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Macs are brilliant computers and are arguably better than PCs. They suit creative professionals such as writers and designers, educational needs and personal computing requirements. Why then, do PCs dominate the market?
It’s in the price. Apple don’t allow their products to be manufactured by third parties like Microsoft do. That way, they have all of the costs involved in creating the product but also have all of the profit.
There are two ways to overcome the price obstacle to find cheap Mac computers. Either bite the bullet and cough up the price for a computer with the same specs as a PC but a at double the price or use the Internet to save yourself a packet and have a shiny (new) Mac delivered to your door.
North America
Official Apple Store
Whilst the official Apple Store is a good place to buy brand new Macs, you can also save hundreds of dollars by buying refurbished and cheap Mac computers from them as well. I did some research and found some models such as a 3.06GHz 21″ iMac for just $1000. That means you save over $200 on the normal price. Savings on MacBooks are even better, some with up to 30% off the retail price.
Until recently, buying ‘refurbished’ computers over the Internet was dodgy to say the least. This was mainly because different people had different perceptions of the word ‘refurbish’. For some, it was wiping the hard drive and shipping it off. For others, it was replacing all worn and damaged parts, wiping the hard drive, updating all the software and sending you a pristine laptop. Thankfully, the latter has become the norm now and because these are from Apple, you know you’re in good hands.
Power Max
Power Max, an authorised Apple reseller, have become very well known for selling top quality Macs including both new and used conditions. Delivery is free for any item over $100. They also have a customer support line which is comforting.
Their prices are quite good, especially among the used computers. You could land yourself a 17″ Intel for as little as $800. You can also buy components separately if you just need a second monitor or a new keyboard.
I haven’t gotten to the best bit yet. You can save even more money, potentially hundreds of dollars, by trading in old Mac products such as laptops, iMacs, iPods and the like. All you have to do is fill in a form to get a quote back from their team.
Your old computer is then either refurbished and resold or recycled. What’s more, if you trade in your old PC you don’t get charged tax on your next purchase. You can also trade in your old Mac and have funds credited to your account if you don’t want to make a purchase immediately.
Another great site where you can find great Mac deals taken from numerous websites is DealMac. They collect deals and saving on Macs and Mac accessories and post them to their site. It is updated numerous times every day.
Europe
Second Chance PC
This site, which is based in the UK offers new, used and refurblished, cheap Mac computers to the European market. Advantages of ordering your new Mac from within the EU (if you live here, that is) is the free trade. This means you won’t be charged import duty as you would if found buying tech goods from the US or any other country. The postage is also considerably cheaper and there will be no need to change things such as power adapters and so on.
They have a good selection of computers available ranging from the very new to the very old. You can pick up a Mac which is a couple of years old for just a few hundred Euros and the new machines have up to 30% discounts when compared to their retail counterparts.
Asia-Pacific
BuyMac.com.au
This website caters to the Australian market and is an authorised Apple Reseller. Their normal prices are pretty much on par with most other websites with a few variations. When they have sales and promotional offers they can go down quite a bit. However, it’s their ‘Clearance’ section that I’m interested in.
They list plenty of ex-demo Macs and retail returns. For example, I saw this 15″ MacBook Pro which had been reduced from AUD$3,199 to AUD$2,499. Not a bad saving.
They also have a real-world store in Melbourne so you can pick up your products should you live near them.
Note: Most of the Official European and Asian Apple websites offer refurbished Macs in the same manner as the US site does so make sure to check out your local Apple website for great savings.
A Word of Warning about Asian Wholesalers
Macs and Apple products in general have become status symbols as much as they have become tech Gods. For that reason, there are numerous websites which will offer you discounted Macs as seemingly unimaginable prices. I’m talking about certain Chinese wholesale sites which I won’t mention for legal reasons. I’m sure many of you are familiar with them by hearing or seeing rip-off iPhones and hearing horror stories on online forums.
I have heard both good and bad, but it’s important to take good reviews with a shovel of salt as this is the Internet after all. Bottom line, many cheap Mac computer offers are scams. I did a lot of research for this article to ensure I didn’t inadvertently include any in this list. Remember, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Sometimes it’s worth paying an extra couple hundred bucks so the product will actually arrive at your door.
Apple Education Discount
When buying from the official Apple online stores, you can save hundreds of dollars on new Mac computers if you’re a student or a teacher/lecturer. Apple say:
“If you are a student, teacher, lecturer, administrator or other staff member in education you qualify for special discounted pricing on Apple computers, software and select third party products.”
So if you’re at college or university, it may work out cheaper to buy directly from Apple because of the discount. Keep in mind that you will have to prove you actually attend the school you say you do.
Always remember, you can also save even more money when buying online by using coupon sites such as Retail Me Not and Deals.com. These sites syndicate one-off offers from thousands of website, all of which would be impossible to cover here. I dedicated an an entire chapter to the subject in my PDF Guide which you can find here.
Do you know of any other great websites which offer Macs at a cheaper price? Well, share them!
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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Ever wanted to Facebook friend someone you just met right on the spot? Until today, that wasn’t easy. But now, if you have an iPhone, all it takes is a single bump, courtesy of the Bump iPhone app.
For those of you unfamiliar with the app, Bump allows you to share contact information with friends simply by bumping your phone once with another friend’s phone (note: They much touch to work, you can’t just shake it in the air). The app then connects your iPhones and transfers contact information like phone numbers and addresses (for more, read our original review).
Now a new update to the app has brought with it a couple of new features, but the one people will be talking about is the Facebook integration. If you link your Facebook account to Bump and swap contact information with another person who has done the same, you can choose right then and there to initiate a friend request. Once done, a prompt will appear where the other party can accept or deny the friend request.
Jake Mintz, co-Founder of Bump Technologies, told me that he and his team worked closely with Facebook to make this happen. He’s “pretty sure” that Bump’s the first app that can initiate and accept friend requests; we can’t think of any mobile apps off the top of our heads that do, so we think it’s likely Bump is the first.
Along with the Facebook integration, Bump now boasts custom profiles, which gives users more control over the contact information they share when “bumping.” They can also create frequently used share settings such as “work,” “personal” or “fake” (just in case you can’t shake off that persistent and annoying guy/girl at the bar).
Jake says that this is the first of many social media integrations that will come to Bump. So yes, you can expect the ability to follow the people you meet via Twitter just by bumping iPhones in the near future.
Reviews: Facebook, Twitter
Tags: bump, facebook, iphone, Mobile 2.0
Great concept, with food that looks like it will match.
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As a web developer, you’re probably among the earliest adopters of new browser technologies. Google’s relatively new Chrome browser is one of those products that developers jumped all over as soon as it became available, but its initial lack of extensions was a dealbreaker for many.
Now extensions are supported in Chrome and some of the tools you’re accustomed to using in Firefox have become available, plus a few unique to Chrome. We’ve compiled a list of ten of the most useful Chrome extensions for web developers right here; if you use these extensions, you might even be able to make Chrome your main workhorse. Maybe!
Look at the list and give it a try — and if there are any great ones that we missed, be sure and share them with us and the other readers in the comments.
1. Firebug Lite
Arguably the most popular Firefox extension for web developers, Firebug lets you look at and edit the HTML, CSS and JavaScript of any page on the fly without leaving your browser. Firebug Lite is a scaled-down version of Firebug made for Chrome. You can inspect a page for errors then quickly edit to fix them.
Though Firebug Lite doesn’t have all the same features as Firebug, it has most of the essentials, and there’s a console interface for power users.
2. IE Tab
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser is not at all popular with web developers, but it’s by far the most popular browser for the general population. With IE Tab you can open any website in a tab that’s actually running Internet Explorer instead of Chrome. You can make sure your website runs correctly for those millions of people who aren’t using Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or Opera.
3. Eye Dropper
With EyeDropper, you can find useful information on any color on a website you’re viewing in Chrome. Click the extension button and a color wheel interface drops down. From there, you can click the color picker button, then click anywhere on the site to see where the color for that pixel falls in the wheel, what its RGB levels are, and what its HTML color code is.
4. Chrome SEO
Tapping the Chrome SEO button after the extension has been installed will give you website information that’s important for search engine optimization. You can check backlinks, traffic measures like the Alexa Rank and Google PageRank, popularity on social bookmarking sites like Delicious, and more.
5. Lorem Ipsum Generator
The Lorem Ipsum Generator extension will generate filler text for your websites so you can make sure your formatting works well without wasting time typing several paragraphs of text. This extension is lightweight and minimalistic, so it’s easy to use and it won’t take up a lot of memory. That means it’s easy to pop in and out of as needed.
6. Resolution Test
Resolution Test’s purpose is right there in the name — it re-sizes the browser window to show what your website will look like at various popular screen resolutions. As a web developer, you probably have a very high-resolution display. Good for you! But most of the visitors to your site don’t; this extension will help you make sure the site’s formatting looks ok to them.
7. Speed Tracer
Speed Tracer uses the browser’s built-in metrics tools to record how much time your web application is spending on various tasks so you can find out what the hang-up is if your site is running slowly. It can tell you how much time the browser is spending interpreting layout, Javascript, and other details.
The only downside to this useful tool is that for it to work, you have to run the browser with the command line flag “–enable-extension-timeline-api.” But if you’re a developer, that’s probably not a big issue, right?
8. MeasureIt!
MeasureIt! is pretty straightforward — it gives you the dimensions (pixel width and height) of any element present in a website you’re looking at. Like a lot of the other extensions on this list, it was previously available for Firefox.
9. Pendule
Pendule pops up an easy-to-use, well-laid-out control panel full of miscellaneous tasks helpful to developers. Examples include reloading or disabling CSS, viewing JavaScript scripts, hiding images, a color picker, a display ruler, viewing source, and several script validators. It works well as your basic, catch-all web developer’s extension.
10. BuiltWith
BuiltWith gives you a profile of the website you’re hanging out at, including a list of all the technologies it can find there. It will tell you what widgets the site is using, which analytics tracker the webmaster is using, which frameworks are present, which advertising platforms are in use, and so on.
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Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.
Reviews: Chrome, Delicious, Firefox, Google, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari
Tags: development, extensions, Google, google chrome, rackspace, web development series
The broad choices of themes is one of the major factors that make Wordpress so great. There are literally thousands of themes out there for you to choose from. Whatever your taste and needs, chances are, there are themes that will suit you.
But this factor is also one of Wordpress’ drawbacks. As Seth Godin put it in his book, too many choices will make people panic. They lose the ability to choose the best and might end up not choosing any of the available choices. And unless you design your own Wordpress theme (or pay somebody to do it), there will be no perfect theme for you.
While hiring a theme designer would be too much of a burden for an ordinary blogger, you can easily design your own Wordpress themes with the help of a particular Wordpress theme called Constructor.
Constructing Your Own Wordpress Theme
Recently, as part of my just-published MakeUseOf ebook: “Recording Your Next Hit With GarageBand“, I needed to quickly create a website. The choices were: build my own design with iWeb, or accept whatever theme that I could find for Wordpress for the sake of richer functionality.
Constructor came to save my day. By using the features of this highly tweakable theme, I can have the best of both worlds.
You can find and install Constructor directly from your Wordpress’ theme admin page.
Then after the installation and activation, click on the Customize link on the Appearance tab in the left sidebar.
The Constructor customization area will be displayed. There are so many elements that you can adjust there, and the combination of different settings of every element will design your own unique Wordpress theme.
Let’s start with Theme tab. Constructor comes with several mini themes that you can choose as the base of the theme that you are going to build. Pick one and save your choice.
Then comes the Layout tab. Here is the place to choose what kind of layout that you want to use for your group of pages like homepage and archive page.
The next element that you can tweak is the Sidebar. You can decide the number and the positions of the sidebars. You can also set the width of the sidebar, extra bars and the containers.
The Header tab deals with all the elements of the header like the header height, font color of the title, those kinds of things.
The Content tab deals with elements of the blog posts, such as: hiding/displaying the author’s link, auto-generating thumbnails and creating an additional widget area under the post.
There’s nothing much going on in the Comments tab other than adjusting the size of commenter’s avatar.
As the name suggests, the Font tab will let you choose which combination of fonts to use. But I personally think that the number of available choices is too little.
The Color tab lets you choose colors and transparency of the theme.
The Design tab deals with borders and shadow.
Constructor also comes with an option for users to include their own CSS style.
If you want to use your own graphics for the site, you can manually upload them via the Images tab.
And for those who feel confused about which one is which in the image, you can click the question mark to get help.
The last function tab is Slideshow tab. The function is to allow users to display slideshows of images from the existing articles. Just check the box “Enable”.
The Help tab contains link to Constructor-related websites and donation request. If you like the theme, you may donate the author some money via PayPal.
And this might be the most important ab of all: the Save tab. After making changes here and there, you might want to save your creation as a new sub theme under Constructor. Write down the necessary information and then click the “Save Theme” button.
Enjoy your creation
To get the best result, you have to experiment with each and every element one by one. Do a couple of small changes, save, and preview the result. Continue doing it until you are satisfied.
Just to give you an idea of how far the theme customization can go, here’s the result of my creation that I use for my website dia.lo.gues. I use iWeb to create the design for the main page, then replicated the look using Constructor in Wordpress.
![03 [ dia.lo.gues ].jpg](http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/03-dia.lo_.gues-.jpg)
The customization process is rather long and will require you to go back and forth between the admin area and your blog’s main page. So, some of you with active blog(s) with tons of visitors might want to experiment with this theme safely behind the curtain.
There are other highly customizable themes available for Wordpress. You can perform a search in the Wordpress Free Themes Directory using the word “customizable” as the search string.
Do you customize your Wordpress theme or you just use one without modifications? Do you know other good alternatives to customizable Wordpress themes? Share using the comment below.
em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!
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New data released earlier today by web analytics firm Compete.com reveals that there has been a major shift at the top of the web charts: Facebook is now larger than Yahoo in the U.S.
Yahoo for years was the world’s most popular website — its ubiquitous portal has dominated the web since the 90s. Two years ago however, Google vaulted past Yahoo and became the Internet’s most popular destination. Last month, it became Facebook’s turn to knock Yahoo down another peg.
In December 2009, Yahoo garnered 133.45 million visitors in the U.S. Facebook wasn’t far behind with 132.13 million uniques. In the first month of 2010 though, there was a role reversal: Facebook’s traffic rose to 133.62 million visitors, while Yahoo shrunk down to 132.00 million.
Facebook’s shown no signs of stopping its meteoric rise, either. It recently celebrated its 400 millionth user and that number continues to rise in rapid fashion. Now the only website standing between it and web domination is Google.com.
If Google Buzz is any indication though, the search giant isn’t going to give up its throne without a fight.
Reviews: Facebook, Google, Google Buzz
Tags: compete, facebook, trending, Yahoo
This series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace’s hosting solutions here.
If you use WordPress for your website or blog, there are lots of ways you can connect it to social media, and connect social media to your site via those nifty plugins. The right plugins can make social content management easier and reduce friction when it comes to reader sharing.
Whether you’re looking to easily share your content on social networks, make it easier for others to share your content, or simply make your own site more engaging, here are 7 great plugins that will make your WordPress site more social.
1. CommentLuv
Reader comments can be the lifeblood of some blogs, and in many cases they foster an ecosystem of links that can generate a mini social network around a particular topic or community.
With the CommentLuv plugin, you can encourage more comments on your posts by giving a bit of link power back to your readers. The plugin will pull in a link to the latest post from the commenter’s own blog, based on the URL he or she submitted when commenting. It’s a simple and clutter-free way for comment traffic to flow, and provides dynamic, up-to-date links that your readers can automatically share with the rest of your audience.
2. Add To Any
The classic Add To Any menu incorporates over 100 social networks and bookmarking sites in a compact, drop-down list. You can customize the opening menu to display the most common or preferred sites. There’s even an option for users to easily bookmark your post in their own browser.
Depending on your theme, it may not be the most elegant solution, but it’s a great catch-all that will enable users to spread your links around any corner of the social web. For a similar social bookmarking solution, also check out Bookmarkify.
3. GD Star Rating
As we’ve noted before, user reviews are a great way for visitors to engage with your posts or products. The GD Star Rating plugin for WordPress can integrate a 10-star rating system into your site for posts and comments, and is highly customizable for advanced users.
With some smart tweaking, this plugin might be a great social element for an e-commerce site, or even a blog that reviews products itself to determine which posts are most helpful to readers.
For a great looking 5-star rating system, check out PollDaddy’s WordPress plugin.
4. Sociable
Sociable is a nice way to add social sharing options for your readers. With 99 different social networks and bookmarking services to choose from, you can easily integrate your readers’ favorites and provide them with one-click sharing. Styling options also ensure that your new sharing bar is aesthetically agreeable with your theme.
In addition to WordPress, Sociable also comes in Blogger and standard HTML flavors that you can grab here.
5. WP Wall
The WP Wall plugin harkens back to the days of ye olde guestbook, where visitors could leave public messages on a site or blog that didn’t pertain to specific posts. In the age of the Facebook wall, this widget adds a fun way for readers to leave general feedback and shout outs for all to see in the sidebar.
6. Tweetable Twitter
If Twitter is your social network of choice, or the place where most of your blog traffic comes from, you may want to consider an integrated Twitter publishing tool.
The Tweetable Twitter plugin is a versatile backend tool that connects WordPress publishing to your Twitter account with a multitude of features. You can set administrator privileges, use a variety of URL shorteners for links, incorporate a Tweetmeme button on posts, utilize auto-tweet functions (if desired), and integrate analytics campaigns.
For another feature-rich Twitter publishing option, check out the Twitter Publisher plugin.
7. Google Buzz Buttons
If you’re looking to tame the newest network on the block, Google Buzz, there are already a handful of great tools for WordPress integration.
One of the best looking and most straightforward is the “Buzz This” button that we use here at Mashable. This simple Buzz implementation will send your links straight to a visitor’s Google Reader shared items, and thus his or her Buzz profile if connected.
Series supported by Rackspace
Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.
More WordPress Resources from Mashable:
- 14 Fantastic Free WordPress Themes
- 10 WordPress Plugins to Help Build Community
- HOW TO: Build a More Beautiful Blog
- Top 10 WordPress Plugins to Promote Your Social Media Profiles
- Top 10 Tips for WordPress Plugin Developers
- Embeddable Waves: The Google Wave WordPress Plugin
Reviews: Facebook, Google Buzz, Google Reader, Mashable, Tweetmeme, Twitter, WordPress, blogger
Tags: blog, blogging, BLOGS, buzz, google buzz, List, Lists, plugins, twitter, web design, Web Development, web development series, Wordpress, wordpress plugins
A new website called PleaseRobMe.com does nothing more than aggregate publicly shared check-ins, but its name and purpose attempt to shed more light on the dangerous side effects of location-sharing.
It’s no secret that when you share your location via Google Buzz and Foursquare you’re exposing information that could put you at risk. Many of us location-sharers get so caught up in the novelty and bonuses associated with our behavior that we forget the implications of our actions. PleaseRobMe.com seeks to make us more aware.
While the functionality of the site is minimal at best, the fact that you can view a livestream of check-ins — with data aggregated from Foursquare and Twitter — and filter by location or Twitter name is meant to be a bit jarring.
The point is driven home with the site-wide terminology, which caters to hypothetical would-be burglars. Check-ins are referenced as “recent empty homes” and “new opportunities,” and the name of the site alone is sure to raise a few eyebrows.
The site was created by three enterprising individuals who aren’t really out to get you robbed. Here’s how they describe the problem created by check-ins and the purpose of the site:
“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the Internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have ‘friends’ who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the Internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.”
These guys have a legitimate point. Stories about status updates leading to burglaries are becoming commonplace. You may remember that video podcaster Israel Hyman was robbed after tweeting that he was out was out town, and there’s even evidence to support the notion that burglars are turning to social media to find their targets.
So are Foursquare, Loopt, Google Buzz and all the others just sites that make us all easier targets? Location-sharing is becoming such a popular trend this year that it doesn’t seem likely that the site will do much to curb the behavior. If there is such a thing as safe location-sharing, however, we hope you practice it.
Reviews: Foursquare, Google Buzz, Twitter
Tags: foursquare, location sharing, Mobile 2.0, social media, trending
Remember the great “Square” payment system that will let pretty much anybody process credit card payments using their iPhone and a dongle? Well, it’s around the corner, and we just got some updates about the pricing. The app that makes it function will cost you just $1 and the dongle is included. The transaction fee is a very standard 2.9% and it works with any bank account.
Related iPhone News
- August 28, 2009 — iPhone Boom Box from Altec Lansing
- August 14, 2009 — iP1 iPhone dock speaker system now available
- August 11, 2009 — Steering wheel for iPhone racing apps debuts
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