Cyber Monday Finds

Next Monday marks the beginning of one of biggest holidays. Cyber Monday is the marketing name given to the Monday after Thanksgiving. It is suppose to be one of the busiest online shopping days of the year. I find that it is one of the best times to pick up some good deals on tech items. Most people are aware of the slashed prices and deep discounts that appear on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but good deals can also be found on Cyber Monday.
Websites like Pricegrabber.com, Shopzilla, and the Google Products header formerly known as Froogle, allow you to compare prices for an item that you want to buy. There are a few items that are flying under the tech radar but are true gems nonetheless. BananaSecurity.com is offering a freeware program called BananaScreen. Contrary to it’s name, this software has nothing to do with bananas, but it is still loads of fun. BananaScreen is a program that allows you to use your computer’s webcam for facial recognition. Your face becomes your login. When you move away from your computer, your system is locked, and it unlocks when it sees your face. Not bad for free software. For those of you that fear being locked out of your computer, you can still use your normal login and password if you need to.
The next two items are printers. Zink.com is home to the inkless printer. One of the major drawbacks to dealing with home printers is the ink. Whether it is an inkjet printer or laser printer, replacing ink cartridges and toner drums can be both annoying and expensive. Zink’s inkless printer uses special paper from Zink. Each sheet of Zink paper has layers of cyan, yellow and magenta between an overcoat layer and base layer. This allows their printers to transfer images by bringing the necessary colors out of the sheet of paper instead of depositing the colors onto the paper.
The second printer is one that was quite possibly made with my parents in mind. The Computerless E-mail Printer is just that, a printer that prints your e-mails without the aid of a desktop or laptop. It was designed for those that only use a computer to check their email. Simply put, a person buys the e-mail printer and signs up for a monthly subscription. The device will cost you about $90 and the monthly subscription is close to $10 at hammacher.com. The device connects to your email account once a day via a dial-up connection and prints any new e-mails. The manufacturer claims to have a spam filter in place to print unwanted and lewd emails. Since it can function well using a dial-up connection, and is immensely cheaper than a desktop or laptop. This printer can save you a good amount of money when compared to a desktop computer using a broadband connection. The only thing that could become expensive is the cost of printer cartridges.