Everyone knows that we are in a recession at the moment and spending is coming to a halt. Although we are seeing signs of a climb back to prosperity, we all really need to think long and hard about our spending habits. Maybe you talk a lot on your cell phone when you’re at home, or you never look for good deals when buying stuff. It seems we all have room for improvement and I’m here to give you some tips on how you can put some extra money in your pocket.

First off I’d like to talk about one of our most prized possessions. No, not your significant other, I’m talking about your cell phone. It’s been there through thick and thin and it’s always helped you connect to your friends and loved ones. But how much is it taking from your wallet? Sometimes it seems too much. Well you have two options if this is true. If you are at the end of your contract you can look for a new, more value based contract that suits you better. Or, like me, you have a contract that you signed that isn’t going to end anytime soon and you’d like to get out of it without paying any extra fees. I have solutions to both those problems right here.

Someone Without/Almost Expiring Contract

If you have the luxury of being able to choose a brand new contract you’re in luck because right about now in Canada, more than 3 new companies are going to be offering new cellphone services such as DAVE, Public Mobile and Globalive. This will bring lower prices and different plans so personally I’d wait till they start releasing their plans which would be around the 2nd half of 2009. If you’re an eager beaver and can’t wait then there is a wonderful site dedicated to helping you find the best plan suited for you. Granted this site is for the U.S. only but it is still a good tool. First off it’s not only for cell phones but it’s also for gas and credit cards but we’ll get to that later.
The cellphone aspect of this website deals with you entering in your monthly usage by either estimating or by importing your bill. On top of this it asks for your zip code so it can find local deals. With all this information it gives you a result for the best deal in your area from all of the carriers in the United States. While BillShrink didn’t find me a good deal in the area, it doesn’t mean it won’t for you. I have an Employee Pricing Plan so I have a good deal to start with but you might not be as lucky so it’s worth a shot.

Someone Still in a Contract

This section is applicable to Canadians, Americans, Australians and the good old English. If you are someone in the unlucky position of still having a contract for a good chunk of time like me (I have 2 years left on my plan) then you have a savior. CellSwapper is a site dedicated to helping people like you and I find people who want to take over our contract in exchange for theirs. You just list your plan details and any incentives you’d like to give so people will more likely exchange plans with you and then you post. All you do is wait until a good offer comes up and you can message people and discuss ways you can work out a deal. I got an offer but turned it down because it wasn’t what I was looking for but it was a great experience and I highly recommend it.

Coupons

When shopping online it’s always good to try and get a deal when you can. That’s why I always search on Google to find any coupons that might be offered. One of the popular ones is RetailMeNot. They even have a Canadian version of RetailMeNot. There are numerous other ones including:

Current Codes
Coupon Cabin
Coupon Mom
Fat Wallet
Coupons
Coupon Code
Coupon Chief
Deal Catcher

Save on Gas

Gas is not as expensive as it was during the Summer of 2008 but it’s still up there and it’s important to be able to save every dollar that you can. That’s where GasBuddy comes in. It is a network of numerous local sites that you can go to, to look up gas prices in your area. Users update gas prices constantly so you usually get the most up to date price. If you live in Ontario, we are even more lucky because we have someone who will tell us the price of gas for the coming week at Tomorrow’s Gas Prices, Today. If you know of any other state or province that does this, please let me know.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I just got my hands on a new portable video camcorder called the Flip Video Ultra Series, made by Pure Digital. First off, I’ve got to say that it’s got some slick packaging—even in the interior; it definitely hyped up my enthusiasm for this product. One thing that struck me as a huge plus to this camcorder was its compact design compared to the heavy, chunky one we have that lasts only 30 minutes with the LCD screen out. This one could fit in your back pocket and be thrown around, though I would not recommend the latter.

Design

Without a doubt, this compact camcorder is not up to Sony standards—not even close. Everything is basically plastic and even the buttons look cheap. The buttons are easy to press and are placed where it makes sense. It’s simple enough, though, and the colour scheme is ultra modern. It has a nice curved shape that fits the palm of your hands well. The exterior case is easily worn down and I can already see marks within the first week and I’ve barely touched it.

Package Contents

This compact camcorder is unique because you can always attach it to a computer with the included USB stick that is neatly attached to its side. It also does not require any software as the software is built-in to the camcorder. The one thing that wasn’t up to standards was the mechanism that released the USB stick. On my first try I was able to easily release it, but the problem came about when I tried to put it back in. Seems that I didn’t pull the latch down far enough so it just snapped back making it impossible to flip the USB back in. After further trial and error, I finally figured that I had to pull the latch down to the bottom where it would sit there until the USB stick was pushed and the latch would close shut. 

USB Stick

Another thing that struck me as interesting, was the  “Lock/Unlock” switch located at the bottom of the camcorder. At first I thought it would apply to all the buttons, which seemed logical. I tested it, and it turns out that it only applies to the battery case. Now this is another cool thing about the Flip Video Ultra Series, the battery case placement. It took me a good five minutes to figure out where the battery case was and I had to resort to looking at the instructions to figure out where it was. This is a perfect discrete place to put it and makes the design even better. 

Battery Case

Last, but definitely not least is the power button. With all the stupid things I’ve done with this camcorder, I feel even more stupid writing this, but hey, I’m an honest guy, so what the heck. To me, I think it would be common sense to put a symbol beside the power button to tell users that it is in-fact the power button. When I first pulled down on it, I figured it would do something else, but to my surprise, it turned it on. The great thing is that it takes no less than two seconds to turn on. 

Video Quality

This is where the good times stop in my mind. In all fairness, I would be totally surprised if this machine was built for quality videos. It comes nowhere near that even at close range. If you are more than 5 metres away from the point of interest, forget about shooting the video. This camcorder is made for close ups like birthday parties or stuff like that. Please, do not expect to get good family vacation videos out of this while you are visiting some gorgeous landmark in Europe. The screen is small, but it does its job: fair enough. It displays only the needed information such as the amount of time left and the status of the camcorder. At my company meeting for Junior Achievement, we put together some videos of us packaging our product, from  Xpress’d so if you’d like to take a look at the actual quality then be my guest. If you’d like to buy a customized white t-shirt then just leave a comment or head to the website above.

Find more videos like this on Xpress’d

Don’t expect to get great zoom either because it only has a 2x digital zoom, which is the worst of the two (digital and optical). Optical is by far the best, and even I can notice the difference when I switch from optical to digital zoom on my digital camera. 

The Flip Video Ultra Series provides you with up to 60 minutes of video on its built-in flash memory depending on which size you get. The 1GB holds 30 minutes while the 2GB holds 60 minutes. Both versions of the Flip Video Ultra Series store the video on MPEG-4 at 30 frames per second—perfect for easy transers to your iPod. Some camcorders have the option to switch to a lower quality but I’m glad this doesn’t because the quality is poor to begin with. At least Pure Digital has improved on its last models as the memory has doubled, but the amount of video recording time has stayed the same meaning they’ve actually made the video quality better. 

Overall

Without a doubt, I can say that this product is great for spur of the moment videos that you might not have the chance to capture because you left your true, hardcore camcorder at home. The video quality is not that great but it gets the job done. It’s keeping up with trends by allowing you to upload your videos directly to AOL Video, MySpace, and of course YouTube. They even provide you with a TV connector to watch your videos instantly on your TV (although I don’t see a reason). For $149 USD, it’s a little pricey, yet not expensive enough to make it undesirable. If you feel you have anything to share and any critisicm to this post, please feel free to comment and share your thoughts. 

Package

Popularity: 14% [?]

I’m sure you’ve heard many times that the Apple iPod Touch is basically the same as the Apple iPhone except for a few notable differences. The Apple iPhone has a camera and can make calls. Well not anymore. With a free application from the App Store, now the only difference between these two devices is the fact that the iPhone has a camera.

Download Fring or TruPhone from the App Store. I prefer Fring as it offers not only free calling, but it offers Skype, MSN, Twitter, Google Talk and much more. Once you’ve done that, register for all the services that you apart of and now you are one step closer to start calling. You are allowed to dial straight from the Cellular tab within Fring. A small drawback for the application, Fring, is that when you search for your buddies it will only look at the beginning of the personal name. For example. Your buddy Bob has an email called bob@cool.com and has a personal name called (L) Bob (L). If you search bob, nothing will up. If you search (L), Bob will come up. This search feature is horrible for people who have friends that constantly change their name.

Next, what you’ll need is a set of headphones much like the Apple iPhone ones that offer a pair of headphones and microphone. Xpress Canada offers very cheap in-ear headphones that offer the required mic.

If you’re looking for a more true calling application then TruPhone is the better option. It allows you to make free Wi-Fi calls with VoIP with other Touch users and Google Talk users. They have plans to add the ability to place calls to landlines. They also plan to offer services such as MSN, Twitter, Skype and Facebook.

Do you have a different method for turning your iPod Touch into a phone? If so, share it here.

Update: The new Apple iPod Touch that will be released sometime in September will have a built-in mic so you won’t have to buy headphones with a microphone. Read about the new Apple iPod Touch.

Popularity: 33% [?]

In a shocking move today, the United States House of Representatives denied the bill to pass that would extend the digital tv transition date to June 12. Around 6.5 million American households are still not prepared for the switch that will now take place on February 17th 2009. All of them will have no access to government funds that would have helped them get discounts on the required equipment to prepare them as the fund has run dry. It was almost certain that the bill would pass and even this writer thought the date would be changed. This bill was special though as it needed 2/3 of the vote to pass. The vote was 258 to 168 in support of changing the transition date. 

Personally, I am happy to hear that the transition is back on track where it should be, as I’ve seen countless ads supporting the move and to say “If you don’t have it, your screen is going to go black on February 17th 2009″ and not follow through on it, that would just put another lie in the books for the government. Soon the airwaves will be free for better things to come including more cell phone coverage and would open up competition.

What’s your take on the situation? Do you feel that the U.S. government made the right choice by sticking to the date? Share your opinion on this controversial issue.

Update: I’m sad to announce that the U.S. government somehow got the date pushed back to June 12, 2009. This is a setback and it has further caused the U.S. government to spend more money on advertising when it could have just bought those 7 million people a converter.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Recently the iPhone Dev Team has created yellowsn0w and this has allowed users to unlock their Apple iPhone very easily. Once your contract is done, you’ll be able to switch it to any carrier or you can do that right now. The process to unlock your 3G iPhone is very easy. First off, make sure you have the correct Modem Firmware which is 02.28.00. To find this, go to Settings–>About and scroll down to the bottom. If it isn’t at this Baseband then go into iTunes and restore it, and update it back to 2.2. Then you’ll use QuickPwn to get it to 02.28.00. Now we are ready to unlock your iPhone.

Steps

1. Click Cydia
2. Click Manage
3. Click Sources
4. Click Edit
5. Type in apt9.yellowsn0w.com
6. Go back to Home screen
7. Take your old SIM card and insert your new SIM card
8. Power off and wait 10 seconds
9. After waiting 10 seconds power it on
10. On the top left, it should have the bars and your carrier
11. If not, repeat steps 8 through 10

Now you should have any unlocked Apple iPhone ready to use with the carrier of your choice. Remember if you are using T-Mobile that you’ll need to turn off 3G.

Do you have an iPhone? If so, share your thoughts on which plan is best to couple with the iPhone as there are many different alternatives as I am totally confused on this issue.

Popularity: 5% [?]

I downloaded Windows Folder Share in a bid to sync my computer with my one downstairs almost instantly. After trying and failing with many other applications, I was pleased to find this was set up nicely in the beginning. First off, you need to download the application, FolderShare, for all of the computers you want access to and be able to sync with one another. With this, you need a user account that surprisingly does not have to be a Live account. The great thing, and drawback is you don’t sync the whole computer, rather you sync individual folders.

Once the account was created, and the application was downloaded on both my laptop and desktop, I found an easy to use interface that showed me the computers that were online and what I could do with them. With FolderShare, you can share folders not only with your computers, but you can share folders with friends. Basically there are two things you can do right off the bat from the main menu: sync folders with your friends or your computers.

Sync With Friends

First create a personal library to share with your friends. This really means, pick the folder which you’d like to be able to share with your friends. You can choose from any of the computers that are online at that time. All of your computers might not be available because they might be turned off and therefore you won’t have access to them at that time. Then you’ll click the folder which you’d like to share and at the bottom hit “Create Library Here”. Then add all the emails and their associated permissions (4 to choose from) and send out those invitations. They would then download the application and then pick where they’d like to sync your folder, on their computer. Once they’ve chosen it will start syncing intitially as Foldershare placeholder file and then over a short period of time they will become their true files. In literally seconds, files will automatically show up if you change it on one computer which is amazing for a free beta program.

Sync Across Your Computers

To sync across your computers you do need the application on both computers but it’s very easy to do. First on one computer choose the folder you’d like to share and hit “Create Library Here”. Then choose the other computer you want to sync with that folder. You’re done and automatically the files will be there next time you go to that computer.

At first, it might be a little daunting to understand how it works because the new language “library” might be confusing. Another improvement that might be in the works is the folder selection. For example if you want to share the folder called “Pictures” you have to click it and then hit “Create Library Here” even though it shows no files or folders.

Popularity: 1% [?]