THIS WEEK’S DOTW: USB Mood Light for TVs for $19.99 (Reg. $49.99)
Installs in minutes. Makes a lasting impression. This has got to be one of the cheapest, simplest ways to completely upgrade your television watching experience. A three-foot-long, 3M-adhesive-backed LED strip attaches to the back of your TV. One end plugs into a spare USB port on the TV. And that’s it. You’re done. Using the included RF remote – which works from anywhere in the room – you can choose from 20 colors and five brightness levels. For a festive atmosphere, you can even make the lights strobe or cycle! This device can also reduce eyestrain when viewing TV in a darkened room. Most importantly, it just looks cool. So cool, in fact, that our Early Holiday Giftability Index gives it our very first perfect score: 10 out of 10!
30 bright, high-quality LEDs
17-key RF remote
Strip can be cut to fit smaller TVs
Wireless range approx. 50 feet
Can be used for other dramatic, creative lighting purposes
This offer runs from Friday, November 17th through Wednesday, November 22nd, 2017, or while supplies last. Sorry, no rain checks.
A long time ago, in a retail landscape far, far away, we had this crazy idea for a Super Bowl spot.
The premise: We blew all the budget on the airtime, and left absolutely zilch for producing the commercial itself. That first part was absolutely accurate: Even though this spot only ran on the local FOX affiliate here in southern Oregon (KMVU FOX 26), it still cost…, well, it cost a lot. Like, budget-breaking, spreadsheet-crippling a lot.
But we wanted to give it a go, and arranged for a video shoot with a game FOX 26 crew. We shot it in our stockroom, throwing dead computer peripherals from a stepladder, and pulled in unwitting staff members as extras. The on-air “talent” was Connecting Point GM Jeff Thomas and Marketing Director Tom Pentland. The whole thing took roughly 15 minutes to shoot (at the most). During editing, the bilious fluorescent green and pink graphics were reluctantly added by some very skeptical pros in the FOX 26 video production department.
The result? What has to be one of the crappiest, ugliest, most unprofessional Super Bowl spots ever. It aired during the Big Game – Super Bowl XXXVI, in which the New England Patriots beat the St. Louis Rams 20-17 – on February 3rd, 2002. You’re welcome!
On the eve of the Super Bowl’s 50th anniversary, we thought it might be fun to revisit an earlier, more innocent time. Also, it serves as a sort of nostalgic snapshot of vintage computer gear, including the original “bubble back” iMacs. Enjoy.
As the popularity of MacBook Air continues to grow, so do the many ways users customize these ultralight notebooks. ‘Stickers,’ a brand-new spot from Apple, showcases the creativity of these folks. Fun stuff (and if you watch carefully, you’ll spot at least two references to recent Apple acquisition Beats Audio).
The quality of the recording is far from great (it’s a VHS transfer), but the content is pure gold…
Connecting Point introduced the Apple IIc to a lot of folks, back in the day. Its iconic design was innovative for the time, and doesn’t receive a lot of recognition these days.
Connection between father and son, between mother and daughter, between siblings. Connection with your soul mate. Connection with friends and co-workers. Connection between artist and audience.
And connection between a couple of electronic gadgets.
That last one is where this week’s Deal comes in. More and more devices are adopting the HDMI standard, and with good reason: A single easily-attached cable provides digital-quality conduction of both audio and video signals. Your widescreen TV almost certainly has HDMI ports. Many new notebooks (as well as more and more desktop systems) feature HDMI. Not to mention Blu-ray players, flat-screen monitors, digital camcorders and cameras, set-top boxes… it’s a long list that continues to grow.
And usually, HDMI cables don’t come cheap. You can expect to spend $20, $30 or more for a decent six-foot male-to-male HDMI cable. But this week, we’re selling an excellent 10-foot-long HDMI cable for less than four bucks.
