Generally I find Black Friday a bit overhyped, the "bargains" are best checked against price history with (say) CamelCamelCamel before you buy.
Not Black Friday, but in the UK and maybe other countries, Amazon Warehouse is currently doing a 20% off sale, so 20% off the price when you get to checkout.
I've had a few good "As New" things off there in the past, worth having a look.
There's also a 50% off books sale on the UK Warehouse, loads of tech books, though I don't know how many decent ones are left.
--
Specific Black Friday deals though: Quest Apps on sale:
You would think so, I've often wondered similar myself, there's obviously opportunity to increase the chance of finding genuinely good deals but I don't know to what extent Amazon's API and historical data is available generally, these docs look like the relavent ones (eg the pricing section):
A great alternative to Adobe's suite. Version 2 is fresh from the oven. Affinity Photo = Photoshop, Affinity Designer = Illustrator, Affinity Publisher = InDesign. The Universal License includes Mac, Windows, and iPadOS apps.
Worth noting Affinity is a strictly one-time purchase valid forever (or while their licensing servers are up) while offering functionality on par with Adobe. I got their v2 suite at discount.
I just tried three times to buy Trickster on their website and failed each time. The checkout UX is horrendous not letting you go back or telling you why it failed.
It's really nice. I bought it last year, but don't use it frequently enough and didn't renew it this year. If you're in the same boat https://mitmproxy.org is really helpful and with `mitmweb` offering a web alternative to their TUI it's really convenient.
If you have ProxyMan you can renew with the discount, too.
The first: I bought "unlimited" worldwide maps from Osmand, which I use a TON for offline maps when I bike. It's $9.99 for unlimited worldwide offline map downloads right now. Great deal if you'd like to move away from Google Maps for navigation (not so great for business search, but it's slowly getting there!)
The second: not actually a Black Friday deal, but I recently switched to https://purelymail.com/ for email. It's a one-man show, significantly cheaper than the competition because... it's not bootstrapping some massive startup or running off VC capital. If you just want IMAP for desktop/mobile for cheap, but can't self-host because Google will throw all of your emails into spam, this is a great option. $10/year or less estimated cost. And it's fully encrypted on their servers, not used for advertising, pretty much exactly what you want if you JUST want mail.
Oh, and the Gigabyte M28U 144hz 4k 28" monitor that I use is now down to an all-time-low cost of $450. If you're looking for a beautiful monitor for your home office, this is it.
I wish we had better words to describe encryption and the specific tradeoffs of each approach. I did not know purelymail, but knowing IMAP I had a gut feeling that things were a bit more complicated than a blanket "fully encrypted on their servers".
Sure enough, reading between the lines of their documentation they can pretty much decrypt any email on an account by just using the password given by the client when connecting to their IMAP server. Since most clients either connect regularly to fetch emails or maintain a long-lived connection to the server, they can pretty much decrypt anything, any time. So it's back to trusting them just like it emails were stored in plain text.
I don't want to pick on this small player, I applaud their effort in pushing email forward, but I have enough with companies using encryption to handwave security concerns. A big example of that is Apple iCloud.
Well said. In their docs they actually call out this exact issue, and mention that they'd like to improve it in the future, but it would require significant work and that's not necessarily worth it for them.
It would be nice to see a lot of competing small-fry players innovating in the email space. In an ideal world, I could just shop around between mail providers with my domain and pick whichever option provides the best price:features ratio for my needs. I was pretty keen on Proton for a while but they're diving deep in the VPN space, and their approach to encryption makes it nearly impossible to use them with simple mail apps like K9 and Apple Mail.
Much like the browser space, it's not healthy for Google to run a near-monopoly of email. We need a healthy number of alternatives out there so they can't push consumer unfriendly standards and creep more and more advertising into their email product.
> the Gigabyte M28U 144hz 4k 28" monitor that I use
How is the brightness when set to minimum? I have an LG that with brightness set to 0 is too bright to use in the evening (compared to my laptop screen, for example, where brightness 0 is very dim, hardly visible, as it should be)
I'm pretty impressed by the KVM feature -- it's a little weird that you need to use USB A for the second computer's USB hub connection, but I'm pretty happy with it in general.
FYI: even now, monitors aren't necessarily shipping with the latest firmware. They've improved response times significantly since the early firmware, so it's likely worth your while to update the firmware when you get the monitor. Sadly you need a Windows computer to update the firmware -- if you manage to run the updater via Wine, let me know!
It's a simplified video editor that removes pauses and dead air, and creates a cut list you can then import into a "real" editor.
Saves a bunch of time if you're doing talking-head videos, vlogging, podcasts, screencasts... the sorts of content where the first step of editing is to chop out the long pauses and mistakes. I originally built it because I was doing screencasts and wanted the process to go faster :D
Not right now, no. As far as I know Camtasia can't import XML, so I need to export something in their own format. It's on my list of export formats to add.
An Anker Power Bank (24,000mAh) has a £40 discount right now on Amazon UK.
This is a really nice piece of tech that has helped me to work outside the house with peace of mind. Can keep my phone charged (which I use for tethering) for over a week, no problem. Drains way quicker when charging my M1, but that one has far less battery issues when compared to my phone.
The discount is real, as well. I know because I bought it recently, but you can also check it against camelcamelcamel or keepa.
Anyone else bothered that they do not specify the energy in watt-hour? Back when USB was 5V it was pretty easy to do the conversion from Ah, how does it work now that USB can negotiate voltage dynamically?
You should be able to calculate the watt hours based on the voltage of the internal batteries. Its likely a 3.7v lithium, so this anker bank would be 3.7v x 24,000mAh = 88.8Wh
Anker does specify the Wh ratings. Just on the battery itself, not the website. In flyspeck 2.8pt size font (I just checked with my Peak 10x inspection loupe with reticule, the characters are exactly 1mm x-height), dark gray on black for maximum unreadability, that needs a microscope to read. On my 737, it says 86.4 Wh.
I've jump started lots of cars over the past 30 years and was super skeptical of these at first. They are pretty incredible. 3-4 starts off of one charge easily and make for a hell of a battery pack.
Just mind the size because they are quite a bit chunkier than average power packs.
edit: I’ve bought a few of these as gifts. I *strongly* prefer the ones with a molded softshell case to manage the jumpers. I haven’t found any from a well-known brand that weren’t just re-badged noname products with a big mark up. Project Farm on YouTube has some of the best product reviews out there, it looks like he’s done a bit of a bake off, might be worth your while watching if you’re looking at these.
Can you give an example of one? It blows my mind that this is possible - I mean not the technology exactly, that makes sense, but just that something reasonably portable that I would carry around in case my phone dies can also have the level of utility of jumping my vehicle in a pinch.
That does look like a good discount, but in the US it's still pretty pricey ($100). For my needs, the 535 looks like a better deal — it's $50 and has 30W max. Fine for my M2 MBA and certainly my iPhone and other peripherals. It's 20k instead of 24k, but it's half the price and still has USB-C. Not a bad deal!
Companies release products 6-12 months in advance. On the day of their release they are at their most valuable. Every day that goes by they slowly lose a little bit of desirability. For practicality, and human marketing reasons, companies do not adjust their prices every day to reflect the reduction in demand. Instead they gather all the erosion into one big clump and release it in a frenzy on Black Friday.
So are there "deals" on Black Friday? Not really, in the sense that you are buying a product that is of truly lower value. At the same time, many people don't care about the newness of various products, so are happy to trade that time for money in their pocket. In short, Black Friday is about segmentation than it is "deals". It's a way to charge the most eager top dollar at the beginning of the curve, while also cashing in later with the rest at the end of the product lifecycle.
Certainly true for larger retailers, but there's plenty of small and independent businesses that offer true discounts today. For example, many artists that sell enamel pins keep them at the same price forever. So a discount today is a true discount.
Beyond that, you can also look for any retailer selling gift cards at a discount. Given that gift cards spend at their face value, you know for certain the discount is a real discount.
:D That question is not really answerable, it only depends on what mid-cycle products you're interested in and how much oldness you are willing to tolerate.
Not only that, but at least some companies just increase the prices slowly before Black Friday, such that what is shown as a discount on Black Friday is not really one. You might end up paying less 3 months after.
Not always. In order to attract business amid all of the other sales, plenty of companies do offer genuine black friday discounts. Particularly when you’re not selling a physical product (think gym memberships or spa days, for example) these sorts of things don’t decline in value each day.
Readit News
Not Black Friday, but in the UK and maybe other countries, Amazon Warehouse is currently doing a 20% off sale, so 20% off the price when you get to checkout.
I've had a few good "As New" things off there in the past, worth having a look.
There's also a 50% off books sale on the UK Warehouse, loads of tech books, though I don't know how many decent ones are left.
--
Specific Black Friday deals though: Quest Apps on sale:
https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/section/15301901340...
I like what Tutanota does instead: https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/black-friday-hype
I really like their service and their attitude towards Black Friday makes me like them even more.
Also...that goes till end Dec.
So might make sense to wait for people returning all their BF crap
https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/?ld=ASXXSPAPIDirect...
Web Development:
- ProxyMan - https://proxyman.io/ — web debugging proxy (30% off the first year)
- Tower - https://www.git-tower.com/ — powerful Git Client (50% off the first year)
- DevUtils - https://devutils.com/ — set of small developer tools (50% off)
For overall productivity:
- BetterTouchTool - https://folivora.ai/ — customize input devices (50% off)
- Trickster - https://www.apparentsoft.com/trickster — handy to access recent files (50% off)
For images/screen capturing:
- Affinity Suite - https://affinity.serif.com/ — (40% off for the Universal License)
A great alternative to Adobe's suite. Version 2 is fresh from the oven. Affinity Photo = Photoshop, Affinity Designer = Illustrator, Affinity Publisher = InDesign. The Universal License includes Mac, Windows, and iPadOS apps.
- Xnapper - https://xnapper.com — Screenshot tool (50% off)
- ScreenFlow - https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm — Screencast tool (20% off)
Would like to add a few other Mac apps that I like:
DEVONthink — https://devontechnologies.com — is a fantastic Mac app for organizing documents. It's a desktop Evernote replacement for me. (25% off)
Cashculator - https://cashculator.app - Personal finance with a focus on planning and "what-if" scenarios. Like a spreadsheet. (50%, no subscription).
https://github.com/mRs-/Black-Friday-Deals
- ShellHistory (SQLite backend for local shell history, full text search, notebooks and sync via iCloud) 50% off - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shellhistory/id1564015476
- OpenIn (File, Link handler for macOS), V4 (Ventura only) - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/openin-4-advanced-link-handler..., V3 (Big Sur+) - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/openin/id1547147101 - 50% off as well
· Thundercontent AI Writer (140+ languages, 20+ tools, based on GPT-3) : $7/ month (usually $49/month)-- https://thundercontent.com
· Article.Audio (Convert articles to audio with AI): $39 Lifetime deal (usually $19/month) -- https://article.audio
If you have ProxyMan you can renew with the discount, too.
The first: I bought "unlimited" worldwide maps from Osmand, which I use a TON for offline maps when I bike. It's $9.99 for unlimited worldwide offline map downloads right now. Great deal if you'd like to move away from Google Maps for navigation (not so great for business search, but it's slowly getting there!)
The second: not actually a Black Friday deal, but I recently switched to https://purelymail.com/ for email. It's a one-man show, significantly cheaper than the competition because... it's not bootstrapping some massive startup or running off VC capital. If you just want IMAP for desktop/mobile for cheap, but can't self-host because Google will throw all of your emails into spam, this is a great option. $10/year or less estimated cost. And it's fully encrypted on their servers, not used for advertising, pretty much exactly what you want if you JUST want mail.
Oh, and the Gigabyte M28U 144hz 4k 28" monitor that I use is now down to an all-time-low cost of $450. If you're looking for a beautiful monitor for your home office, this is it.
I wish we had better words to describe encryption and the specific tradeoffs of each approach. I did not know purelymail, but knowing IMAP I had a gut feeling that things were a bit more complicated than a blanket "fully encrypted on their servers".
Sure enough, reading between the lines of their documentation they can pretty much decrypt any email on an account by just using the password given by the client when connecting to their IMAP server. Since most clients either connect regularly to fetch emails or maintain a long-lived connection to the server, they can pretty much decrypt anything, any time. So it's back to trusting them just like it emails were stored in plain text.
I don't want to pick on this small player, I applaud their effort in pushing email forward, but I have enough with companies using encryption to handwave security concerns. A big example of that is Apple iCloud.
It would be nice to see a lot of competing small-fry players innovating in the email space. In an ideal world, I could just shop around between mail providers with my domain and pick whichever option provides the best price:features ratio for my needs. I was pretty keen on Proton for a while but they're diving deep in the VPN space, and their approach to encryption makes it nearly impossible to use them with simple mail apps like K9 and Apple Mail.
Much like the browser space, it's not healthy for Google to run a near-monopoly of email. We need a healthy number of alternatives out there so they can't push consumer unfriendly standards and creep more and more advertising into their email product.
> the Gigabyte M28U 144hz 4k 28" monitor that I use
How is the brightness when set to minimum? I have an LG that with brightness set to 0 is too bright to use in the evening (compared to my laptop screen, for example, where brightness 0 is very dim, hardly visible, as it should be)
Thanks
FYI: even now, monitors aren't necessarily shipping with the latest firmware. They've improved response times significantly since the early firmware, so it's likely worth your while to update the firmware when you get the monitor. Sadly you need a Windows computer to update the firmware -- if you manage to run the updater via Wine, let me know!
There's a few regional equivalents as well. I know of
r/bapcsalescanada
r/bapcsalesuk
r/BaPCSalesEurope
r/bapcsalesaustralia
r/bapcsalesgermany
It's a simplified video editor that removes pauses and dead air, and creates a cut list you can then import into a "real" editor.
Saves a bunch of time if you're doing talking-head videos, vlogging, podcasts, screencasts... the sorts of content where the first step of editing is to chop out the long pauses and mistakes. I originally built it because I was doing screencasts and wanted the process to go faster :D
This is a really nice piece of tech that has helped me to work outside the house with peace of mind. Can keep my phone charged (which I use for tethering) for over a week, no problem. Drains way quicker when charging my M1, but that one has far less battery issues when compared to my phone.
The discount is real, as well. I know because I bought it recently, but you can also check it against camelcamelcamel or keepa.
Just mind the size because they are quite a bit chunkier than average power packs.
edit: I’ve bought a few of these as gifts. I *strongly* prefer the ones with a molded softshell case to manage the jumpers. I haven’t found any from a well-known brand that weren’t just re-badged noname products with a big mark up. Project Farm on YouTube has some of the best product reviews out there, it looks like he’s done a bit of a bake off, might be worth your while watching if you’re looking at these.
The future is pretty cool.
Deleted Comment
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Portable-Charger-Micr...
Companies release products 6-12 months in advance. On the day of their release they are at their most valuable. Every day that goes by they slowly lose a little bit of desirability. For practicality, and human marketing reasons, companies do not adjust their prices every day to reflect the reduction in demand. Instead they gather all the erosion into one big clump and release it in a frenzy on Black Friday.
So are there "deals" on Black Friday? Not really, in the sense that you are buying a product that is of truly lower value. At the same time, many people don't care about the newness of various products, so are happy to trade that time for money in their pocket. In short, Black Friday is about segmentation than it is "deals". It's a way to charge the most eager top dollar at the beginning of the curve, while also cashing in later with the rest at the end of the product lifecycle.
Thank you.
Beyond that, you can also look for any retailer selling gift cards at a discount. Given that gift cards spend at their face value, you know for certain the discount is a real discount.
So do you know any great deals for today?