holiday gifts Archive

UPDATE DEC 29 – You have a couple more days to enter to win a FOWA pass! Get your entries in!

Day #7 in the Ten Days of Holiday Gifts comes from Carson Systems. Carson Systems puts on some of the best conferences in my opinion and they have been kind enough to give us five (5) conference passes to give away for the Future of Web Apps in Miami on February 29th. Shameless plug – feel free to let the good people at Carson know that you’d like to see CN as a speaker at the conference!

Just for readers of CenterNetworks, Future of Web Apps is offering Five (5) Free Conference Passes. To enter for one of the passes, send in an entry using our contact form. We will select the winners on January 1st! Note: Please do not enter if you can’t make it to Miami!

(I’ve turned off comments on this post to avoid any entry confusion)

Thanks to all of the companies who donated products and services to our 10 days of holiday gifts. We received a good amount of positive feedback so we will do it again in ’08. There are some promotions that will continue this week: Future of Web Apps Conference Pass entries, OurStage Free Music and discounts on the CN Job Board. Check out all of the remaining offers.

Here are the winners for each of the various sweepstakes — thanks to all who entered! I’ve notified each company and they will contact you with the information in the coming days on how to activate your account.

Compete

• Peter G, Lisa R, Cece S, Austin H, Charles C, Britne R, Tim R

Check out Compete for their search analytics and Web comparison analytics products.

Clicky

• Michael G, Amish L

Check out Clicky for their Web analytics products.

CrazyEgg

• Nathan C, Corsin C, Jason B, Matthew D, Sarah H, Taylor M, Ross B, Paul C, Michael V, Yuvaraj T

Check out CrazyEgg for their site visualization products.

Day #10 in the Ten Days of Holiday Gifts comes from a variety of providers. I’ve received several suggestions over the past week and here are those that have offered up specials for the CN reader.

Clicktale

Clicktale founder Tal Schwartz describes Clicktale as, "a continuous, worldwide, non-intrusive virtual usability lab and should be an indispensable part of every website and web application development cycle." In simple terms, it’s an excellent usability lab. Clicktale recently picked up a round of funding and is the strongest app I’ve seen in the virtual usability space. Check out our video review of the service.

Clicktale is offering ten (10) free 3-month personal memberships. Each of these subscription is worth $57! To enter for one of the passes, send in an entry using our contact form.

Pingdom

Pingdom is a service that monitors the uptime and response time of websites , servers or any other device that is and should be accessible over the internet. We use it on CN and you can read our previous coverage as well.

Using the discount code "centernetworks" (without the quotes) when signing up will give you a 50% discount AND 100 extra SMS for alerts. To use the code, go to www.pingdom.com/signup, select one of the package types (not trial), and enter the code into the "promotional code" box and press "Apply code". This also works when upgrading from within a trial account.

Harvest

Harvest lets you track time easily and accurately with Harvest. Designed and built for small business, Harvest is a breeze to set up and delivers powerful reports. Time is money, track it wisely. Some of the largest agencies are using Harvest and in my testing, it’s a good choice for those looking to track project time.

To signup using the CN discount, send an email to support-at-getharvest.com and mention the code CENTERHOLIDAY07 and they will take care of everything from there.

ExpertFlyer

ExpertFlyer is for frequent flyers and business travelers who want to see things like their travel agent would, and other pluses like Flight Alerts and the ability to see upgrade inventory for airlines that don’t even show them on their own website (like American Airlines, full list here). I’ve used the service over the years and it’s helped me get better seating for those transcons/intercons. The ability to figure out routing like a travel agent can give you better routings, lower prices and better seats. Just a note – you can’t actually book tickets on ExpertFlyer but you can do all of the research needed to make trips more effective.

ExpertFlyer is offering a 15% discount off of new subscriptions to ExpertFlyer – both regular membership and gift certificate. It’s the perfect gift for the frequent flyer. The coupon code is AMVGIGVZ.

Day #9 in the Ten Days of Holiday Gifts comes from Compete. With Compete, you can identify rival search marketing strategies to take your SEM and SEO efforts to the next level, and stay on top of rivals with site metrics and audience profiles. Compete has launched a search analytics product and they have been kind enough to give us 250 credits to give away. Check out all of our Compete coverage.

Just for readers of CenterNetworks, Compete is offering 10 CN readers 25 search engine analytics credits. To enter, send in an entry using our contact form. We will select the winners this weekend!

(I’ve turned off comments on this post to avoid any entry confusion)

Day #8 in the Ten Days of Holiday Gifts comes from CrazyEgg. The CrazyEgg service helps you understand where your traffic goes and how they interact with your site. CrazyEgg founder Hiten Shah describes the service as, "CrazyEgg helps you visualize your visitors. What that means is that it gives you a clear understanding of where people are clicking on a web page with visual heatmap and visual overlay. It is mainly a testing platform that helps you improve your web site.". Check out our full interview with Hiten.

Just for readers of CenterNetworks, CrazyEgg is offering Ten (10) Free Accounts for life. To enter for one of the passes, send in an entry using our contact form. We will select the winners this weekend!

(I’ve turned off comments on this post to avoid any entry confusion)

There are five technology items that are on the top of my list when I sit on Santa’s lap at the mall this week. I thought I’d share my list with you, explain why each one is on my list and ask ya’all to share your list of tech gifts you are looking for this year. The list is in no particular order.

Gift #1 – The iPhone

I’d like an iPhone because it would allow me to stay connected when I am out of the house or in transit (which is a lot of the time lately). I could keep in contact with CN, Twitter, and news as well. And how can I walk around NYC claiming to be a leading tech blogger with only an old beatup motorola cell with no data whatsoever?

Cost – $399 – Apple or AT&T Stores

Gift #2 – Sanyo Xacti HD700

I want to move into video more than I want a date with Rachel Stevens. (ok, just kidding) This type of video camera would allow me to whip it out whenever needed and get real, live footage of conferences, events, interviews and I could even bring out my whiteboard for demonstrations (my whiteboard is bigger than Scoble’s).

Cost – $499 – Amazon

Gift #3 – Nintendo Wii

I totally rock at the bowling and tennis – in fact, when I was at the WingSix offices last year (they host CN), I schooled all of them. I’d love to play some Mario Brothers as well!

Cost – $who knows – Amazon

Gift #4 – Apple Macbook Pro

My PC is about two-and-a-half years old, laptop about three years old. PC is about to die and I was thinking of combining the laptop and the desktop together. This would certainly help with traveling – no more forgetting things at home. I’d go with the 15" for easier travel. And if I get a Macbook Pro, I’d be cool and get to sit at the cool blogger tables at conferences. Right now I’m forced to the Dell table, it’s a boring crowd.

Cost – $1959 – Amazon

Gift #5 – Samsung LCD TV

I’ve got the same TV since first year in college – granted it was top of the line back then and still runs great – got a huge deal because I was salesman of the month at The Wiz. It’d be nice to get a LCD and take advantage of the free HDTV that time warner provides. I could also push Internet video to it so I could review video shows and twitter messages from the couch.

Cost $1150 – Amazon

Please share your gift wishes as well!

Day #6 in the Ten Days of Holiday Gifts comes from yours truly, CenterNetworks. How could we not offer a holiday gift to our readers as well! We’ve slashed the price on a job board post from $99 to $49 – a 50% savings! The sale price will last through the end of the year. If you’d like to purchase credits to be used at any time in 2008, let us know.

Just for readers of CenterNetworks, get 50% off on any job board post.