Online Shopping Tips

The holiday shopping season is in full swing and once again this year, online retailers are expecting record sales as Americans shop on line instead as standing in line. Before you start your cyber shopping, here’s some tips that I pass along on my NBC-TV High tech Talk segment:

Before you click… compare. The Net is awash in comparison-shopping sites and my best advice to you is use them. Sites like shopping.com make it so easy. Type in the item you’re looking for and zap… back comes a roundup from the Web on who has it and at what price.

Shopzilla is another great comparison site.

So is eBay… yes… e-Bay. The auction site has lots of online stores which, because of low overhead and no middleman markups, offer really good buy-it-now pricing.

But price isn’t everything. Look for online specials…like at this T-Shirt and Jewelry portal that offers free shipping on big orders or special discounts on the hottest items. Free shipping can add up to big savings and most merchants have stocked up on the best selling ones so prices can be kept at a minimum.

If you don’t know the online site, look for buttons from the BBB or the Hacker Safe security site. Stores that show these have to be checked out for reliability,meaning you can shop in confidence.

One last tip. Shop early. If you order this week or next, delivery will be in plenty of time for Christmas. But the longer you wait the busier shipping companies will get.

New audio and video blogs

The Internet continues to evolve. New technology tools have suddenly made plain old Web logs almost a thing of the past… so 2005.

The hot new trend today is in audio and video blogs and in this week’s High Tech Talk segment for NBC-TV affiliate stations around the country, I feature two new services can make anybody a star: BlogTalkRadio and PalTalk.

These sites sort of combine the features of a Weblog with audio and the social networking connectivity of a MySpace. Some of it is pretty hard to follow. There’s a lot of rambling babble out there. But there’s also more serious stuff, from authors touting their books, to political commentary, to discussions about religion, sports, music, and tech.

Check them out. You’re going to see a lot more sites like these.

Digital photo books

As the holidays approach, a lot of digital photographs will be taken. But what to do with them? Have you thought of making a book? That’s the hot new trend this season for sharing our digital pictures. My NBC-TV piece this week offers a guide to three services that will help turn your pictures into beautiful books:
My Publisher
Unibind
Apple’s iPhoto book

Follow the election money

With the election campaigns over, now it's time to see who got what and from…. where?
My NBC-TV "High Tech Talk" piece this weeks shows you how the opensecrets.org Web site can help you find the source of campaign money for all federal candidates. You can even see who gave what from your neighborhood.