Digital Photo Frame - $29.99 * [Sears]

Coby 8" Digital Photo Frame - $49.99 [Sears]

Coby 7" Portable Digital TV - $99.99 [Staples]

Digital Decor Color LCD Key Chain Holds 48 Pictures - $10.00 * [Target]

Dynex 7" Digital Photo Frame - $29.99 [Best Buy]

Emerson 3-Handset DECT Phone Bundle - $39.99 [K-M]

Emerson Portable Karaoke CP398 System - $29.99 [Sears]

First Act Electronic Drum Set - $35.00 [Target]

GE 6 Foot HDMI Cable - $9.99 * [Target]

GPX 2.1 Channel DVD Home Theater System - $39.99 [K-M]

GPX Portable Karaoke Machine - $39.99 [Best Buy]

HP 8" Digital Picture Frame 512MB Memory - $109.99 [Staples]

HP 10" Digital Picture Frame 512MB Memory - $139.99 [Staples]

Insignia 7" Digital Photo Frame - $44.99 [Best Buy]

Jazz VGA 4X Digital Zoom 1.5 in. LCD Screen Pocket Digital Camcorder - $19.99 [K-M]

Kodak EasyShare P720 7" Digital Frame - $49.99 [Sears]

Logitech Harmony 510 Advanced Universal Remote - $39.99 [Best Buy]

Maxell Noise-Canceling Headphones - $20.00 [Staples]

Memorex 7" Widescreen Portable DVD Player - $29.99 * [Office Max]


Memorex Micro Speaker System for iPod - $11.99 [Office Max]


Memorex Home Audio System For iPod - $49.99 [Target]

Memorex iPod Clock Radio - $25.00 [Staples]

Midland LXT360VP3 2-Way Radios - $24.99 [Staples]

Motorola H390 Bluetooth Headset - $9.99 * [Staples]

Omnitech 12" Digital Picture Frame - $69.99 * [Staples]

Omnitech Bluetooth Speakerphone - $20.00 [Staples]

Omnitech Digital Photo Ornament - $10.00 [Staples]

Omnitech Mini-Speaker - $9.99 [Staples]

Panasonic DECT 6.0 Digital Cordless KX-TG9332T Phone Answering System (After Rebate) - $29.99 [Office Depot]
Panasonic DECT 6.0 Expandable Cordless Phone w/Digital Answering Machine - $49.99 [Staples]
Panasonic DECT 6.0 Expandable Cordless Phone System w/3 Handsets - $59.99 [Best Buy]

Pandigital 9" Digital Photo Frame - $59.99 [Best Buy]

Pandigital 10" Digital Photo Frame - $69.99 * [Sears]

Phillips 4-Device Remote Control - $9.99 [K-M]

Plantronics Explorer Bluetooth Mobile Headset 220 - $14.99 [Office Depot]

Sharp Handheld Calculator - Free After Rebate [Staples]

Skull Candy Ink'd Earbuds - $9.99 [Staples]

SmartPants 8.5" Digital Photo Frame - $49.99 [K-M]

Sony DCR-SR47 Handycam Camcorder - $249.99 [Best Buy]
Sony DCR-SR47 Handycam Camcorder w/Extra Li-Ion Battery & Bag - $299.97 [Best Buy]

Sony DCR-SX40 Handycam Camcorder - $199.99 [Best Buy]
Sony DCR-SX40 Handycam Camcorder w/Extra Li-Ion Battery & 8GB Memory Stick - $259.97 [Best Buy]

Sony E10 Ear Buds Headphones - $4.99 [Sears]
Sony Earbuds - $4.99 [K-M]
Sony Earbuds - $7.99 [Office Depot]

Sony Reader Pocket Edition And Cover With Light Combo - $214.98 [Staples]

Sony Reader Pocket Edition Cover With Light - $54.99 [Staples]

Sony Reader Pocket Edition With 5" Display - $199.99 [Staples]
Sony Reader Pocket Edition w/$30 Gift Card - $199.99 [Best Buy]

Sony Reader Touch Edition With 6" Screen - $299.99 [Staples]

Sony Reader Touch Edition And Cover With Light Combo - $319.98 [Staples]

Sony Studio Monitor Headphones - $9.99 [Best Buy]

Sony Wireless Headphones - $29.99 [Sears]

Sungale 7" Widescreen Digital Photo Frame - $29.99 * [Office Max]

Sungale 7" Digital Picture Frame - $29.99 * [Staples]

Uniden DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone w/5 Handsets & Digital Answering Machine - $59.99 [Staples]

VTech DECT 6.0 Expandable Cordless Phone System LS6215-2 w/2 Handsets - $44.99 [Best Buy]

Verizon 100 Cordless Phone w/ 2 Handsets - $19.99 [Office Max]

iHome Dock - $9.99 [K-M]

iHome PC Accessories - $9.99 [K-M]

iHome Portable Alarm Clock Speaker iPod Dock - $39.99 [Best Buy]

iHome Portable iPod/MP3 Speaker System - $9.99 [Sears]

GPS

Garmin GPS Friction Mount - $14.99 [Best Buy]

Garmin Nuvi 205 GPS - $89.99 * [Sears]
Garmin Nuvi 205 GPS Navigation System - $99.99 * [Best Buy]

Garmin Nuvi 255WT GPS Navigation System - $129.99 [Best Buy]

Garmin Nuvi 1200 GPS Navigation System - $119.99 [Office Depot]

Garmin Nuvi 1300 GPS Navigation System - $149.99 [Office Depot]

Garmin Nuvi 1350T GPS System - $179.00 [Target]

Lowepro Black Neoprene Sleeve - $7.99 [Best Buy]

Magellan RoadMate 1220 GPS - $84.99 * [K-M]
Magellan RoadMate 1220 GPS - $89.99 [Sears]

Magellan SE4 GPS - $89.99 [Best Buy]

Magellan RoadMate 1440 GPS - $119.99 * [Sears]

TomTom ONE 125-SE GPS - $59.00 [Wal-Mart]

TomTom ONE 130 GPS - $79.99 [Sears]
TomTom ONE 130 GPS - $77.99 [Office Depot]
TomTom ONE 130 GPS - $79.99 [K-M]

TomTom XL325 GPS - $89.00 [Wal-Mart]
TomTom XL325S GPS - $99.99 [Sears]
TomTom XL325S GPS - $99.99 [K-M]

TomTom XL 330 GPS Navigation System - $97.99 [Office Depot]
TomTom XL 340S GPS With Case - $97.00 [Target]

TomTom 540S Portable GPS Navigation System - $149.99 [Best Buy]

TomTom GO 630 GPS Navigation System - $169.99 [Office Depot]

TomTom GO 730 Portable GPS Navigation System - $174.99 [Best Buy]

Hard Drives


LG External Slim Portable USB 2.0 DVD Drive - $49.99 [Best Buy]

Seagate FreeAgent Docking Station - $19.99 [Office Max]

Seagate 320GB Expansion External Portable Hard Drive - $59.99 [Office Depot]

Seagate 500GB Portable USB 2.0 Hard Drive - $59.99 [Office Max]

Seagate 640GB FreeAgent Go External Portable Hard Drive - $119.99 [Office Depot]

Seagate 750GB Free Agent Go External Portable Hard Drive - $149.99 [Office Depot]


Seagate 1TB External Hard Drive - $69.99 * eBay [Staples]

Seagate 1TB External Hard Drive - $79.99 [Office Max]

Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive $97.99 [Newegg]

Seagate 1.5TB External Hard Drive - $99.99 [Office Depot]
Seagate 1.5TB External Hard Drive - $139.99 [Staples]

Seagate 2TB FreeAgent External Hard Drive - $179.99 [Office Depot]

Verbatim 1TB External Hard Drive - $79.99 [Office Depot]

Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB Hard Drive - $49.00 [Wal-Mart]

Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB Portable Hard Drive - $69.99 * [Staples]

Western Digital Elements 500GB Portable Hard Drive - $59.98 [Target]

Western Digital 500GB My Passport Elite Portable Hard Drive Titanium - $79.99 [Best Buy]

Western Digital 1TB 3.5" External Hard Drive - $78.00 [Wal-Mart]

Western Digital Elements 1TB Desktop Hard Drive - $59.98 [Target]

Western Digital 1.5TB My Book Home Edition External Hard Drive - $119.99 [Best Buy]

Western Digital WDTV Media Player - $74.99 [Best Buy]

Home Theater

4' Monster Cable 700 Series HDMI Cable - $49.99 [Best Buy]

Ativa Home Theater System 5.1 - $39.99 [Office Depot]

Init Cherry Wood Stand With Mount For TVs Up To 46" - $99.99 [Best Buy]

Init Cherry Wood w/Black Glass Shelves TV Stand - $149.99 [Best Buy]

Klipsch Icon 2-Way Triple 5.25" Floorstanding Speaker - $186.99 [Best Buy]

Klipsch Icon 2-Way Triple 6.5" Floorstanding Speaker - $236.99 [Best Buy]

Samsung 5.1 Channel 1000W Home Theater System With Blu-ray Disc Player - $399.99 [Best Buy]

Sony Bravia DAV-HDX589W 5.1 Channel 1000W Home Theater System - $279.99 [Best Buy]

Sony STR-DH800 7.1 Channel 770-Watt A/V Receiver - $279.99 [Best Buy]

Tilting Wall Mount For 30"-56" Flat-Panel TVs - $99.99 [Best Buy]

YAMAHA 5.1-Channel Digital Home Theater Receiver plus Energy 5CH Home Theater Speaker System $299.99 [Newegg]

Monitors

Acer 20" HD LCD Monitor - $79.99 [Best Buy]

Dell 20" S2009W HD LCD Monitor - $99.99 [Best Buy]

Dell 21.5" S2209W Full HD Widescreen Monitor - $144.00 [Dell]

Compaq Q2159 21.5" Full HD Widescreen LCD Monitor - $169.99 [HP]

Dell 23"SP2309W Full HD Widescreen Monitor w/Webcam - $219.00 [Dell]

More Deals

<]]> http://gizmodo.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5409460&view=rss&microfeed=true The Milipol exhibition in Paris is where all the pros play with the military-industrial complex's hottest toys. I used special commando skills (and a press badge) to infiltrate the premises and show you the world's freshest, most mind-blowing security tech.

To bypass the gallery format, click here. And no, this is not a holiday gift guide.

OSA PB2 "Less-Lethal" Multipurpose Pistol
Ever since I watched Rosa Klebb trying to kill Bond with her shoe-dagger, I considered the Russians the world experts in tiny hideaway weapons. The PB2 is an eeency-weeency little double-barreled "less-lethal" pistol weighing less than 7 ounces, firing anything from rubber bullets to flares to flashbangs. It's also got a safety and integral laser sights, which can be upgraded to near-Scott-Summers strength on order. Just don't practice on some poor country bumpkin like they did here. [OSA]

DrugWipe by Securetec
The DrugWipe is what makes the customs guys all-knowing. It's a tiny drugtest in a pocket. These plastic sticks can test up to four classes of illegal drugs in a single go. According to Securetec's PR guy, your saliva can give you away 12 hours after doing—or even just being near—cocaine, weed, opium, meth or whathaveyou. All the government grunts have to do is wipe your tongue. Won't open your mouth? They can also swipe your sweat and random stuff you're carrying. [Securetec]

Spy Watch
When I approached the director of a small security/protection company to ask about this normal looking watch, he wouldn't tell me a whole lot. What I managed to squeeze out of him is that although it's normal size, it also records audio and video. Near the 2 o'clock mark you can see a tiny lens, activated by buttons on the side. He wasn't the only cagey guy on the show floor—the guys in a nearby booth forbade me from taking pictures of their micro surveillance gear.

Trikke uPT
The Trikke uPT (ultralight personal transporter) was the funnest (and funniest) thing at the entire expo, and that's saying a lot when you're surrounded by a pirateload of guns. It's an idea so simple, the company's European director, the dark-suited Dutchman whizzing around on it, couldn't figure why his potential buyers would spend any money at all on the wayyyy more expensive Segways parked in the next booth. The uPT is a trike tricked out with a 250-watt electric motor and a 22-mile range lithium-ion battery; it weighs just over 37 pounds. And like that blasted Segway, there are plenty of models to choose from. [Trikke]

RiotBot by Technorobot
The RiotBot is billed by its makers as "the first robot for riot control." It uses a PS3-looking remote controller to zip this PepperBall-equipped metal beast at 12 miles/hour into all kinds of riots. The carbine fires at 700 rounds per minute and can be operated for 2 hours. [Technorobot]

MaxFit Gloves
It's usually next to impossible to do precise tasks with gloves on. Most of the time, your hands move around in the gloves, you can't feel what you're holding and you end up feeling as useless as a eunuch in a whorehouse. But the MaxFit workgloves are fanfriggintastic. They were the thinnest, grippiest workgloves I had ever worn. Their try-out test was having me grip an Armor-All lubed PVC tube, then try to twist it out of my hand—it didn't budge. Unfortunately, though the site advertises that it's good for construction, DIYers and "fall yardwork," I couldn't help but wonder what ulterior activities they were promoting it for at a security show. [MaxFit]

Piexon Guardian Angel
The Guardian Angel is a tiny plastic toy that looks like your niece's water pistol, but it's actually a lightweight, disposable two-shot explosive-propelled pepper-spray gun. The cartridges give it way more range than a spray can. Just don't carry it around in Scandinavia or other places where it's banned, or they'll arrest you for it (like they nearly did with me two months ago). By the way, it's interesting to note that the Piexon website names "liberal politics" as a chief reason for needing more protection these days. [Piexon]

Rimmex 288 Prototype Amphibot
The Rimmex 288 is a prototype amphibious robot that can roll straight into water—streams, rivers and lakes mostly, or just very muddy terrain—and then roll right back out again. Its single arm with 6 degrees of freedom can be swapped with whatever you like—from a gun to an x-ray, apparently, depending on your, uh, objectives. [ROV Developpement]

Apoorva Prasad is a freelance writer and photographer based in Paris, France, who recently covered the Milipol 2009 military-police expo for us. He has a thing for holo-scoped assault rifles, and sounds disappointed when admitting he's never been Tased.