After a week pockmarked with unfortunately timed sellouts, I want to send you into your weekend with enough deals to make your wallet beg for mercy.

1. The cheapest Blu-ray player ever. We've been rewatching "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy around these parts, and I just upgraded from the DVDs I'd purchased years ago to the Blu-ray editions. No. Contest. If you want the best picture and sound, by a mile, there's still nothing better.

For a limited time, and while supplies last, Newegg has the refurbished Magnavox MBP5320 Blu-ray player with Wi-Fi for $19.99 shipped. … Read more

If you're anything like me, you have an iTunes library you've amassed over the course of many years, one that includes everything from ripped CDs to Amazon MP3 purchases to song downloads from any number of outside sources.

In other words, it's a messy collection, with duplicates, missing album art and tags, and so on. There are plenty of utilities out there promising to clean things up, but most of them will cost you.

Not today. Until tomorrow, you can get Leawo Tunes Cleaner (PC/Mac) absolutely free. There's a slightly obnoxious catch, but ultimately it'… Read more

A couple weeks back I suggested that Kingsoft Office Free 2013 might just be the best Microsoft Office alternative you can get, especially if you need only the core elements: word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Kingsoft offers a Pro version, of course, one that includes more goodies. A one-year license normally sells for $29.95, but today only, Giveaway of the Day has Kingsoft Office Professional 2013 (Win) absolutely free.

Let me note right here that this version has just a few key benefits over its free counterpart: a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) editor, support for macros in the … Read more

You know what my iPad doesn't have? A DVD player. So how am I supposed to watch all the great movies in my DVD collection? I'm talking "The Rock," "The Shawshank Redemption," "The Incredibles," "The Matrix," and so on. (It's true: I have awesome taste in movies.)

No doubt Apple, Amazon, and Google would love for me to buy their digital versions of all my platter-based movies, but I already bought them once. Do I really have to spend $10 to $15 to buy them again?

Not today. Movie-discovery … Read more

Recently I splurged on a Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook, which I absolutely love. It's a svelte, speedy marvel of modern computing, and almost certainly my favorite laptop of all time.

Which is why I'm especially fearful of losing it. Laptop thieves are everywhere. If they're not breaking into your car or home, they're snatching and grabbing from offices, coffee shops, airport security lines, and so on.

Arguably the only thing worse than your laptop getting stolen is knowing there's no way to get it back. After all, it's not like it can "phone … Read more

For over a year now I've championed Kingsoft Office Free 2012 as one of the top Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows, and with good reason: It's one of the best-looking clones out there, with superb file-compatibility to boot.

Yesterday, Kingsoft unveiled Office Free 2013 (Windows). (Please see below before you install it.) I'll go out on a limb and say it's now the single best free replacement for Microsoft Office, for a couple of very good reasons.

In case you're unfamiliar with it, Kingsoft Office includes three modules: Writer, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. Needless to say, … Read more

The days of physical media are slowly but surely drawing to a close. Of the last 10 movies I rented, eight came from Amazon Instant Video and one from iTunes. There wasn't a shiny silver platter in sight.

That said, lots of folks have giant DVD libraries, and with good reason. DVDs are cheap. They work great in minivans that have DVD players. And, um, oh, what was that third one again? I can't...sorry. Oops.

I kid, I kid. I'm just jokingly making the case for why you might want BDlot DVD ISO Master, a free … Read more

Just last week I told you about Zinio's new Z-Pass, a $5 subscription option that gives you a choice of three digitally delivered magazines per month.

You can try that free for a month, but here's an even better deal: a $50 Zinio credit absolutely free.

That credit is good for 18 single "subscriptions" (i.e. individual issues) or six mini-subscriptions (of three issues each). And you don't have to redeem it all right away; you've got until mid-August to use up your credit.

Let me mention right now that this offer comes courtesy … Read more

Remember CinemaNow? The company has been slinging digital movies since 1999. But although it got picked up by Blockbuster in 2009, it has never achieved what I'd call critical mass. Indeed, I kinda thought it had gone the way of so many Blockbuster stores.

Nope! In fact, CinemaNow (currently owned by Best Buy) appears to be working on a comeback, as evidenced by this new promotion: 10 free CinemaNow movies when you link to an UltraViolet account.

Don't have a CinemaNow account? No problem, it's free to sign up for one, though you can also use an … Read more