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Free food on Election Day

Published October 31st, 2008 in Shopping Promotion. 2 Comments

A few restaurant chains are giving away food on the Election Day to their voting customers. Mark your calendar for November 4 which is just a few days away. If anything, maybe the free food with bring you to the polling station, hmm? ;-)

Free Ice Cream at participating Ben & Jerry’s

Ben & Jerry’s wants to celebrate democracy by giving you a FREE scoop of ice cream. Come to participating scoop shops on November 4th from 5-8pm, and you’ll get a free scoop of ice cream.

Star Shaped Doughnut w/ patriotic Sprinkles at Krispy Kreme

Krispy Kreme will celebrate National Election Day by offering all retail customers with an “I Voted” sticker a free STAR shaped doughnut with patriotic sprinkles.

Free “Vote America Meal” from Shane’s Rib Shack

On Election Day this November 4, any customer of legal voting age who shows up with an official “I Voted Today” sticker will receive a Free “Vote America Meal” from Shane’s! The free “Vote America Meal” consists of Shane’s hand-breaded chicken tenders (a three-piece meal), fries and a 20 oz drink.

More offers

A couple more places are Eat ‘n Park who gives free coffee to any voter who presents a voting stub or “I Voted” sticker and Daily Grill who as some readers report is giving away a free Appetizer w/ Ballot Stub or “I Voted” Sticker.

Do you know of other places celebrating the democracy with free food? Post them in the comments!

Read popular magazines on your PC for free

Published May 30th, 2008 in Money Saving Tips. 1 Comment

Amit Agarwal at Digital Inspiration shares a very simple hack that allows you to read a few popular magazines for free in digital format. The titles include Popular Mechanics, US News, Car and Driver, Macworld, Readers Digest, Penthouse, Playboy and a few more names.

The hack is based on the fact that Zinio Labs allows iPhone owners to browse these magazines for free from their phones. The ordinary folks without iPhone can enjoy the same privilege if they convince Zinio they are using the phone. How is that possible? In fact pretty simple. Switch the browser user agent settings and make Zinio web server think you are running a different browser brand/version than it really is, a trick very similar to referrer spoofing used for free access to the WSJ.

Follow the steps below to get the user agent configured, then open zinio.com/iphone in your browser and enjoy your free magazines!

Using Safari browser

Since all Apple developers are geeks they built in this functionality right into the web browser. Here are the steps you need to follow if you want to change the user agent in Safari:

Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced and check the option that says “Show Develop menu in menu bar.”
Open the “Develop” option in the browser menu bar and choose “Mobile Safari 1.1.3 - iPhone” as the user agent.

Using Firefox configuration

Firefox have hidden the user agent behind advanced configuration settings. Here are the steps:

Type “about:config” in the browser URL and click enter
Right mouse click on the list and select New -> String in the menu
Enter “general.useragent.override” for the preference name and “Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3″ for the value

Reset the property after you are done reading (this setting is global and will affect other websites).

Using Firefox plugin

A little bit more user friendly solution involves this plugin. After you install it in your browser, open the plugin options and define a custom user agent with these settings:

Description: iPhone
User Agent: Mobile Safari 1.1.3 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en)
App Name: AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko)
App Version: Version/3.0
Platform: Mobile/1A542a Safari/419.3

Switch to this user agent whenever you want to read the magazines.

Using Internet Explorer

Changing user agent string in Internet Explorer requires fiddling with Windows registry which I generally don’t recommend. If you feel challenged, this MSDN article has all the details on how this can be done.

Source: How to Read Popular Magazines on your Desktop for Free at Digital Inspiration

TurboTax 2007 online deals

Published January 22nd, 2008 in Shopping Bargains. 19 Comments

Update 02/10: Go here for a version of this roundup updated for 2009 tax year

Here is a roundup of current promotions on the online version of TurboTax tax preparation software, the kind of software I have used to prepare my taxes for several years and will use for 2007 tax year as well.

Pick the type that fits your needs (Basic, Deluxe, Premier, or Home & Business), compare the prices below, and use the link to go to the promotion page. Bookmark it and make sure to use the same link every time you go back to continue your taxes.

I prefer online TurboTax version over the downloadable one (or the one on CD) for several reasons. Here they are:

I don’t have to mess with installing software on my PC
Tax preparation is a lengthy process and I don’t want to be bound to a single computer
It includes free e-filing

Please tell me which software you use. Also comment if you know any other on-going TurboTax promotion and I will update this blog post.

Open to everyone

1. Regular prices
Intuit currently offers free basic federal filing at their website.

	Federal	State	Both
Basic	$0.00	$25.95	$25.95
Deluxe	$29.95	$29.95	$59.90
Premier	$49.95	$29.95	$79.90
Home & Business	$74.95	$29.95	$104.90

2. Promotion by Fidelity
Go to this page and click on “Visitor Entry”.

	Federal	State	Both
Basic	$11.20	$22.45	$33.65
Deluxe	$22.45	$22.45	$44.90
Premier	$37.45	$22.45	$59.90
Home & Business	$56.20	$22.45	$78.65

3. Promotion by USAA
Use this link to get to the promotion page

	Federal	State	Both
Basic	$0.00	$19.45	$19.45
Deluxe	$22.45	$22.45	$44.90
Premier	$37.45	$22.45	$59.90
Home & Business	$56.20	$22.45	$78.65

4. Promotion by T. Rowe Price
Use this link to get to the promotion page

	Federal	State	Both
Basic	$10.45	$29.95	$40.40
Deluxe	$20.95	$29.95	$50.90
Premier	$34.95	$29.95	$64.90
Home & Business	$52.45	$29.95	$82.40

5. Promotion by Chase
Go to this page and click on “Save 30% on TurboTax Online”.

	Federal	State	Both
Basic	$0.00	$29.95	$29.95
Deluxe	$20.95	$29.95	$50.90
Premier	$34.95	$29.95	$64.90
Home & Business	$52.45	$29.95	$82.40

Open to company clients

1. Vanguard Flagship
Open to Vanguard Flagship Services™ and Asset Management Services clients. Go here for more info.

	Federal	State	Both
Basic	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Deluxe	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Premier	$9.95	$0.00	$9.95
Home & Business	$48.70	$0.00	$48.70

2. Vanguard Other
Open to other Vanguard investors. Go here for more info.

	Federal	State	Both
Basic	$9.70	$29.95	$39.65
Deluxe	$19.45	$29.95	$49.40
Premier	$32.45	$29.95	$62.40
Home & Business	$48.70	$29.95	$78.65

3. State Farm
You have to be registered on StateFarm.com and have “at least one product (Bank, Insurance and/or Mutual Funds) displaying on My Account page”.
If you do, login to your account and look for “FREE tax filing” on the left side. Preparation and filing is free.

Free TurboTax Business software download

Published January 16th, 2008 in Shopping Promotion. 42 Comments

Update 02/09: Go here for a roundup of TurboTax deals for 2008 tax year

Small business owners rejoice! You worked hard through the year so get rewarded for your hard work! ;-)

Diligent bargain hunters at SlickDeals forums have spotted Intuit targeting free TurboTax Business Software download to select visitors of the tax software home page and posted a ~~a direct link~~ (no longer working) to the offer.

People report seeing the free download offer intermittently. When not offered, the ongoing sale price for Business version of the TurboTax software is shown as $74.95 (includes Federal taxes for Corporations, Partnerships, & LLCs).

I have gone through the complete checkout procedure using the direct link above (and my existing TurboTax login id) and got this message at the end:

Thank you for requesting your FREE TurboTax Business Software for Tax Year 2007.

Here is your link to access the download

As a reminder, TurboTax Business is absolutely free ($99.95 value). It is the same complete edition that’s sold in stores or direct from Intuit. We’re giving you the option to try it for free for one simple reason: we think that once you’ve tried TurboTax Business, you’ll become a TurboTax customer for life.

Do your taxes at your own pace. TurboTax saves your information, so you can come back to work on your return whenever you want. Your free TurboTax Business software is not limited in any way. Use it to prepare and file your federal tax return — there’s no cost or obligation.

So go ahead — prepare and file your federal business taxes FREE with TurboTax Business.

Free books, Free merchandise, Free car?

Published April 10th, 2007 in Interesting / Other. 5 Comments

Thousands of full-text free books

There might really be thousands of them but they are mostly public domain books or well known classics that you can easily get in any library. Yet, the website is very good for those who like reading books online. I only wish they also offered these books in downloadable files so I could read them off of my PDA. Here are just a few titles that caught my eye:

For many more books head to FreeBooks.com

Free merchandise for women

A new website has launched that tests waters in viral marketing and specifically targets women. I have not tried it and don’t know anyone who did but the business model sounds very interesting.

How does it work? You sign up to the network, receive free products (yes, you get to keep those), try them out, send back your feedback, and then receive relevant product samples and coupons to share with your friends.

SheSpeaks — have you used it or know anyone who did?

Free car for two years

It is not a joke. You can get one for free from FreeCarMedia and it will be yours to use for 2 years. All you need is a clean drivers license. Of course there is a catch. Your car is paid for by advertisers and will have ads all over the body. So ultimately you may end up driving a huge Coca-Cola can on wheels, or something like that. If this is not something to discourage you, head on to the sign up page to see if you get lucky.

Source: How would you like a free car? at WiseBread

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