DealStop Podcast #1
Posted on November 16, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 11 Comments
Podcast #1: New features and a few holiday season shopping tips.
New Feature Q & A
Posted on November 5, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 5 Comments
As the homepage shows, we have a HUGE new feature that involves paying YOU for posting deals and other items to DealStop.com. There are a variety of ways you can earn commissions. After you have gone through the Getting Starting Guide, I would be glad to answer any questions in this thread!
Note: The getting started guide takes about 10 - 20 minutes to really get through it!
I just wanted to say this is and will be a work in progress. I promise to do my best in track commissions owned down to the penny. This is a beta launch, so anticipate some quirks along the way. Thanks so much to everyone who’s participating! I look forward to spreading the wealth as we continue to grow!
Dave.
DealStop User Contest
Posted on October 6, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized, contest | 10 Comments
CURRENT PRIZE: $50 BestBuy Gift Card
http://www.dealstop.com/results.asp
In the spirit of all the recently released new features, we are launching a new contest. Each week, we will select 1 lucky winner. The more you use the new features, the better your odds are of winning. Winners are selected each Monday.
How to participate:
- Sign up or Sign in on the DealStop homepage.
- Crete a Storelet, Add items to your Storelet, Rate a Deal, Comment on a Deal or Post a Deal. It’s that simple!
- Once you are logged in, you will see the Post a Deal option here:
- You can Rate an item here:
- You can comment on an item here:
- Create a Storelet. When you are logged in, click on “Post a Deal”. Copy and Paste the URL of a product you would like to add to your Storelet in the URL field and click “FIND IT”. When you get to step 8.5, click “Add a Storelet”.
- Post items and add them directly to your storelet. Highlight your Storelet during step 8.5
Scoring System:
- Create a Storelet - 25 entries per new storelet you create.
- Post a Deal or Item to your Storelet - 25 entries per item or deal added to your storelet + aggregate item views on all those posted items.
- Comment on a Deal - 5 entries per useful comment.
- Rate a Deal - 1 entry per deal rating.
Winners Announced:
The contest winners will be announced on Mondays. The more you participate the more entries you get!
Contest TIps:
- The best way to get involved is posting quality deals using the “Post a Deal” feature on the menu-bar when you are logged in. The total number of views YOUR posted deal gets can add up to hundreds if not 1000+ entries into the giveaway.
- Rating deals is the easiest way to get involved. Assess the quality of deal and the quality of the product and rate it 1 to 5 stars based upon what you know or what you think. Sure you don’t get as many entries as Posting your own found deal to the homepage, but you’ve got a shot…right?!?
Going Green While Saving Green
Posted on September 30, 2008
Filed Under green | 2 Comments
This thread is an open ended conversation about eco-friendly AND pocketbook-friendly ways you can go green. I wanted to highlight a few things that I have done that not only benefit the environment, but also benefit my bank account. Some are short term investments and some are long term, but in the end both YOU and the environment win!
By nature, DealStop visitors love to save money! Hop over to the comments to share an eco-friendly way you like to save money. I’ll start…
Feature Friday: Email a Friend
Posted on September 26, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Today, we release a refreshed version of an old feature. Checkout the “Email a Friend” feature on any deal. The “Email a Friend” could have could have been labeled clunky in the past, but the updated version is much more lite weight and easier to use. More upgrades on the horizon… Happy Friday!
I had to preserve the picture size so the license plate could be read. If you get of kick out if it, checkout dratz’s Flickr page.
Post a Deal via the New Beta User Post Page
Posted on September 21, 2008
Filed Under rebrand | 4 Comments
The post page (beta) has finally arrived. With it comes the ability for any DealStop user to post deals and coupons to DealStop.com. If you have a great deal or coupon code, give the post form a shot!
1. Sign up or Sign in above.
2. When you are signed in, you will see a new option on the tool bar: Post a Deal.
3. Drop a link in the post page and submit your own deal. This page is a work in progress, but you should be able to add a deal with relative ease!
EcoBlog
Posted on September 15, 2008
Filed Under green | 2 Comments
Having lived in Boulder Colorado for 18 months, my awareness on environmental issues has sky-rocketed. I’ve found many different ways to embrace going green that are easy, save money and in some cases are even more convenient than the traditional way of doing things. I wanted to share my 4 favorite eco-blogs that put an entertaining spin on ecological issues. Feel free to drop any eco-friendly links you know of in the comments.
DealStop User Browser Breakdown
Posted on September 8, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 6 Comments
In honor of Google Chrome’s beta release last week, I thought it would be entertaining to show the breakdown of DealStop users by browser.
• Firefox - 49%
• Internet Explorer - 42%
• Safari - 4%
• Chrome - 3%
• Opera - 1.5%
More Stats ->
• Firefox 3.0 - 83%
• Firefox 2.0 - 15%
• Internet Explorer 7.0 - 71%
• Internet Explorer 6.0 - 28%
• Internet Explorer 5.5 - .5% (oh my!)
Winning Fantasy Football
Posted on September 2, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 5 Comments
Over 30 million Americans play fantasy football. In effort to make this a prosperous winning Fantasy Football season for DealStop readers, I wanted to throw out some NFL Football/Fantasy Football links I use on a daily basis. Feel free to drop links you use in the comments so DealStop readers can dominate their Fantasy Football leagues!
http://www.profootballtalk.com/category/rumor-mill/ - This is my favorite NFL news site. Although a few writers play their “homerism” card, they pull together a great list of stories each and every day no matter what team you support.
http://www.fantasyfootballhub.com/ - This site has a massive amount of fantasy football data. They aggregate hundreds of fantasy football related links. Unfortunately, the owner of the site doesn’t keep all the links completely up to date. It’s still worth checking out.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/index - Fantasy Focus Football. This is ESPN’s daily (Monday – Friday) fantasy football podcast. Hosted by Matthew Berry and Nate Ravitz, they offer useful fantasy football advice amidst jokes and humor.
Rip CDs Like a Pro…
Posted on August 27, 2008
Filed Under music | 5 Comments
You may have noticed I have ramped up the amount of music content rolling through the site. Music is a passion of mine for many many years, so I thought I would do a 3 part series on the topic. In part one, I am going to tackle a variety of different ways you can digitize your music. I will explore the easiest way, what I believe to be the best way, and the laziest way to digitize your music.
I first started to digitize my CD collection in 1997 1998. It was quite a brutal process as top-of-the-line computer technology was sluggish at best. My 500MHz Pentium 3 had a screaming fast 4x CD-ROM and could rip a CD into WAV format in about 30 minutes. Step 2 involved compressing those hefty WAV files into lite-weight MP3s as every bit of space on my 30GB hard drive was very valuable. After about 1 hour of listening to my computer processor grinding away, I had a nice batch of MP3s. The conversion process was almost complete! Lastly, I had to load the batch of MP3s into ID3TAGIT and tag each track individually as database lookups had yet to come to fruition. All-in-all the process took around 2 hours per CD from start to finish. Nowadays a full CD rip can take anywhere between 3 – 15 minutes depending on your computer hardware. Enough with the nostalgia, lets learn how to rip!
The Easy Way:
There are seemingly hundreds of ways to rip a CD to your computer. Contemporary ripping methods involved putting a CD in your CD-ROM drive, launching a program and clicking a button!
iTunes - It does the job AND it is quite easy to use. Pop a music CD into your computer’s CD tray (with iTunes open). The software will recognize the CD. All you have to do is click the “Import CD” button in the lower right hand corner of iTunes and voila! You can do some minor customization including choosing a format and bit rate.
Windows Media Player - I mention Media Player since 90% of people already have this installed on their computers, like it or not. Thanks Microsoft (sarcasm)! Media Player works similar to iTunes, in that you launch the program, pop in a CD, click a button and it will spit out digital MP3s.
Winamp - I have a soft spot in my heart for Winamp as it was the first media player I fell in love with. Unfortunately, their free versions give you minimal options when ripping your CDs, albeit the ripping function still does work. Winamp Pro can be purchased for $19.99 and is a nice piece of software with lots of custom options. A big plus with Winamp is the massive amount of free pluggins at your fingertips. Winamp remains in my top 3 favorite media players of all time, but that is for another blog another day.
The Best Way:
There can only be ONE best way right? Of course not, but in all my years of ripping I always come back to the same guide. It involves using Exact Audio Copy (free) with the LAME MP3 Encoder (free). The end result: perfectly ripped MP3’s compressed into the variable bitrate (VBR) format. The configurations are a bit tricky, so be sure to follow this step-by-step guide closely. Once you go through the setup process once, ripping CD’s is a breeze.
The Lazy Way:
Get someone else to do it for you! There are tons of services popping up in cities all over the place that will digitize your CD’s for you!
www.musicshifter.com - Based out of Northfield, MN, MusicShifter has 3 different price points ranging from $0.79 - $0.99 per CD. Shipping is included in all packages and turn around depends on how much you are willing to pay. They have a “Try Before You Buy” oromo in which your first 10 CDs are free.
www.moondogdigital.com - Based out of Indianapolis, IN, MoonDogDigital costs $0.62 - $1.00 per CD. Turn around is typically 2 - 5 days (shipping time not included). Shipping is extra.
www.ripdigital.com - Based out of New York, NY, RipDigital offers a few different price points all of which come out to be around $1 per CD. Shipping not included.
