ThinkPad Deals (T61 $233, W500 $377)

August savings just for you, friends and family!

Up to 20% off web price for IBM Canada Employees, Contractors, Family & Friends!
Ground shipping is complimentary and all PCs are backed with 7 day money-back guaranty and limited warranties up to 3 months.  IBM Certified Pre-owned Equipment Is refurbished and tested to IBM standards.

Save even more with our eCoupon code!
Simply place your item in the shopping cart and then enter ibmepp (lower case) in the promotion code box on
the shopping cart page.  You'll save an extra $35 on laptops & desktops and $20 on monitors.
Offer good through August 31, 2012.

English:  http://www.ibm.com/shop/ca/en/epp
French:  http://www.ibm.com/shop/ca/fr/epp

ThinkPad T61 
with 15.5" wide screen
Model Name T64574UU
Intel® Core 2 Duo® T7300 2.0GHz,
4GB memory, 80GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD, 15.5" wide screen LCD, Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, Microsoft Windows® 7
Professional, 3 months limited warranty.
Regular price $335
Employee price $268
'ibmepp' promotion price $233

ThinkPad W500 
with 320GB hard drive
Model Name T4063V5J
Intel® Core 2 Duo® T9600 2.8GHz,
4GB memory, 320GB hard drive, DVD-RW/CD-RW, 15.5" wide screen LCD, Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, Microsoft Windows® 7 Professional, 3 months limited warranty.
Regular price $515
Employee price $412
'ibmepp' promotion price $377

ThinkPad X200 Ultraportable with port replicator
Model Name T7458B18
Intel® Core 2 Duo® P8600 2.4GHz,
4GB memory, 160GB hard drive, DVD-RW/CD-RW, 12" wide screen LCD, Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, integrated web camera, Microsoft Windows® 7 Professional, 3 months limited warranty.
Regular price $529
Employee price $423.20
'ibmepp' promotion price $388.20



ThinkPad R61 
French keyboard, software
Model Name T8933AGF
Intel® Core 2 Duo® T7100 1.8GHz,
4GB memory, 80GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD, 15.5" wide screen LCD, Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, Microsoft Windows® 7 Professional in French, French keyboard, 3 months limited warranty. Limited quantities available!
Regular price $275
Employee price $220
'ibmepp' promotion price $185

ThinkPad R500
Great value!
Model Name T27175GU
Intel® Core 2 Duo® P8400 2.26GHz,
2GB memory,160GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-RW, 15.5" wide screen LCD, Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, Microsoft Windows® 7 Professional, 3 months limited warranty.
Regular price $385
Employee price $308
'ibmepp' promotion price $273

ThinkCentre M58p desktop
only $198.75!
Model Names A6234AL5
Intel®  Core 2 Duo® E8400 3.0GHz,
3GB memory, 160GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-RW, Gigabit Ethernet, Microsoft Windows® 7 Professional, 3 months limited warranty. Monitor sold separately.
Regular price $275
Employee price $233.75
'ibmepp' promotion price $198.75

Google Galaxy Nexus Phone II soon?

According to rumours, the eight month old Google Nexus (Sell for $349 on US Google Play Store) will get updated. The processor will be upgraded from 1.2 GHz to 1.5 GHz. Both front and back camera get upgrade too. Also it will support expandable SD card.

I bought Google Nexus recently from Google Play Store and in general happy with it except the batter life (have to charge daily and can not sustain one day medium use). The processor and camera upgrades are not important to me. Actually, faster processor may make battery life worse. I hope the upgrade (GT-i9260) also include the battery upgrade (from 1750mhA to 2000 mhA). Currently, the genuine 2000 mhA battery with slightly thick cover sells $40-50 dollars. It is too expensive.  2000 mhA battery should be stock battery.

Watch London Olympics on iOS and Android for Free

London Olympics is two days away (actually women soccer game already started). If you do not have Rogers cable or Bell TV(like me), you still can watch the Olympics game for free.
One way is buying a TV antenna like the one I bought blow. You can have CTV HD channel to watch the games.
http://yazhuang.blogspot.ca/2012/04/1299-philips-antenna-watch-10-hd.html

Another way is watching from your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) or your Android device (phone or tablet like Google Nexus 7). All you need to do is install a app called CTV Olympics London 2012.

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ctv-olympics-london-2012/id536865830?mt=8
You can watch live game or replay. For example, you can watch the whole soccer games in the following page. The only expense is you will watch a TV commercial at the beginning.

The quality the video is pretty good and the download speed is decent.

Android also have the same app in Google Play store. 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.ctv.london2012.ctvolympicslondon2012&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNhLmN0di5sb25kb24yMDEyLmN0dm9seW1waWNzbG9uZG9uMjAxMiJd

However I found the app on Android is not as easy to use as the one on iOS. There is also some bug when I installed the app on my new Nexus 7 tablet.
Besides this app, the official app Result is a good place to get latest news, schedules and results.

iTune Store:
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/london-2012-official-results/id536513070?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2
Google Play Store
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.london2012.results&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5sb25kb24yMDEyLnJlc3VsdHMiXQ..

WD Caviar Green 3TB for $149

Plan to buy a hard drive for NAS. Found the following deal from NCIX Canada $149:
Western Digital WD Caviar Green 3TB SATA3 3.5IN 64MB Cache Intellipower Internal Hard Disk Drive (WD30EZRX)

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62178&vpn=WD30EZRX&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1207

Shipping is free if you choose pick up from store.

$149 the better than the price in US (like Amazon.com US$169, newegg.com US$169).

iPad/iPhone Backup Function is amazing

The backup function provided by Apple is easy and fast. The backup function can backup most of the data, including settings, apps (with the data), music, photos. The app data is very very important. For example, if you have play all the levels of Plants vs Zombies, you don't need to start from beginning since the app data for the game is also restored.
Backup function is very useful when you plan to do some major changes to your iPad or iPhone, like restore to a new iOS or jailbreak. 
There are two ways to backup: through iCloud and through iTune. I recommend iTune since it is much faster and there is no limit for the space (stored in your hard disk).
The steps for back up and restore can be found at:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
Note that when restoring, the iPad/iPhone will restart and then start the restore process. It takes about 30 minutes to restore around 15G of data for my iPad. 

64G Flash Drive for $29 (US) $39 (Canada)

Use Coupon Code FIRST1K, the price is reduced to US$ 29. Shipping is free in US.
http://www.buydig.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=MEM32020022961

If you do not want to pick up from US, there is a pretty good deals on Canada Computers and NCIX for CAD $39.

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=11_180_632&item_id=049852

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=65673&vpn=AC008-64G-RKD&manufacture=AData%20Technology&promoid=1207

99 Must-Have Piano Masterpieces (MP3) for $1.99 on Amazon USA

It is great deal (original price is around $90). Unfortunately , it is for Amazon's US customers only.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CV7CNA?ie=UTF8&tag=todayhot1-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957