Shopping online? Be wary of Web seals and user reviews

If you, like many Americans, plan to do a chunk of your Black Friday and holiday shopping online this year, here are two points to consider (and two new videos to illustrate them).

Don’t trust Web seals. You might think that the Web seal on a retail site is a sign of the merchant’s integrity. Not necessarily. The only “qualification” some seal issuers require—such as the “Online Business Bureau,” not to be confused with the Better Business Bureau—is that an online merchant pay a fee to display it. And more seals don’t equal better service. We found one seal-laden e-commerce site that received an F from the Better Business Bureau. (See our video, “Decoding Web Seals,” and our story, "Can you trust that Web seal?".)

Be skeptical of user reviews. Putting too much stock in user reviews can be dangerous. Some sites (like Yelp) will raise a positive review to the top of the stack if the manufacturer or company pays them a fee. Other companies have employees post paeans of their products in user-review sections, highlighting only the positive attributes. And you never know who’s trashing a product—could it be someone with a vested interest? (See our video, “Can You Trust User Reviews.”)

A holiday gift to all: Recycle your old electronics (and get cash back)

With early Black-Friday deals abounding, maybe you're planning on getting some sleek, new electronic item to replace an old clunker. And you’re probably planning on heaving that old computer, TV, printer, or whatever to the curb, right? Do us all a favor and recycle it.

"Cell phones can be loaded with toxic metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, and mercury," says Urvashi Rangan, the director of technical policy at Consumers Union. "Old televisions and computer monitors can contain up to eight pounds of lead. When they break in a landfill, then can pose an environmental and a neurological hazard."

Unfortunately, our recent survey of green behavior found that only 12 percent of consumers are recycling large electronics and 17 percent recycle small electronics.

You don’t even have to be a complete altruist. Sears is offering cash (in the form of a Sears gift card, of course) for your old electronics. Value is based on the quality of the trade-in.

So, please, keep us neurologically sound. GreenerChoices.org offers help in finding places to recycle computers, cell phones, TVs, and more. A number of manufacturers and retailers (like Best Buy, Staples, and Office Depot) also offer recycling services. For more, check out our video: “Getting Rid of Old Electronics." —Nick K. Mandle

Save money on your holiday cards with these 8 photofinishers

Printing your holiday photo cards through a photofinishing Web site can save you time and money, especially if you do so in the next week or two. A number of sites are offering limited time discounts and free shipping. Below are some deals that I found at larger sites.

To take advantage of an offer, you must register with the site and provide contact information, such as your e-mail and shipping address. You'll also need to upload any photos you want to use on the card. Be sure to note the expiration dates on all offers:

• Shutterfly Save 20 percent on holiday cards. (The offer does not apply to note cards and calling cards.) Also, you can get free shipping on your order if you spend $30 or more. A comparison page lets you compare card types. Shutterfly has a wide array of other gifts, many of which are also being discounted.
• Kodak Gallery This site is offering free shipping on orders of $75 or more.
• Snapfish This site is offering free shipping on orders of 40 or more flat cards. They are also offering 20 percent off on everything in the Snapfish catalog.
• PEphoto.com They're offering 10 percent off orders of 25 or more photo greeting cards. Also, buy one photo album, get $10 off a second album.
• Walmart photo center Free shipping on greeting cards.
• Winkflash They're offering 40 percent off all holiday card orders.

• Clark Color labs Has several promotions: 40 percent off photo greeting cards; free shipping on photo gifts of $25 or more; 7 cents per prints; $8 off hardcover photo book orders of $20 or more.
• Photoworks Buy one photo calendar, get one free.

Buzzword: Are "derivative" TV models a good buy?

If you’re on the hunt for a discounted TV during the holiday shopping season, you may come across some model numbers you haven’t seen in our TV Ratings (available to subscribers) or anywhere else, even from major brands. These TVs are known as "derivatives," and they generally differ from the standard models in a manufacturer's line. Because the derivative sets are lower-priced, they typically have lower specs and lack some features found on standard models.

There are several reasons why manufacturers offer these sets. One is that it allows them to hit specific retail price points during promotional shopping periods, something they couldn’t do with standard models. This lets bigger-name companies compete on price with lesser-known secondary or tertiary TV brands without disrupting pricing for their standard models. A company may also use derivative models to get their brand into a new channel of distribution—say, a mass merchant such as Walmart or a warehouse club like Costco—without upsetting their more mainstream retail partners. Since the model numbers, and usually, specifications, are different, shoppers can’t directly compare the models sold in these different types of retail outlets.

As we mentioned in a previous post, we’re already seeing some derivative LCD models from Samsung—LN-B400- and B500-series sets —and Sony (KDL-L504- and S504-series sets). Last year, Panasonic also offered a few derivative models that were sold only during the holidays.

Plasma or LCD TV? I vote for plasma

“No one would buy a plasma TV anymore, would they?” Financial journalist Joe Kernen posed that question to a tech-stock analyst on CNBC’s Squawk Box program Monday morning. The analyst didn’t answer Joe directly, but instead started touting LED TVs—a marketing term for LCD sets that use LED backlighting—as the wave of the future. (The exchange happens around minute 3:30 of the CNBC video clip, embedded below.)

Well, I’d like to answer Joe’s question about plasmas directly, with a resounding YES! Many consumers (including me and a number of the experts who test TVs for Consumer Reports) have bought plasma TVs. I, for one, will vote with my pocketbook once again. I plan to buy a second plasma TV with a bigger screen (my current set is 42 inches, and my room is big enough for a 50-incher). As our tests show month in and out, the best plasma TVs have excellent picture quality, certainly as good as any LCD set’s and perhaps even better. In our judgment, and that of other experts in the field, plasma TVs can display depth and richness that result in a more dimensional, cinematic look than on most LCD TVs, including those pricey new LED-backlit models.

Plasma TVs also have advantages that no LCD can match. Perhaps the most significant is their unlimited viewing angle, which means everyone in the room can enjoy the same great picture quality from any viewing position. With almost all LCD TVs, the picture quality can be great from head on, but it deteriorates as you move away from dead center, so the screen can look washed out or dim, or colors can shift, sometimes dramatically. (For more, see "Viewing angle still the Achilles heel for most LCD TVs."

Verizon's sky-high ETF: Do the math

Bloggers have speculated that Verizon's fat new $350 fee for breaking its smart phone contracts is intended to thwart phone flipping, a scheme in which you take the two-for-one deal, quit the contract on the second phone, then sell the handset on eBay at a profit, even after you pay the old $175 early termination fee (or "ETF").

Verizon didn't directly answer when we put that theory for the $350 ETF to them. "Our general reasoning is that it reflects the higher cost associated with the phone," said Tom Pica, a Verizon spokesman.

That suggests Verizon is giving customers bigger savings in the form of a bigger subsidy for those devices out of its own pocket, right?

Wrong.

4 Tips for Taking Great Parade Pics

There are lots of opportunities coming up for photographing seasonal parades, from tomorrow’s World Series victory parade to Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s.

Here are some ways to prepare to capture those special images:

Bring the right gear. To capture both close-ups and wider shots, you need a zoom lens with a fairly wide range. The typical 3x zoom of a point-and-shoot camera (Ratings available to subscribers) is barely adequate. A zoom of 5x or greater is better. Before the event, fully charge your camera’s battery and bring a fully charged spare battery. A lens cloth and an extra memory card are also helpful. If you’re using an SLR (SLR Ratings available to subscribers), bring a hood for the lens, which helps prevent flare and keep out stray light.

Plan ahead. Check the weather forecast. If it’s cold, bring gloves. If rain is likely, bring a plastic cover to shield your camera. Arrive well ahead of the parade start time, so you can photograph any interesting pre-parade activities and stake out a good position.

Get a good view. To avoid having heads and arms in the crowd from ruining your shot work your way to the front of the crowd. If you’re not sure you can do that, bring a small, lightweight folding stool to stand on. Or get to an elevated location, on a hill or on at a window above street level in a nearby building.

Make it interesting. Vary the types of shots, mixing close-ups of interesting people or props in the parade with wider shots of a float or the crowd. Shoot portraits of children or other interesting people using a wide aperture (f/2 to f/4) to blur the background and make their face “pop” If your camera has a burst mode (which all SLRs and some point-and-shoots do), use it to capture briskly moving subjects, such as baton twirlers.

If you’ve got more tips to share, post them below. —Jeff Fox

How I backed up 12 gigabytes of World Series photos

It’s fun sharing historic photos like this one, which I shot at last night’s World Series finale. Preserving the additional thousands of post-season shots I took at Yankee Stadium over the past few weeks may not be fun, but it’s important because it will let me mine that photo collection for all sorts of purposes for years.

There are numerous ways to create backups of important files. For a brief overview, see our video on computer backups (embedded below). Our computer backup system buying guide (available for subscribers) provides much more detailed advice along with brand-name recommendations of systems we’ve tested.

Since I back up a lot of photos and prefer quick access to them, I use external hard drives.

(Storing them externally also keeps my computer’s internal hard drive from becoming cluttered with image files.) And because I always make at least two backup copies of important photos (in case one set of copies is lost) before I delete them from the camera’s memory card, I use two drives.

To back up my thousands of post-season shots, after each game, I copied the shots from that game to a 1.5-terabyte (TB) external hard drive. Then I copied those files from that external hard drive to a second, more portable 500GB external drive. (I have a computer at a distant geographical location, so I occasionally take the smaller, portable drive with me and copy photos to the hard drive on that off-site computer.) Only then did I delete the photos from the memory card.

This approach may not be for everybody. If your needs are more modest, an inexpensive thumb drive or writeable DVD might serve just as well.

If you have tips to share on how you preserve your photo files, post them below. —Jeff Fox

Get the student discount for Windows 7–even if you're not a student

As the Windows 7 roll out continues, the folks over at PC Magazine have posted answers to their readers’ top questions about the new OS.  One in particular caught my eye:

Q: How can I qualify for the Student price of Windows 7? What about the OEM pricing?

A: You really just need an e-mail account from an institution of higher learning. When I tested a recent alumna coworker's address from the University of Colorado, it was accepted immediately. To get this bargain-basement price of $30, head to http://www.win741.com. OEM pricing is intended for system builders, and usually buying a major system component like a motherboard or hard drive qualifies you for a price considerably lower than what you'd pay for the retail box. But some part sellers will offer the lower price to all takers. Note that the OEM version won't come with both 64-bit and 32-bit discs, nor will it include support from Microsoft.

So even if you’re technically no longer in college, but have access to an ".EDU" email address, you qualify for the Windows 7 student discount could potentially still take advantage of the offer—at your own risk (see update below). If you’re a student at a college or other educational institution that doesn’t provide an email address, you might still qualify. Check this link at Microsoft.

[Update: Should you possess a ".EDU" address and decide to take advantage of the student discount, note Microsoft's terms and conditions: "Microsoft or Digital River may contact you to verify that you are a current student. If documentation is not provided indicating that you are a current student, you will be liable to reimburse Microsoft for the difference between what you paid and the estimated retail price of the software."–Ed.]

For more, see our ongoing Windows 7 coverage and commentary, including “Windows 7: To upgrade or not to upgrade?” –Nick K. Mandle

A friendly reminder: Daylight saving ends this weekend

Would that all timepieces were like our cell phone and computer clocks, automatically turning themselves forward or back to adjust to daylight-saving time. Alas, it ain't so. Don't forget that at 2AM this Sunday morning, daylight-saving time—that wonderfully sunny season that may be costing us all more money—ends and we all get to start commuting home in the dark.

So turn back your clocks one hour when you go to sleep Saturday night, and enjoy that extra hour of sleep. We sure will.