Friedbeef’s Tech

With Apple constantly refreshing their iPod lineup, it can be a pretty frustrating experience for any early adopter trying to keep up with the latest and greatest MP3 players.  Here are 5 ways that can ease the burden on your pocket by trading in your trusty old iPod. 

Our acid test - Which was the most affordable way (excluding shipping costs) of getting a used 2GB 2nd generation Ipod Nano, still in good condition - upgraded to a 30GB 5th generation Ipod?

Recycle iPods the official way

As part of their environmental policy, Apple is offering environmentally friendly disposal and a 10% discount on the purchase of a new iPod through it’s US retail outlets.  With this program as well as others, Apple’s recycling programs worldwide have processed more than 34 million pounds of electronic equipment since 1994.

Acid test results: New Ipod at the Apple store at USD$249 with a 10% discount = USD$224

Get a Cash Return with ‘Beyond The Pod’

Operated by trade in specialists ’Drop Spot’, this service trades on the lowest common denominator … money.  You don’t have to buy another iPod from them - just sell your old one to them and pick up another iPod somewhere else.

Acid test results:  New iPod from the Apple store USD$249 - Old Nano selling value USD$53 = USD$196

Auction off your old iPod on eBay

If you’re willing to go through the trouble of properly listing a product, and dealing with an auction process on eBay, you may find that the returns on your old iPod to be substantially more than other methods.  A quick check on eBay express showed quite a good ‘buy it now’ market value.

Acid test results:  New iPod from the Apple store USD$249 - Old Nano potential sale on eBay USD$99 = USD$150

Upgrade, Trade in or Sell your iPod on PodSwap

While sellers could sell their iPods via online auctions, Podswap eliminates all the hassles of listing, collecting payment, shipping, and dealing with post-sale issues.  Offering both cash, and trade-ins as options, this service is a very complete solution.

Acid test results:  New iPod from the Apple store USD$249 - Old Nano selling value USD$53 = USD$196

Get more money off your old iPod with BuyMyBrokeniPod.com

Started off in USA by Jeremy Cohen and Brett Mosley in 2006, this site has recently gone international.  Offering to pick up iPods in any condition whatsoever.

“There are a few other competitors out there but we feel our site offers the best prices, simplest use and friendliest customer service.” said Mosley…. and after looking at the numbers - they do seem to be on track with that promise.

Acid test results:  New iPod from the Apple store USD$249 - Old Nano selling value USD$67 = USD$182

Conclusion:

If you are a risk taker, eBay looks like the top option for you.  If you want something with less hassle - BuyMyBrokeniPod seems to be the best bet.

If you want to get a deal for your NEW iPod - consider this list of excellent places to shop online

How do you deal with your old MP3 Players?  Let us know in the comments!

[tags]ipod, apple,[/tags]

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Almost 8 months ago, I shifted away from my old blogspot account, and got my own hosting.  Trying to move all your traffic from one domain to another is no mean feat, but if you ever plan on doing the same thing, here are some critical steps you can take to ensure this process is as smooth as possible.

1. Setup a proper redirect solution

The first thing you need to do is to set up a smooth redirection of traffic for the visitors that arrive on your site.  What I did was modify my blogspot template so that instead of showing my content, it displayed a custom error page with links to my top posts.  Almost all my search traffic would land on one of these posts, which is why this solution made sense to me, but you can try out a few other alternatives if you are a more technical person.

2. Change your Feedburner URL

What I love about Feedburner is not just its ability to track my subscribers, but its ability to point them somewhere else seamlessly.  Go to your Feedburner options and change your feed URL right after you migrate so that your feed readers and email subscribers are carried along to the new site. 

3. Tell your friends to change their blogrolls

Next, inform your peers who linked to you that you have moved so they can make the necessary changes to their linkroll to point potential visitors, and search engine spiders in the right direction.

4. Change all your signatures which contain your URL

Over time, we tend to leave our URLs everywhere in the form of forum and email signatures.  Fortunately, most forums have a sitewide signature, meaning that if you change it in your user profile, all the posts with your signature would change at once.  

5. Tell Search Engines to stop indexing your old site

I do this only after my new site has been indexed properly by Google.  What I noticed was that my old site was consistently being ranked higher than my new one in search results, so I modified my old site’s template to remove it from search engines.

To prevent all robots from indexing a page on your site, you’d place the following meta tag into the <HEAD> section of your page:

<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”>

…

Bonus tip:  If you plan to blog, get your own domain from the very beginning - It really saves you a lot of hassle.

This post is part of the Problogger Group Writing Project. 

What has your experience been redirecting traffic to your new site?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] traffic, domain, redirect, url, hosting [/tags]

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Long URLs are simply hard to pass along. The links tend to sometimes break in email, are harder to verbalize in a conversation, and they are difficult, or in some cases near impossible to remember.

For example, let’s say you want to pass along this piece of news to your friends about how the ‘Iphone will test loyalty of cellular customers’- Which you can visit with this long URL…

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/24/loyalty/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

…which I will need to shorten to something more digestible.

Now, there are a plethora of URL shortening services out there - the majority of them free, but most of them not bringing anything unique to the table.  Here are some notable exceptions with useful value-added features in place:

#1 Choose your own page name with Doiop

What Doiop allows you to do is actually define your own keyword (In this case I used loyalty) so you can give your short link some context, something simple which many URL shortening services just don’t offer.

Result: Link shortened to - http://doiop.com/loyalty

#2 Create instant short URLs using bookmarklets and enjoy previews with TinyURL

TinyURL is probably the most famous of all the URL shortening sites out there, but many people don’t take advantage of two key features they offer.  The first - Incorporating a one-click bookmarklet on your browser, so you never have to visit the site to shorten a URL, just click a button on your browser and it’s done!

The second is a preview feature.  This tells anyone who clicks on the preview link - what exactly they are accessing, so there are no surprises on the other end.

Result: Link shortened to http://tinyurl.com/2ck97a

#3 Tag short URLs using multiple keywords with ReadthisURL

Just like Doiop, this allows you to add context to your shortened URLS but this time by allowing users to tag it with multiple keywords. 

Result: Link shortened to http://readthisurl.com/iphone+loyalty

#4 Create pronounceable with MemURL.com

Too lazy to think of a keyword but still want some form of coherence for your shortened URLs?  memURL will create a mnemonic link which is easy to pronounce (but doesn’t mean anything).  memURL also comes with a bookmarklet feature for one click shortening.

Result: Link shortened to http://memurl.com/luviru

#5 Track your short URL traffic and stats with dwarfURL.com

On top of a basic URL shortening system, DwarfURL allows users to track statistics and traffic of these shortened URLs.  Perfect for tracking how many people actually visit those links you send them :)

Result: Link shortened to http://dwarfurl.com/e9b5d

A word to the wise here - Like most good things on the Internet, spammers have invaded the URL shortening space -using these services to cover their tracks.  I would apply the same level of caution when clicking on the links - only doing so when you’re sure it comes from a trusted source.

What URL shortening services do you use?  Let us know in the comments!

[tags] url redirection, url shortener, tinyurl, domain [/tags]

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