Ever find yourself shopping online and see something you like, but you don’t want to pay full price for it? Wish you had a way of knowing as soon as it goes on sale? Enter Savvy Circle. The site loves a bargain just as much as you do and tries to satisfy all you sale-loving, window-shoppers who shop smart.

To use Savvy Circle, you simply add the button to your browser and start shopping on any of the 100+ supported sites. When you see something you like, but don’t want to pay full price for, you click the button and the item is saved in your Shopping List. When the item goes on sale, the site sends you an email notification with a link back to the item so you can buy it. The idea is for you to never miss an online sale for items you’re already interested in.

Overall, Savvy Circle allows you to comparions shop while saving time and money. The service is super easy to use and fairly practical especially considering the current economic environment.

The title of this post was originally going to be “Delicious: A Review from a Late Adopter.” But that was four months ago and only a few days after I started using social bookmarking site Delicious. At the time, I found it useful even if lacking in a few areas.

But it only took a week before I went back to my old bookmarking habits with Firefox. And now I’m more excited about the latest bookmarking features in Firefox 3 (due out later this month) than the next version of Delicious, which is taking its sweet time.

The problem with Delicious (for me, at least) is that it required too much of me as a bookmarking service and didn’t provide me much as a place to find new content. The first problem could be with how I browse the web. I often find myself reading/browsing a dozen or so stories/websites at the same time. For the most part, it’s not a problem to have tons of tabs open in Firefox.

But I often get interrupted in my daily perusing and need to bookmark all the stories I’m half way through or haven’t started reading (the “Bookmark All Tabs” feature in Firefox). Although I’ve found a Firefox plugin that expedites the process of saving sites to Delicious, it’s still one site/story at a time. If I want to save a dozen at a time, I’m obviously going to revert back to Firefox rather than complete twelve separate tasks.

As for using Delicious as a way to discover new content, well, I’ve found it hard to filter out the noise and am generally uninterested in the majority of what the world is bookmarking (apparently).

What about Digg? Even if Delicious came before Digg and is popular in its own right, Digg took the Delicious concept and made it really work as a more social way to find and share new content online. But that was the Digg of what feels like a long time ago (Digg is running on its third major revision while the second version of Digg was arguably the best).

We have covered Digg issues plenty before. The site’s problems are easy to sum up in one sentence: It’s slow, bloated, outdated, gamed, policed, etc. As a result, the front page content is pretty lacking to say the least.

Now on to Reddit. While Reddit has been around for a while, I never took it seriously, always thinking of it as “Digg Light.” But it turns out that it does what Digg does but better and faster. The latest version was released recently and makes it even more accessible to the masses. I could go through all the reasons individually in detail, but I’ll just summarize: fairly interesting content, intuitive interface, and very fast response.

So there you have it. For my needs, I find bookmarking is still best handled by my browser of choice while social news and content discovery is best handled by Reddit. What do you use for bookmarking and content discovery?

While Walt Mossberg is getting buzz for calling Firefox 3 the “best browser for web — for now,” I thought I’d point out my first time paying for something to do with a browser. I purchased the Dictionary Tooltip extension for Firefox 2 for $3.99. And while I’m anxious to give Firefox 3 a try, I’m waiting for the big kick off later this month.

Actually, that was really my only reservation for paying for an extension: whether or not it will work with Firefox 3. As I’ve mentioned before, Firefox 2 is my browser of choice despite the at least weekly lock ups and slow downs due to memory leaks. The reason being that I really like the dozen or so extensions that help streamline my browsing experience in a way not possible with other available browsers.

But the memory leaks and slow downs are frustrating. And losing half my functionality each time I want to upgrade to a new version is even more frustrating (since extensions break version to version). But having said all that, I still found myself willing to pay $3.99 for an extension one month before it might stop working just for how cool and useful it is to me.

In fact, perhaps I’m alone here, but I wouldn’t hesitate in paying $3.99 for every extension I use if it meant a seamless upgrade from version to version of Firefox. Otherwise, I guess it’s true that “you get what you pay for.” And, for now, I’m only willing to pay for really useful extensions insomuch as my ownership appears to be limited to the current version of Firefox.

Anyone else out there willing to pay for extensions?

My last two laptops have both been Dell. I had always loved the fact that I could customize my laptop fairly specifically at the same time as getting a great price. At the time, other companies generally could only offer one of those options: a prepackaged bundle with a good price or customization with a premium.

During that same time, however, Dell was not without its faults. Its computers often weren’t as aesthetically pleasing (more utilitarian and clunky looking than some of its competitors more slick and glossy offerings). And the phone support system was (and still is, to a certain degree) a nightmare of touch tone loops which felt like its sole purpose was to make sure you never spoke to a human.

But those disadvantages never bothered me specifically. My laptops’ boring looks were good enough for me. And I went years at a time without ever needing tech support (though I had plenty of friends with Dells that had serious issues). Bottom line: I need a shopping model that provides me the best price on the exact configuration I specify.

This past month I decided it was time (it’s been almost three years) once again to get a new laptop. So I, of course, started at Dell’s website. But it didn’t take long before I was confused and annoyed. Any of the consumer models with a decent price also has pretty obvious limitations in their customization options (i.e., no option for a dedicated, rather than built-in, video card).

I could, of course, customize to my heart’s content if I were to select the appropriate higher-end model. But then the price seemed especially inflated when the only reason I was looking at the particular model was because it has one or two more features available when compared to a perfectly acceptable lower model.

So that’s when I began exploring alternative brands (including HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, and Acer). And that’s also when I discovered just how well HP has taken the Dell model and made it work better than Dell itself (all while keeping its existing model of selling through retail).

I got exactly what I wanted for a price hundreds of dollars less than the Dell equivalent. I’m sure Dell could offer me a similar competitively priced laptop. But it chose instead to gamble with my loyalty by focusing more on the upsell than on the specific customization I needed.

So for me, at least, HP is the new Dell.

I should note that I’ve kept details intentionally vague because in a matter of weeks hardware configurations will change. What I wanted to capture here is a principle that won’t go out of date as quickly as the hardware used to illustrate it.

[phpbay]HP(s), 10[/phpbay]

                                                    
Buxr is a site that aggregates shopping deals automatically via its own Internet-scouring technology while at the same time incentivizing community members to submit deals they find via daily and monthly competitions.

There are already plenty of deal sites out there (SlickDeals.net, TechBargains.com, and CheapStingyBargains.com being three of the bigger players), but Buxr tries to differentiate itself in a number of ways. For one, the deal listing area looks nicer and is easier to scan/read (it remind me a little of our own Amazon Price Drop Tracker but obviously more broad in focus).

Buxr’s main draw is its method of building a community in a number of ways. To do more than just scan through deals, you need to setup an account. The sign up process is simple enough with your basic three requirements of username, password, and email. As an added bonus, they pass the first test for credibility in that they don’t send your password over email.

Once you’re logged in, you can fully participate. It’s like a social network or Digg-like site that’s focused around deals. You can submit deals, comment on deals, vote on deals (vote them up or down), etc. If a deal you submit is picked as the best for the deal, you get $10. If over a month’s time, you acquire the most points (by submitting good deals and voting actively on deals that turn out to be considered good), you win a free iPhone (current prize, it could change).

All in all, it seems like a fun site. Although, I don’t really know what it takes to make sites like these take off. I’m guessing that first and foremost the deals themselves have to be better than what can be found elsewhere (which is a difficult comparison to make objectively across these sites). But the “social” side is done well and seems like a nice addition.

For more details, check out the FAQ and the separate section which explains the contests and give aways.

Disclosure: The owner of Buxr did contact me and compensate me for reviewing the site. I accept compensation for reviews only with the understanding that I will openly state any such agreement and be as candid as I please in any review.

                                                    
Mozy, the online backup solution I use and have mentioned a couple times, is responding to HP’s Upline debacle in an interesting way. First, some background information:

Two weeks ago, HP released HP Upline, a service similar to Mozy that provides unlimited storage for $59/year. HP also released free accounts of the service, limited to 1GB and one year (Mozy does free too, but their version is 2GBs and has no expiration date). About a week and a half later, the Upline service went down for several days.

Soon after, I received an email from Mozy explaining how they’re trying to win some extra Mozy fans as a result of HP going down. So if you go to Mozy’s site and sign up, you can get 25% off biannual and annual signups (through April 30) with promo code UPLINE. (That’s better than the running deal for TechConsumer readers using promo code TECHCONSUMER to get 10% off an annual subscription or TECHCONSUMER2 to get 10% off a biannual subscription.)

It should be noted, however, that Mozy is getting pressure from more online backup/storage solutions (and let’s not forget the infamous rumor of Google coming out with a “GDrive”). Mozy does one thing, and one thing extremely well: backing up data.

But consumers are starting to look for more features (easy access from anywhere or sharing with friends). I, for one, haven’t played much with other options simply because Mozy does exactly what I need, and I’m not about to disrupt that. But that could change as my needs change. (So here’s hoping Mozy keeps up.)

For more info on what Mozy has to offer compared to other services, see this post.

Slingvine is a free application that allows you to send files over the Internet. For me, it felt like a replacement to email attachments. Here’s how it works:

You download and install the client on your computer. Then you right click on any file or folder in Windows and click on “Sling Selected Items.” This uploads your files or folders to a temporary webpage (url) that you then give out to whoever you want to receive your files.

The nice thing is that you can send any type of file (music, photos, video, etc.), any number of files, and any size of files. And outside of the quick application install, it’s as simple as can be (no configuration, no passwords, and no online accounts).

That’s not to say that I don’t have a couple of suggestions for SlingVine. For one, it’d be nice if the queue (where it shows you what you’ve sent/received) had two separate sections: one for sent and one for received. As it is, all your files (sent or received) or in the same list.

I should also mention that this is peer-to-peer (P2P) technology. If your file or set of files is larger than 50 megabytes, then the source computer needs to stay on in order for others to receive the files being sent.

When I first started using SlingVine, I did run into a snag. But I emailed SlingVine support and received a response (and fix) within an hour on a Sunday. Not that there’s any guaranteed response time, but it definitely made a first impression!

Bottom line: I think SlingVine is useful for particular situations. For me personally, I like the idea of an easy way to send a group of files while preserving file structure (something not possible with email). It’s definitely convenient.

                                                    
After many years in a Windows world, I recently purchased a Mac Pro, and have been very happy with my choice. There were many reasons for this move, but suffice it to say that I think Apple has some great products, and I’m really not impressed with Vista.

So here’s my point: If I were running marketing at Apple, one of my main priorities, if not THE priority, would be to make it as easy as possible for the millions of disgruntled Windows users to migrate to the system that “just works.” As intuitive as Macs and OSX may be, this transition isn’t painless, so I would try to go the extra mile to smooth the way.

One issue I noticed as soon as I took my Mac out of the box was that there was no place to plug in the standard mini-plugs from my great-sounding Klipsch 5.1 speakers. The Mac has an optical audio outlet and a headphone jack. I thought there must be some adapter or other solution to this seemingly simple issue, but after some web searching, I came to the conclusion that the best option would be to add an internal sound card with the appropriate connections. The sound card vendors generally told me they “don’t support the Mac.” This doesn’t mean their products won’t work, just don’t go crying to them if you have problems.

So I called AppleCare, with the simple request: “Do you have a list, or can you just tell me where I can find a list of PCI Express Dolby 5.1 sound cards that will work in my Mac Pro?” The nice lady said no, Apple doesn’t make sound cards and cannot provide information on third-party products. I countered that I was transitioning to a Mac and just needed some help getting my new purchase set up. She was polite but firm, no help whatsoever, that’s our policy.

In the spirit of helping Windows converts make this transition (a BIG priority for Apple) I would think that it would be in Apple’s best interest to either set up their own “transition assistance team,” or at least sponsor a semi-independent web site, blog, or similar to make this move as painless as possible.

Am I missing something here? Is this rocket science? Wake up, Apple, this is where your future market growth is coming from. So here’s my free marketing advice: a relatively small investment, combined with a real committment and perhaps even an innovative marketing hook thrown in for good measure that “We at Apple will do all we can to help make your transition to the Mac as painless as possible.”

*Update* In related news, Apple seems to tweak at least some things after complaints.

                                                    
I read through an article on CNET yesterday that got me fired up about something I’ve had on my mind for the last three years – the unfortunate, yet inevitable, demise of Circuit City.

About three summers ago, I worked there part time as a TV/Home Theater salesperson and strange as it might sound, I absolutely loved it. Obviously I enjoyed being around the latest and greatest consumer electronics products, but I also got a lot of satisfaction from sharing what I knew with my customers and helping them pick out something that really rocked.

But alas, as both you and I can well attest, this level of customer service is not typical fare inside most big-box retailers these days. And the teenagers masquerading as technology experts leave a lot to be desired.

In years past, the stores incentivized their employees to deliver exceptional customer service by offering sizable commissions on sales, which often led to quite comfortable salaries and great employee discounts.

In this era of shrinking profit margins, however, commissions have become a thing of the past (as all Best Buy employees seem conditioned to report), and we are left to our own devices…or to the recommendations of Timmy, the high school junior.

What these retailers seemingly fail to understand, though, is that the one remaining competitive advantage they may yet have – the one key factor of differentiation between themselves and the countless online stores offering the exact same products for less money – IS CUSTOMER SERVICE.

And as a result of their negligence, most people (myself included) are more inclined to visit a big-box store, play around with a product for a while, and then purchase it on Amazon at a significant discount.

My direct challenge to Circuit City, then, is to bring back the days of commissioned sales (at least for specific departments with higher margins like TV/Home Theater) and see if things don’t get a little better.

Because at $4.14 a share, they could hardly get worse.