Bing announces that they will stop their Bing Cashback effective 7/30/10 9PM PST. Bing Cashback has offered great opportunities for deal finders like you and me to make great deals into super deals. I am sad to see that they will not be offering this anymore.

The good news is that “you will have a year to redeem any cashback you have earned through your cashback account” plus “Microsoft will provide 12 months of customer support to ensure a smooth transition.”

So make sure to get the most while you can, it won’t last much longer. Read more on Bing Search Blog

I love Starbucks, in my opinion the best place to get the most consistent coffee where ever I am. I literally go to Starbucks at least once a day, sometimes even twice a day. Since I am frugal I try to get the best deals possible, but I am shocked by how many do not take advantage of the Starbucks Registered Card Program. You will literally be able to save money everyday by signing up for something free, what do you have to lose?

Register Your Starbucks Card --- Cost $0

Registering your card is a free service that Starbucks offers. The only cost is that you have to keep a balance on the card, but if you are like me and go to Starbucks often it shouldn’t be a problem. The way it works is after you registered your card, you will get a “star” for every time you buy a drink at Starbucks. The more stars you get the more benefits you will get as well.

Registered Level – This is the level that everyone starts with for just registering

• You will get a free drink on your birthday
• 2 hours of free wi-fi per day

Green Level  - 5 Stars

• Free beverage customization – This is huge for me since my drink is a Iced Venti Sugar Free Hazelnut Light Ice Soyi Latte. You will also get these customizations for free “Complimentary choices include Caramel syrup (regular or sugar-free), Cinnamon Dolce (regular or sugar-free), Classic, Hazelnut (regular or sugar-free), Juicy Raspberry, Peppermint, Toffee Nut, Vanilla (regular or sugar-free), Sugar-Free Mocha, soy, breve and heavy cream. Offer valid at participating U.S. stores and is subject to change.”
• Free Refills on Brewed Coffee – It works for both brewed and iced coffee refills
• Free Beverage with whole Bean Purchase – When you buy a pound of coffee you will get a free tall drink of your choice.
• Free Trial Offers – Be on the “in” of what is coming out on Starbucks
• You still get the benefits from Registered Level as well so free wifi and free drink on birthday

Gold Level

• Free Drink Every 15 Stars – This is huge you get a free drink after your got 15 stars. They will send you a coupon on in the mail once you hit that magical number of 15.
• Personalized Gold Card – sends you a pretty nice card with your name on it but its more for bragging rights.
• Personalized Offers and Coupons – They will send you customized offers, I have not gotten anything that really intrigued me but you never know.
• You will still get the benefits from Registered Level and the Gold Level

By registering my card I literally save $.90 a day and twice a month I get a free drink which equals to $3.70 per drink. Now some of you might save it is cheaper to save by making my own coffee. Yes,  you are correct I would save a ton more by making my own coffee. However, saving money is saving money and this way I still get to enjoy my Starbucks everyday!

Netflix VS U-verse and Cable

Most Americans like me love TV. It is an integral part of our daily life. I come after work and the first thing I do is sit in front of the TV, it helps me relax after a stressful day at the office.

The problem that I am having is that U-verse (from AT&T its like cable) is so darn expensive. Since I love TV so much I have the “Crème de la Crème” of TV packages. I get HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax and Encore plus like 300 other channels. Now some of you might think this is excessive, why would I need something like that? Yes, most of it I don’t watch but there are channels that my family watches so it is worth to have all of them.  But is it really?

With times getting harder every month I needed to revaluate. I have seen a 15% drop in pay over the last year so I would like to cut cost but keep the same value. Value being the key here, I didn’t want to sacrifice too much just to lower cost. I could cancel U-verse, but who would want no TV?

With so many commercials out about Netfilix, I thought I would give it a try. Their product was always reviewed well. They made the rental process for DVD’s a no brainer with most rentals to your home in about a day. Their newest feature, online streaming to your computer or TV, is what made me decide to give it a try. The price was the best part. It costs $9 a month with 1 DVD rental at a time and unlimited amount of streaming.

To see if Netflix could replace my U-verse, I decided to break my families TV watching into 3 categories; Movies; Network TV and Alternative TV.

Movies

Being a huge movie buff I found the selection on Netflix to be on par with what U-Verse on demand has to offer.  They both have some that each does not have to offer. Netflix currently has Starz On Demand (I hear that they might drop this) so everything  that I could watch on U-Verse I can watch on Netflix. In this category I think they are dead even but since the pricing for Netflix is so much less. I would have to say Netflix is a better value for me.

Network TV

Now with Netflix you’re not able to watch any current episodes, this is a big downside for them. However they offer a huge selection of TV shows on demand. My personal favorites are the Office and 30 Rock. With some of the TV shows like Dirty Jobs you are only able to watch a select few episodes. The reason why they do this I don’t know, so I would have to say that this is a downside for them. In cases like this you could always rent the DVD to watch all the episodes. Netflix takes the cake here, it still adds tremendous value by giving me hours of TV content at a low price. Yes, I cant watch all the episodes but with still basic U-Verse I can DVR them. 

Alternative TV

My wife loves to watch MTV, probably one of her favorite channels. Unlike the network TV content , which they stream quite a bit of, Netflix offers little if any streaming content of MTV or VH1. Yes, they do offer some of the Discovery Channel shows in streaming but for my wife this isn’t that important to her. In this category there is more value to keep U-Verse then Netflix.

When the trial period for Netflix ended I decided to keep it. I also decided to cancel my “Crème de la Crème” of TV packages. I have gone to the lowest one possible, a $41 savings after the Netflix subscription.  That is a 21% savings from what I was paying before.

When I saw this website I was pretty impressed. I can relate to getting a speeding ticket. What I like about this site is that you can post speed traps in your area by using your mobile and other users will be alerted when they are approaching that area. They also use a ranking system to rate the users post, if it matches other reports the user gets a higher ranking which shows credibility.

I guess for me the next step would be if I could integrate this into my GPS that would  be even better.

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I was reading this article on Mashable and thought that it was pretty interesting. This company in Korea is getting 15M in funding to start this online gaming services. With focus being on Korea and China for its initial markets. It plans to expand to the US in 2009. It looks as though it will be offering services similar to SecondLife.

From what I understand Second Life doesnt have a huge presence in Asia so this new service could be huge for Nurien. Especially since China is such a growing market as well.

I have been seeing a lot of commercials lately for this services that is offered on the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury cars. I wanted to see what the hype is about.

What it allows you to do is connect your mobile phone or digital music player by voice. So you can say commands like Play artist .... or call the office. It communicates with the car by using mostly bluetooth to connect with the devices.

I like that I can say commands in my car to be more hands free since in 7/08 California is going to require the use of headsets in the car. But the fact that it is only available on some models suck!

Microsoft'>http://www.syncmyride.com/">Microsoft Sync

Now usually I wouldn't blog about products but I couldn't not blog about this. Logitech has this new keyboard out and it is so cool. With most TVs being able to be hooked up to your PC now, you need a keyboard that is compact yet sleek. The Logitech diNovo Mini Keyboard is your answer. Here are some specs

Convenience and Style

• Palm-sized mini-keyboard with backlighting: Fits in your hand. Backlighting makes text entry effortless, even in low light.
• Compact: Perfect size for your coffee table.

Control

• Integrated, dual-purpose ClickPad: Use as a touch pad to point and click – or as a directional pad to navigate menus and make selections.
• Backlighting: Makes text entry effortless – even in low light. Enjoy two different backlight colors depending on the mode you're in – orange for cursor mode, and green for media control mode.

I have always wanted to hook up my PC to my Lcd TV but always stayed aways since there was no real keyboard that was compact enough to go with my stuff or had the right capabilities like bluetooth. With this it solves my problems of finding a place to put it and not having to worry about the extra components that I would have to setup or store away.

Logitech