Published November 13th, 2008
in Money Saving Tools.
It is hard to find a bargain in the communication industry. The growth of internet and VOIP is bringing tons of options at our hands. Yet, today I found that at the rate of 13 cents per minute I am overpaying twice when I call my parents in Ukraine with WDT (my current provider). So much for being a pro- bargain hunter! 
If I were to stumble upon JustVOIP in my web browsing I would move on. The website design looks cheap and important pieces (like About page) are missing. I did not however. It was my friend who recommended the service to me today claiming he has been using it for some time and is happy with the quality. So I jumped right in.
To begin with, rates to Europe are really low. Many countries are on the free list (below) meaning it doesn’t cost anything to call if you use the computer for your part of the call. Rates to other countries are very competitive too. (Ukraine was €0.05 + call initiation charge of €0.05). Here are the free countries:
| Argentina |
Hungary |
Portugal |
| Australia |
Ireland |
Puerto Rico (+mobile) |
| Austria |
Italy |
Romania |
| Belgium |
Japan |
Russian Federation |
| Brazil |
Latvia |
Singapore |
| Bulgaria |
Luxembourg |
Slovak Republic |
| Canada |
Malaysia |
Slovenia |
| Chile |
Mexico [guadalajara] |
South Korea |
| Colombia |
Mexico [mexico City] |
Spain |
| Cyprus |
Mexico [monterrey] |
Sweden |
| Czech Republic |
Monaco |
Switzerland |
| Denmark |
Netherlands |
Taiwan |
| Estonia |
New Zealand |
Thailand |
| France |
Norway |
United Kingdom |
| Germany |
Panama |
United States (+mobile) |
| Greece |
Peru |
Venezuela |
| Hong Kong (+mobile) |
Poland |
|
You need to install software to create an account. The program runs on Windows and is similar to Skype. You can use it for calling but you don’t have to. If you prefer the old-fashioned way of calling like I do then you can do it by initiating a phone-to-phone call from the web-page. Login to your account, enter where you are calling from and where you want to call to and JustVOIP will call both numbers and connect the call together.
In addition JustVOIP offers a US based call-in number that can act as a gateway for international calling but it didn’t work well when I tried it. I heard the prompt but dialing the number didn’t connect me to the party I intended to call.
After you create an account you can buy credits €10 a piece and enjoy the savings. Don’t buy credits if free service is all you plan to use. Ether way if you give it a try - please leave a comment and let everyone know how it has worked out for you.
Relevant reading:
Published November 11th, 2008
in Popular Sites Series.
This is October 2008 revision of the Popular Price Comparison web sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.
The change in rating shows the difference compared to September results. The list has a total of 34 web sites which is the same number as last month. There are 18 more sites in my database that don’t meet Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement.
Just as I predicted last month, jellyfish.com dropped off the list, but I added one more website this month - dealio.com is now taking position #20, so the total number of sites in the list hasn't changed
The best performer this month is shopwiki.com (26.23%) who passed bottomdollar, the last month leader, by a small margin. Another notable event is that shopzilla.com has passed pricegrabber.com who has been on a steady decline for some time. The worst performer this month is again dealtime.com (-41.28%). Please enjoy the complete list below.
(*) Note: traffic stats for these sites is an aggregate of all traffic to the top domain (e.g. Yahoo.com or Google.com) and thus cannot be used to judge how popular this particular price comparison service is.
(**) Note: the web site is a portal with price comparison engine being one of the offered web services. Alexa rank cannot be used to judge how popular this price comparison engine is.
Published November 10th, 2008
in Business: Strategy.
Earlier this month the chain announced it is closing 155 stores. Today the news came that Circuit City filed for bankruptcy protection. According to the press release the company has negotiated $1.1 billion in revolving credit to continue the operation and will honor returns, exchanges and gift cards as usual. This looks like a soft landing. We all know what happened when Sharper Image went under in February. 
I personally have little hope that Circuit City will survive the crisis. Holidays is usually when retailers see the bulk of their profits and the fact that Circuit City had to file for Chapter 11 at the start of the shopping season is troubling.
Source: Short Circuit City at Forbes.com
Published November 5th, 2008
in Popular Sites Series.
This is October 2008 revision of the Popular Deal Sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.
The change in rating shows the difference compared to August results and includes all deal sites from my database that meet Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement. I am sticking with the original limit as moving to 50,000 seems to cut some interesting sites.
The winner this month is again buxr.com with a gain of (22.36%). I am really happy that my idea was sound and our project finally gets some recognition! The worst performer is again the anandtech.com forum with Alexa rank dropping like a stone at the rate of (-40.11%). Something is clearly going on over there. If you have a clue - chime in in the comments
Published November 1st, 2008
in Shopping Coupons.
Amazon has just released a new set of coupon codes for this month and as usual I post them in a list sorted by amount so it is more convenient to pick those with the best value. Most coupons below expire November 30, 2008.
If you like these Amazon coupons, I also recommend you to check out these Amazon discount codes. The best part is that these codes don't have an expiration date!
Amazon coupon codes for November 2008
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