Here’s the Namecheap discount coupon for new domain registrations in June. If you enter junebugz it gives a 10% discount for the order.

The war between Netflix and Blockbuster, to win your online DVD rental business, has been going on for awhile now.

As you might have guessed, I was an early adopter of Netflix many years ago. While they have a great range of DVD titles, I was always suspect of their queue system. It always seemed that if you’re a new customer, you would get the New Releases almost immediately. But after awhile, the New Releases seem to get more and more delayed. As a test, I signed up for another account, and was able to get New Releases ahead of my older account. I quit shortly after that. Of course, that’s old news. There was a class-action lawsuit, and while “no one” admitted any wrong-doing subscribers were given a “discount” on their next bill (or a similar discount if you’d sign back up with them again).

I’d been eyeing Blockbuster’s offer for awhile now. The idea of being able to exchange my DVDs in-store was appealing. Like Netflix, they would provide free shipping to and from your home, but the concept of being able to go to your local store to exchange it was a reassurance that I wasn’t going to be screwed by any queue-system. While in-store, I could easily see if the next DVD I wanted was in-stock, and demand the exchange on-the-spot.

Anyway, it looks like Blockbuster started offering a 2-week free trial on the web. What’s better, is that there’s a coupon code that’ll boost your free trial to 1-month. When you register for the free trial just enter “morevalue32” as the “promo code”.

I was registering some domains, and ran across a discount coupon code for Namecheap registrations. If you enter itsadeal it gives a 10% discount for the order.

About a month-and-a-half ago, I changed pretty much all the lightbulbs in my house to flourscent bulbs. I did it after watching An Inconvenient Truth. If you haven’t seen that movie yet, you should!

I changed because I wanted to do my bit for the future planet (those who know me, know that I’m usually far from the environmentalist camp!). But I also did it in an attempt to lower the cost of my electricity bill (honestly, if the environmentalists would just start selling the “personal benefit” of being green, they’d get alot more converts!).

When I’d dabbled with flourescent bulbs a few years back, I was pretty disappointed:

• They took too long to reach full brightness. So it wasn’t really practical to turn them on and off (I’d been taught since young to only have the lights on when you needed them).
• Even at “full” brightness, they weren’t very bright (certainly less than a 60W incandescent bulb).
• They were very costly to buy (6+ times the cost of a normal bulb, but only had 4 times the expected life)
• I never persevered enough with those old bulbs, to determine if there was any true savings.

Having used them for a little over 7 weeks now, I’m happy to report that the new generation of flourscent bulbs:

• Aren’t that expesive anymore (about 2 times the cost, with 4 times the expected life)
• Reach full bright much more quickly. Depending on the type (e.g. normal or floodlight style), that time will be anywhere from 2 seconds to 15 seconds. But the important point is that within 2-4 seconds, the brightness is at a practical level.

And in my most recent electricity bill, I’ve cut my electricity by ~10% (from $94, to $85 per month). I live in Las Vegas (so your per kW cost may be different). The bulbs cost me ~$150, so I’ll probably break even in a little over a year. Although I have a large-ish house we only turn on the lights in the area(s) that we are in (so the length of time it takes me to break even will probably be longer most people’s).

So, now I feel good for doing a little bit to help the environment. And I feel great for saving abit of money.

Australia will phase out traditional incandescent bulbs by 2010. Only flourescent light bulbs will be sold after that period.

After using GotoMyPC for awhile, I am still giving it a good “thumbs up”. I think the application is very solid and does everything it advertises.

I used it for the past month+ while I was travelling. But now that I’m back, so I thought I might suspend the subscription until my next trip. At $17.95 per month, having that service sits idle just seems like a waste of money.

Anyway, I called their Customer Service and ask for my subscription to be cancelled. When they heard about my predicament, they offered to lower my rate to $9.99 and back-date the discount one month (so I’d effectively only paid $17.95 for the first month of use). And the new lower rate is ongoing, for as long as I keep my account! As I travel often for protracted periods, this is a great deal for me. If you’re a GotoMyPC user, you might want to try this to lower your monthly bill.