I’ll have to admit that this is the first Christmas shopping season where I’ve yet to complete my shopping – been way too busy and there’s been way too many gadgets that I’ve wanted for myself. With that said, it looks like BradsDeals.com and Yahoo! Shopping are trying to find a way to make the next 60 (or so) days of this shopping season and beyond that much easier for all of us online shoppers.

BradsDeals.com, the leading website for shopping deals and advice, and Yahoo! Shopping, the #1 comparison shopping site are expanding their commitment to providing consumers with the best deals this holiday season. This year they are building upon their successful partnership on with “60 Days of Deals!” where each day through January 5, 2011, Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Deals and BradsDeals.com will showcase one exclusive offer from a major retailer.

“Our editorial team (at BradsDeal.com) is tracking sales and coupons for the season’s must-have items at nearly 1500 retailers. A ‘BradsDeal’ is what happens when we match one of those valuable coupons with a deeply-discounted sale item.”

With Yahoo! Shopping involved, over 20 million people have access to these 1500+ deals. Take the hint, don’t be lazy and check it all out. I know that I will.

[ Links: BradsDeals.com, Yahoo! Shopping ]

In this edition of Save Money Monday, I’d like to direct your attention to the ever-changing Dealighted.com [ site here ] which lists some of the absolute best sales, deals and coupons for everything from computer products and upgrades to fashion to even travel and website hosting and vitamins.

Subscribe to Dealighted’s RSS feed for the best chances at savings.

[ Dealighted ] [ Related: RTL Deals ]

Everybody loves Amazon.com, right? It’s convenient, it’s trusted, it’s huge and sometimes it’s the cheapest place to shop for certain items. And every now-and-then, it’s incredibly cheap. But those heavily discounted items can be hidden under all of the items offered at the Amazon site. And did you know that Amazon sometimes has coupons? That’s right, certain items can be bought for even a bit cheaper. But how?

Enter Top Hot Deal [ site here ] who brings to the table a unique way to save money via Amazon discount codes and percentages off on a site I use (honestly) at least twice a month for quite a few purchases. For instance, let’s say you’re looking for a belt you’re in need to replace. Hit up Top Hot Deal, click Amazon discount deals, then click Apparel & Accessories then click on (and I’m being greedy here) 90% discount. In my search via the site, I came up to a belt that could take a buckle for 77 cents in the first few search results.

Go to Amazon directly, search for belts. Then change to Men’s, then sort by price. That same item price still doesn’t initially show up. It was hidden a bit on the third or so page – the price on my initial find came up still under its original price of $18.95 instead of the killer 77 cent deal I found on the same belt. This isn’t saying that the Amazon.com search is a pain in the butt horribly flawed, but I found my experience via Top Hot Deal rather easy and quick.

Just wish I went to the site first when I just bought “The Lost Symbol”. Found a coupon that could have saved me a few more dollars. Live and learn I guess.

Note: Sorry for the delay on this week’s Save Money Monday feature. Due to a server issue, things got delayed but all is fine now.

[ TopHotDeal: Amazon Discounts Codes ] [ Related: RTL Deals ] [ Amazon ]

I had gotten my first MagicJack USB VoIP device on July, 19 2007. After one small business trip, it somehow stopped working but the guys over at MagicJack replaced it without question last October. So my “one year review” truly started in October, 19 2007.

A year later, I have gone from Windows 2003 Server SP2 to Windows Vista SP1 – I know, I know… it still sucks – switched professions and cities, and I still am using the same replacement MagicJack device. I’ve even pumped in about $50 into making overseas calls while on-the-go – the rates are “competitive” to most countries… but honestly still a disappointment to some other countries compared to other VoIP options.

The good news, I just renewed for another year of phone calls within the US and Canada for some $20 USD for the entire year. The device has been updated at least 5 times using their upgrade process, only once have I had to manually update it – that was during my switch to Vista. It was quick, painless… and it seems that I was somewhat fortunate. I’ve read about some horror stories over at The Unofficial magicJack Support Forum. The unofficial site that is about one of the only sources for reliable help if you have questions since magicJack’s main website is mostly about just selling the device. You can still get assistance via their live chat at magicjack.com, but it’s only active after you use search.

The bad news. You will have to always keep a machine up and running in order to receive a phone call. For the geek type that loves to have uptime records to brag about, that’s great. For somebody like my mother that treats her computer much like a lamp… it’s off the moment she walks out of the room; that’s going to be a problem if you wish to receive a phone call via the magicJack device. This is not a standalone ATA device like you’d have with Vonage. MagicJack uses your main machine – it only works in Windows XP and Vista, as well as Intel Mac OS X – to receive a phone call. No Linux version yet.

Once you open up the blister pack, place it into an USB2 port and after a very quick and simple registration process, you will be up and running in no time. Place a regular phone into the back of the magicJack device, hit talk on the telephone and you should hear a dialtone; dial all 10 digits of whomever you’re calling in the US/Canada… and you’re golden. I think even my own mother could set this up without even calling me once.

Along with a my.magicjack.com account that will mirror your e-mail and password that you input earlier, the system will prompt you to how to get into your voicemail within the actual phone application itself. You can use either a headset and microphone or use the aforementioned connected telephone. While traveling, I’ve actually hijacked the telephone in the hotel room and plugged it into the magicJack device instead of carrying around another telephone with me or even a headset for that matter. But if I were to use the device at a coffee shop, I’d probably switch to a headset to avoid whipping out a big telephone and looking crazy.

Then again, I might just eBay an old rotary phone for the heck of it now.

If you have good broadband access – my cable modem is rated at 3mb/s down, 1mb/s up normally – your voice clarity will be as good as a cellphone, if not better. I’ve had compliments from people when I call them using magicJack. But as with anything that’s bandwidth dependent, if you get busy downloading things, or use something that likes to hog the bandwidth, like Skype or bit torrents, your voice quality will suffer. Google around and turn off Skype’s supernode if you insist on using that program.

Using the thing now is like second nature. I walk in, grab a phone, dial a number, the software window pops up – it autoruns on windows start, and will pop up each and every time you minimize it, then use the telephone. There are ways to remove this nature as well. I’ve found some good tutorials on how to do so over at the Unofficial MagicJack Forum. But to be honest… it just works.

Sure, there’s been a few times it failed – I might have dialed too fast, missed a number, or the software didn’t register a few numbers I dialed. I tend to dial quite fast, so it happens quite a bit. But the speed dial numbers work every time. Perhaps I’m a clumsy dialer. It rings just like a regular phone, if you leave a message, they see the number – but not the proper name, it just says whichever city you got your number from usually. And speaking of numbers, magicJack has quite a list of area codes and numbers. Not all areas are covered – my part of South Carolina is not covered at all – but since most cellphones have the ability to call long distance now, or in my case I use a Grandcentral number for local numbers – that’s really not an issue. And if you call overseas, you will hear before it attempts to connect you an approximate amount of minutes announced before it dials out. To me, that’s a plus.

With how to use it and how it sounds out of the way, my gripes are very simple. I don’t like the fact that I have to keep my machine running, always. The machine my magicJack device is hooked up to… it’s loud. Like Boeing 777 about to take off loud. In order to make phone calls overseas, you have to pre-pay. Which isn’t a problem, but they don’t accept Paypal. And that… annoys me somewhat. Being a windows process control freak, I do not like the fact that it installs an USB driver that’s always started up – UTSCSI.exe. And for some reason, on my machine, magicJack doesn’t always autostart; which is resolved by merely double clicking the magicJack icon. Nothing major, but it’s a gripe if I were in a rush and thought it was already running.

There are a few other minor gripes; however it just works fine for me – but I’m a casual telephone user. For a month, I had my own mother try it out. She’d get confused sometimes, miss calls and the VMail button wouldn’t announce that there was an voicemail waiting for her (they’ve since fixed this, btw) and not all of her messages came to her directly via e-mail. Some were delayed by a day or so.

This device is also not ready to replace my normal landline. True, it has e911 which works rather well – ask Vonage, it’s the same type of system. But some numbers, such as AT&T 800 numbers just refuse to work. You get some unnaturally fast busy sound. I’ve also noticed problems with toll-free numbers that start with 866 or 877 also being a problem as well. And outages aren’t that rare either.

But when it works… it’s great.

By now, I’ve rambled long enough. Is it for you? I’d say that depends… are you a casual telephone user, do you slaughter your cellphone minutes like I tend to do? Or do you just want to drop a landline and have a cheap secondary line besides your cellphone? I’d say go for it. If you want to replace your landline… I’d say try it out first. If you want to make this your sole telephone line… I’d just honestly say “Don’t do it and wait for another option.”…

All in all… 3.5 out of 5 (It’s good)