Chris Pirillo » discounts

Apple TV Giveaway Winner and Money-Saving Geek Tips

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 08:07:49 +0000

Apple TV Giveaway Winner and Money-Saving Geek Tips

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At the end of March, we announced the giveaway of an Apple TV. Requirements for entry were pretty simple: You had to follow both myself and The Frugal Geek on Twitter, and send out a Tweet of your own. We actually had a LOT of entries, y’all – more than a thousand of them!

There are a lot of things you can do with this gorgeous little device. Turn your television into a photo album. Listen to your music. Watch YouTube videos and listen to podcasts or Internet radio through your home speakers. Watch Netflix movies and television in HD. Rent your favorite shows on the spot – commercial free – for less than a buck per episode. (These are available the day after they air.) And of course, with the Apple TV you have instant access to the hottest new movies… usually the SAME DAY they release to DVD in stores.

Matt and I hooked up on Skype to do this giveaway, and I recorded the conversation using Call Recorder. It’s not a free application, but it does work very well. It’s simple to use: install the app and record and stop buttons will appear in your Skype window. You will have the ability to record video calls with picture-in-picture or split-screen mode! The files are saved as QuickTime movies, but you can convert them to MP3 files quickly. Drag your movie into the “Convert to MP3″ utility within the app and it will automagically convert the file for you. You can then email it to someone or share it via a website.

When Matt came to me with an interest in doing a giveaway, I jumped at the chance. We announced it with a video, and received some amount of negativity from the community. Most of this came from our International audience. They weren’t happy to be left out. We had to explain – repeatedly – that our hands were tied. Giveaways are governed by various country laws, and there’s nothing we can do to change those obviously.

With nearly 1100 entries, Matt’s Twitter account quickly gained hundreds of new followers. My account even received a few new subscribers, which blows my mind. To have this type of positive feedback – and entries for the giveaway – made the negativity worth having to deal with. We want to try to do a monthly giveaway, and are going to work hard to try and accommodate the International folks.

This entire giveaway came about when Matt was visiting his local Fry’s store. He noticed some silly Darth Vader lamps (which I happen to love!) which made him think of me. As he wandered into the next aisle – the Apple product aisle – he remembered how welcoming and accepting our community has been. He’s been blogging full time for a few months now on the Lockergnome Frugal Geek blog, and has submitted a few excellent videos to our YouTube channel. All of his work is full of money-saving tips for geeks… something we can all use.

Matt realized there’s no better way to say thank you than with a sweet piece of hardware. The Apple TV weighs only a half an ounce, but it packs some serious punch. You’ll find a lovely A4 CPU – the same chip that runs your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. There’s a 6-watt power supply and a slew of ports: HDMI2, Audio, Ethernet and Micro USB slot (which Apple says is for service and support).

I was all for this opportunity, since Matt is such an active contributing member of our community. I love that Matt helps people save money – and time. I constantly Tweet out coupons, deals and even links to freebies of all types. Some may accuse me of spam, but I really do enjoy helping people save money. There’s value we provide – beyond the gifts.

Matt collected all of the names – just under 1100 of them – of the people who entered the giveaway. He put that list into the Random Number Generator site and a winner was chosen!

Congratulations to Casey Bryan from North Hollywood, California! You have just won yourself an Apple TV!

Thank you to everyone for participating. Keep your eyes peeled for our next giveaway.

Apple TV Giveaway Winner and Money-Saving Geek Tips

How Do You Save Money When Shopping?

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:17:02 +0000

How Do You Save Money When Shopping?

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Duncan Riley from The Inquisitr came up on stage during Gnomedex to talk to us during our open mic hour. Duncan came all the way from Australia to attend our conference! He wanted to share an excellent site with everyone called RetailMeNot. It is full of thousands of coupons and discounts that anyone can use anywhere in the World. There are no catches, and there are no affiliate fees. Almost all of the coupons and content is submitted by people just like you!

There are coupons available for both online shopping, as well as for use in a traditional store. You can print them out and take them with you on your next trip! You’ll find deals from more than 50,000 retailers, including everything from groceries to shoes to toothpaste (and everything in between). Yes, you will even find deals for a kitchen sink!

You’ll also find a large community that you can immerse yourself in. Trade tips and tricks with other shoppers, or ask them what’s hot – and what’s not.

Thanks to Duncan for sharing this excellent resource with the community!

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How Do You Save Money When Shopping?

Download Center

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:41:32 +0000

Download Center

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Every so often, you may need to download something to make your computer or mobile device run better. There are millions of pieces of software and applications available for every operating system you can think of. To help you find the best deals on software of every type, we’ve created our new Downloads center! Every day, we feature the very best software – including games! – that we can find, at excellent prices!

I’ve been downloading and gathering together software since 1996. I admit it… I’m addicted to software! I always have been. On the downloads center, we even have free software available. If you want to download your favorite software at no cost to you, just choose the program you want, complete a simple offer, and download the full version of your chosen application!

There are several people on our team who are all monitoring this software to the best of their ability. They don’t allow any questionable content to be added and they haven’t let anything with malware in it slip by, either. If you ever come across something on the site you don’t feel is quite “right” in some way, please send me an email. We will look into it faster than immediately.

We post an aggregate every day on Geeks in the blog section. In that post, you’ll find the very newest programs we’ve come across, as well as some really excellent deals. I’m also doing my best to keep Twitter and Facebook updated with the hottest deals.

If you’re not interested in this service, that’s fine. If you are – check it out! I’m all ears, and want to hear your feedback. We can’t make the site better without your help!

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Download Center