stationchief

Thanx for all the kind works, folks. As I said before, I really wish I could've had the time to do soo much more but glad I could do what I did thus far. At least now we have this all set for next year.

Not for long.

From one geek to another, I actually like that stripe shirt. I would've thought you'd want to debut the newly developed gottadeal.com t-shirt, but excellent choice for a TV interview nonetheless.

At least you got your few seconds of fame. Very nice!

The 2007 BF desktops chart is up and running, ladies and germs! http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=90413

Thought I'd pop this out there for all to see. I've been meaning to get this out and completed sooner but things have been soo hectic lately. I think I may have just barely finished 'em in time before everyone got in their 24-hour long lines. Sorry it took soo long, folks. So without further ado ... StationChief, and with special thanks to Brad, proudly presents ... The Gottadeal Black Friday 2007 Technology Comparison Charts! For those who don't know, the last few years I've been developing comparison charts for the BF desktops and laptops for the community here at GD. Usually it's been just a table or a document with each item offered along with it's specific details, usually from the official site of the manufacturer, so folks can compare the different specs and decide what they want. This year's a bit different, as you can see. Instead of just a chart to print out, we've got a fully customizable table you can use to select what chart 'ya want and customize it the way you want to see everything. I did it this way for several reasons. One being that I'm getting back into programming and this was a great way to bring myself back up to speed. The more important reason being that I wanna give things back to this great community here at GD. Plus having something published here on GD helps my resume out as well. Here are the instructions: Just select what chart you want to see using the drop-down menu. It defaults to Desktops, however there's also Laptops (to be completed tonite and put up tomorrow morning). That'll bring up the chart with all the glorious details. Now comes the fun part. The table is fully customizable. You can click on a header (like the price or store) and it will sort the table in ascending order. Click on the same header again to sort the other way, descending. Also, you can click anywhere on a specific row/item listing to sort it to the top of the list. For example, bring up the Desktop chart. Now click on Processors to sort the items in ascending order, from the slowest to the fastest PCs. Click it again to sort descending so the faster ones are on top. Let's say you wanna sort all the Best Buy desktops together from fastest to slowest processors now. Click on Store and now all the desktops are sorted together by fastest processors to slowest grouped by the store offering them. Now let's say you wanna see a specific Walmart desktop on top of the list along side a Best Buy one. Click on the row those items are listed and they sort to the top of the list. To print your table you can just print it from the web page, or it'd be easier to hioghlight the table or the section you want then copy/paste it into a text editor like Word or a sreadsheet like Excel. Hope it's not too confusing. Also if you just put your mouse over the table it'll give brief instructions on how to use it. Hope this helps in folks' decision making. And I really hope I'm not too late getting this out for folks waiting in line thursday nite or earlier. Desktops are up and ready and the laptops will be up by tomorrow morning. Lastly, this web page ad the database it uses is intended to be for more than just the desktops/laptops however my time restraints keep me from doing the research for other items like the computer peripferals ( monitors, memory, etc.), HDTVs, cameras, camcorders, MP3 players, and other major items. If anyone has the time to quickly research and gather specific details about a certain category please PM me and let's get 'em into the chart and out to everyone. Enjoy, folks! And happy BF shopping! Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the best part ... as I do with most of my internet-based coding, it's cross-browser compatable! IE tolerates it, works like a charm in Mozilla Firefox, and I believe it's friendly with Netscape Navigator as well. Don't have NN so I wasn't able to test it.

I believe it's the same, just that the 7403 is the printer bundle (see post above). And you can use the PC25300 memory. Empty out the two 256MB sticks and put in your 512MB ones.

Just in case this hasn't been noticed yet, the HP Pavilion a6238x desktop from BB is $679.97, not $697.97 as stated in GD's BB computer sale items list. Just FYI.

That's pretty much it, but the A135-7403 special doorbster is the bundle that includes the Canon PIXMA MP210 (all-in-one photo printer, copier and scanner with ChromaLife100 and dual color gamut technologies). That slight change offers folks something extra, plus prevents price matching hounds and keeps folks from buying the night before. Really a good deal for a basic lite-use laptop. Needs an upgrade in the memory depot, then it'll be a great deal.

Tried to access the GD forums last nite and ... Ha, ha. Someone thinks they're a comedian now. And thanks for the heart attack after I read that first sentence.

The 'OFFICIAL' 2007 BF Comparison Charts are coming folks. They're late, but they're coming. I think y'all will be pleased with 'em this year. Be patient.

We had a lil' chat room for folks to meet up in previous years, but I dunno if it's being brought back for BF this year.

Might have to wait and see about any last minute secret sales far as a new laptop for myself. But I have a bad feeling I alread missed out as the laptop's $348 secret weekend sale has already come and gone. Far as anything in the ad, I might show up after they open and take a nose dive into what's left of their <$5 DVD bins. That's always fun.

Still waiting for WM's ads (knocks on wood) as well as Fry's Electronics for the final tabs on laptops this BF. The specs seem much better this year for pre-$400 laptops but I was kinda hoping for similar specs as previous years with a further drop in prices instead. There's still hope as FE has a rumor of an even cheaper laptop deal than everyone else. We'll c.

Yes it does. If you read up on the forums here you'll see that the more popular areas at the more popular stores (BB, CC, CompUSA, WM) have been known to have people in line as soon as thanksgiving afternoon. And it depends on what'cha want. The <$400 laptops will most likely go to only the first few dozen people in line while other items will still be there the next day. All depends on your region. G'luck!

If the Acer laptop is fairly new there shouldn't be a major problem at all with running any of the Sims games or expansion packs on it. But either way, you can install and run it off of an external hard drive just fine. External USB 2.0 hard drives are basically act just like internal hard drives these days. Just make sure when you install the program make sure you install it to the external drive (J: or whatever it shows up as).

Unless you get a DVD+RW. CONS: It won't write or read nearly as fast as an external hard drive, it's more fragile than an external drive, and you only get about 4GB worth of data srotage compared to hundreds of gigs. PROS: It's much more portable since it's a DVD. On the subject of data storage, there's lots of choices these days, from external hard drives to CD/DVD re-writable discs to flash drives to SD cards. Each one with it's own pros and cons. Choose wisely, people.

So, whaddaya think so far about the so-called BF 2007 'cheap' laptops? I think alot of folks are takin' advantage of other offers and non-BF sales and gtting better laptop bargains early this year. I know that about $400 is still a good deal for the laptops they're all offering, but personally I was hoping for some dirt-cheap, older outta-style laptop for much less than that without major rebates. And what happened with all those <$200-300 rumors? There's still a glimmer of hope as we're waiting for a few more ads, but we'll see. Discuss.

Just a cheap laptop heads-up, people ... CC is notorious for rebates. If you're considering the compaq laptop for $299.99 (model #C717NR) don't forget it's got $150 in mail-in rebates. It's $449.99 out the door. If it's an instant bargain you're lookin for, maybe consider the BB Sony (#VGN-NR110E/S with the smaller 120GB hard drive, not the 120E/S with 160GB) for $399.99. FYI: The model #VGN-NR120E/S on BB online with the bigger hard drive is used for the upgraded one along with the other hardware and software goodies for $499.99.

Wouldn't call it 'dirt cheap', but it's certainly a bargain. The BB stores themselves usually have clearances on display models or out-of-box items, so it's always a goood idea just to stop in and hope 'ya get lucky. Great tip, and welcome to the community!

Basically, you'd need to pretty much skip thanksgiving dinner, show up as one of the first dozen in line, and wait about 12 hours for them to pass out the laptop tickets. Things might differ at your local BB, but that's the trend for the past few years at popular BB stores. Usually the ultra-popular items, like dirt cheap laptops, are very limited in quantity and only go to the first few folks in line that ask for it. Far as the standard for Vista laptops, I'd say upgrade to about a gig for basic usage, and about 2 gigs for more complex stuff. Or downgrade to XP if 'ya can.

Dangit! My free 1GB Kingston SD card came in the mail yesterday, now they got this. I could've gotten this for free if I just procrastinated a little!

Don't think any of 'em really caused a stir enough to get pulled yet. People said WM's ad was posted then immediately pulled, but no one's got the real WM BF ad yet.

Just print 'em out before 'ya leave.

Every now and then when I try to access the forums here at Gottadeal I get an error message. Doesn't last too long, just about a few minutes at a time, but during that time I can't access any threads or anything. Nothing. Just this error message with the daily list of people bogging up the server. Just out of sheer curiosity I was wondering if anyone knows what was going on. Someone updating? Or just too many folks here bogging things up?