There are things you definitely don't want to get after their expiration date. Milk, egg, and bread come to mind. But then there are Power Bars and other processed foods that taste exactly the same years after their expiration date has come and gone. Not that we'd know.

It turns out you can get a free copy of Paragon Hard Disk Manager that's a little past its prime as well. Although the free offer was supposed to expire in April, if you visit the Paragon site to register your product and download your software from Computer Active, you can get a fully licensed copy of this Windows application which would normally set you back around $50.

Paragon has a couple of useful features. First, you can use the software to create, delete, or resize partitions on your hard drive. But you can also use it to create or restore images of your entire disk or copy the entire hard drive to another disk. Here are a few more features:

• Merge partitions
• Redistribute free space
• Schedule backups
• Differential backups
• Copy partitions
• Explore disc images

This offer could expire at any time. There are also plenty of free disk partitioning apps out there, but few have has many features or are as easy to use as Paragon's software. But if all you need is a simple partitioning tool, you might want to check out Parted Magic, which can be run from a LiveCD or a USB flash drive.

[via gHacks]

Have your eye on the Macbook Air, but don't want to pull the trigger and buy one until Steve Jobs drops the price by a few hundred bucks? You could keep hitting refresh on the Apple Store page from now until eternity. Or you could have Price!pinx send you an email when the price changes.

Here's how it works. You drag a Price!pinx bookmarklet to your browser toolbar. Then whenever you visit a product page on any web-based store, you just highlight the price of the item you're interested in and hit the bookmarklet. The Price!pinx page will pop up and if you enter your email address the service will send you a message as soon as the price changes.

You can also register for a free account to manage all of your notifications in one place. But there's no registration required to set up a basic alert.

[via Techie Buzz]

The only thing better than free software is commercial software that you can pick up for free (legally, we're not talking shady BitTorrent downloads here). And right now you can pick up a full copy for Norton Ghost 12.0 for free after rebates from Buy.com.

Norton Ghost is a commercial application that lets you perform a complete backup of your computer. If your PC crashes, you can use Ghost to restore every single last bit of information, including all your files and settings. Normally the software costs $70, but Buy.com has it for $50. And if you buy it this week, you can take advantage of two rebates that make the software effectively free.

The first rebate is pretty straightforward. You submit it, and you get a $30 Visa check card. That's all there is to it. In order to qualify for the second, $20 rebate, you'll need to demonstrate that you've purchased any other antivirus, firewall, antispam, or antispyware utility from Norton, Symantec, or any other competing company.

In other words, if you've ever paid for security software (and have the receipt to prove it), you can get another $20 off. If you're a fan of freeware, you're out of luck. Still, $20 is a pretty good price for Ghost. Or if you're looking for a free method for performing a complete drive backup, check out DriveImage XML. It doesn't have all of Ghost's features, but it is free.

The Norton Ghost offer expires Saturday.

[via CNet]

Oh the humanity! It's a bird, it's a plane! In the course of human history, there have been many sentences that demanded an exclamation point. But very rarely, if ever have we been able to issue three completely appropriate exclamation points in one sentence: Woot! and Yahoo! have announced a partnership!

If you don't get it yet, the exclamation points are actually part of both company's names. Well, kind of. Woot includes one in its logo, but not in most references to the company name. As for the last exclamation point, that's just there to express our own excitement.

Woot, for the uninitiated, is a website that offers one item for sale each day, usually at an extremely deep discount. There's a limited supply of each item, and if it sells out, you're out of luck until the next day when something else goes on sale. Occasionally the site goes crazy and has a Woot Off where as soon as one item sells out another is made available until the company decides it's over.

Apparently Yahoo! has approached Woot about offering a daily Woot item through Yahoo! Shopping. Starting at midnight tonight, there will be a new Woot item available from the front page of Yahoo! Shopping every day. It will be a separate item from the one sold that day at Woot.com. The upshot for Woot is that more customers will learn about the company (and buy products from it). And Yahoo! gets a little geek cred, and a daily sale item for its front page.

Don't have the $400+ to pick up a copy of Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007? It looks like the software maker has decided to take pity on you -- if you happen to be a college student.

Microsoft is offering an "Ultimate Steal" promotion allowing college students to pay just $60 for the software. We're not sure that's a "steal," considering you can get OpenOffice.org for free. But $60 is still a lot cheaper than $400.

If you're outside of the US, you'll also be able to get an even cheaper 1-year subscription version of the software for £12.95/€ 18.00/C$22.00.

The promotion runs through April 30. Students in the US, UK, and Canada can participate immediately, while students in France, Italy, and Spain will be able to buy the cheap(er) software next week. You'll need a valid college or university e-mail address to get the discount.

[via CNet]

The point of this post is to provide a handy list of software for Palm OS devices because many free apps are now hard-to-find. Commercial apps aren't, but I'm a cheap, cheap man. Follow along as I save you a bundle on hardware and software that'll put a powerful gadget in your pocket.

I wound up with a Palm T|X from my little brother who bought himself an iPhone (and the subsequent snobbery that comes with). It's been years since I used a Palm regularly, and the last one I tried was a WristPDA but was so hopelessly out-of-date that I abandoned it for a real watch (you know, that won't short out in the rain). My first PDA was, in fact, a PalmPilot Pro and was branded from 3Com. Those were the days, when Palm and Apple's Newton stood and chuckled at the nascent Windows CE platform. My how times have changed. The Newton is long buried (but not exactly dead), and Palm is largely in freefall. Why they spun out their OS years ago is beyond me, and it certainly hasn't helped their software situation any. Where Palm apps of every stripe once flowed freely there is now but a trickle, and every day that trickle gets slighter while developers move on to more robust platforms.

Still, what amazes me is how great Palm hardware is, and how you can really do quite a bit with it-- if you know where to look. So I've distilled my own adventures in Palm down to one handy little guide, full of useful apps and tips to get you started. You can find a decent deal on ebay for nearly any modern color Palm too. Don't be afraid to buy a unit with dead battery and buy a replacement battery. Do be afraid to buy something monochrome and without Bluetooth. I find the T|X is a sweet spot-- no laggy hard drive like the LifeDrive, an SD slot, Bluetooth and WiFi, and the ability to go fullscreen and landscape. If you crave tiny, check out the smaller Tungstens that slide open. Currently you can get an opened T|X on ebay for less than $150.

When acquiring this little guy I had three primary needs:
1) PDF Reader
2) Image browser
3) Quick note capture with alarms

See what works and doesn't, plus all the cool extra things I found after the jump.

Every time you search for an item on eBay, you can be sure that hundreds or thousands of people are looking for the exact same thing. And that's why you rarely get that super bargain you're hoping for when buying a used computer or fishing rod.

TypoTracker aims to give you an edge by letting you search eBay for common misspellings. Just type your search term, and TypoTracker will generate a list of possible typos. Click the search button and hunt for bargains.

More often than not the service is almost, but not quite useful. For example, if you're looking for a Sharp Zuarus Linux PDA, TypoTracker will search for "saurus," bringing up dozens of listings for plush dinosaur toys. Or if you're looking for items that are sold with "buy it now" prices, the seller won't discount the item just because she or he misspelled an item in the product description.

[via AppScout]

Post2Blog is a really handy WSIWYG blog editor for publishing posts to blogs on a number of platforms including WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, and a few dozen others.

While the program used to cost $39, Bytescout Software has released version 3.0 as freeware. In other words, you have absolutely no excuse for not checking it out.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Live spellechecking
• Depending on what blog platform you're using, images can be uploaded automatically to your blog, to Imageshack, Flickr, or other locations
• Plugins for Internet Explorer and Firefox let you copy and paste text from the web to your blog with just a few clicks
• Microsoft Word toolbar lets you compose entries in Word and upload them to your blog with just a click
• Quickly add images or documents to your entry by clicking "send to" and "Post2Blog" in Windows Explorer

[via CyberNotes]

Want to call your mom on Mother's day, but you've spent so much money on your blazing fast computer and high-speed internet connection that you can't afford the long distance bill? Skype and Intel want to help.

Intel is sponsoring a day of free "global calling" over Skype. By global, they mean you can place the call from anywhere in the world, but you have to make your SkyeOut call to a phone number in the U.S. or Canada.

Normally, these calls would cost about $.02 per minute unless you have a Skype Unlimited plan, which runs $30 per year.

Of course, you don't have to use your free minutes to call your mom on May 13th, but if you don't, there's the risk that she'll hop on the internet and call you first. And that'll just feel weird. Next think you know, she'll be checking out your MySpace page and forwarding you emails about Viagra.

[via Engadget]

In December, I pointed out that this is a great time to pick up some software on the cheap. Well, if you thought there were a lot of good deals before the holidays, you should check out these after holiday sales:

• eSoft Interactive has extended their sale by about a week to January 7th. You can get 50% off of all the games in their store with the coupon code: ESOFTHOLIDAYS.
• Astraware is doing their annual Hogmanay (New Year's) sale. Every day through January 11th, Astraware will offer up a couple pieces of software for 50% to 75% off. You can pick up some games for as little as $2.95.
• Several web sites that have partnered with MobiHand seem to be offering discounts. For example, if you make a purchase through the Just Another Mobile Monday store with the coupon code JAMM-HOLS you'll get 20% off of any software purchased through January 6th.
• PhatWare's offering up to 50% off selected products, including PhatPad, Calligrapher, PhatNotes and PhatSpell. These discounts expire January 31st.
• And PocketGear, Conduits, and Pocket PC Techs all have sales continuing into January.

It seems like everything is going 'social' these days, and the tech bargain and coupon industry is the latest to join the list. Introducing: dealplumber, "a community-driven deals site that delivers the best deals and coupons from across the internet". Almost everything you might expect from a 'web 2.0-meets-discounts' site is here, including tags (complete with a cloud), comments, saving coupons, affiliate commission sharing, different views for deal lists (list - with pictures - and a grid view), RSS feeds and more.

As the first post in the dealplumber blog states, one of their main goals is to act as a unifying location for all deals on the web, instead of leaving the job to what they feel (and I agree) is a segmented toolbox of sites that don't seem to communicate or cooperate with each other, which ends in a lose-lose situation for everyone.

Being that they went public just this past Monday, I think they're already off to a great start. A click on their 'latest coupons' section gives me a list comprised of a laptop rebate, a Dreamhost discount, a deal on Adidas shoes and even an AVON bargain. I honestly never thought I'd see beauty product discounts next to rock-bottom RAM deals. Still, during my initial signup and browsing through the site, I find myself wishing for a couple of features, specifically: RSS feeds for all tags, as well as a more concrete system that tells the shopper who a deal is offered by. But hey: they can't reveal their entire hand this early in the game, right?

Like I said though: all things considered, dealplumber is off to a rockin' start, and they have already earned themselves a place at the top of my list of shopping sites. It'll be interesting to see how this social-bargain site evolves in the months to come.