Apple - we'll be back

This morning at about 7 Eastern Time, I tried to pre-order an iPhone 4 online on the Apple store. The website was a bit slow, and everything went fine until I tried to add the iPhone to the Shopping cart. Then I got an error message "Oops we have a problem, please retry", or something to that effect. Apple's website must have been getting hammered, because I tried a few more times and got the same error message.

Later, after 8 am I could not even get to the Apple store at all, and got the message "We'll be back soon", which also gives an 800 number. I tried the 800 number, and got a "Due to extremely high call volume we are unable to answer your call now, please try again later".

Pre-ordering the iPhone 4 is going to take persistence.

Posted from Blogium for iPhone

Tech Bargain!

When I recently bought a Dell computer (as an early birthday present), I got an extra $200 off the price with a discount coupon from TechBargains.com. It is not the first time I've used a discount coupon from them, the last time was for a PSP game. Thanks TechBargains!

Deal of the Day

Deal of the Day, or Sale of the Day, websites are springing up all over the net, with some variations on the theme.

The first one I came across was woot!.com which is regarded as the best and most popular.Basically woot! sells one item a day, anything from computers to flashlights. Sometimes the items are new, other times they are refurbished. There is also a quirky funny story about the item on sale. Some people wait up until midnight (which is when the next day's item is put on sale) just to see what it is going to be. Some items sell out quickly (the woot website has stats), and others don't, but a lot are sold, like the refurbished 30GB Microsoft Zune MP3 Players on October 15 - over 10,000 units were sold in one day. From what I've seen woot's prices are good and I haven't had any problems with items purchased from them.

And the other sites? Squidoo has short descriptions and links to many sites (but for some reason maybe blocked by overzealous corporate website blocking software).

There are also several Roundup sites, like Deal of the Day Tracker and Bargain Jack. I would advise shopping around before buying anything on these bargain websites.

Since I have not had any dealings with any of these websites other than woot!, I would recommend checking out reviews and approaching any purchases with the normal caution you would use for other internet purchases.