The stock market is heading higher today, as part of a wider global equity rally. Earlier, James Bullard, the president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, and a member of the Fed board, mentioned that he thought that the economic stimulus measure of buying mortgage-backed securities should continue into next year — moving beyond the first quarter.
As one might imagine, investors latched onto this news and took it as a cue to sell the dollar. After seeing gains for the dollar last week, Bullard’s remarks prompted a round of profit taking. Additionally, the comments also helped stocks. Confident that the …read more

Black Friday is coming up — right after Thanksgiving. I’m not a huge fan of shopping on Black Friday, but my husband does like to go out and get a few things for me at this time. It never ceases to amaze me that he is willing to brave the crazy crowds and traffic. But he does. Here are some of the things that my husband likes to do in order to make his Black Friday shopping relatively painless:

Leave me and our son home: Obviously, he is getting me gifts, so I can’t come along. But our son stays home, …read more

Until recently, Blu-ray players have been unaffordable by most middle-class and lower-class consumers. But we’ve seen them dropping to the $150-$200 range of late, and now that Black Friday ads are busting out all over, it looks like the day-after-Thanksgiving is going to be most consumers’ best opportunity to jump on the Blu-ray bandwagon, with prices dropping as low as $100 and even lower. Which ones offer the best value? These are my three picks, but read carefully…
Costco is offering Vizio’s VBR110 Blu-ray player for $99 on Black Friday. It’s important to note that the VBR110 is considered an “entry …read more

OK, shoppers, it’s time to get serious.
Have you been to your favorite stores and mapped out your routes for Black Friday? You must have a game plan. Don’t expect to just waltz in there and get the games and systems you’ve been pining for. You’ll end up leaving empty handed.
The two Black Friday ads that I’ve found thus far are for Best Buy and Toys “R” Us and the deals are pretty freakin’ hot. I’m sure Target ads will be leaked soon and when I find it, I’ll do a new post with those deals.
Here’s what looks good from Best …read more

I started this month as the new damn PC guy and ended it by buying a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 in one of the Black Friday deals though I wish I had won a PC in a giveaway.
I had been opinionated about using push buttons and organizing program files, worried about the rising types of blog fraud and spam mail, conscious about the precautions to be taken in a cyber cafe and disposing e-waste responsibly, sad about the layoffs and the Mumbai attacks, and excited about the Ancient Rome 3D and the LIFE photo archive projects. I also began an ongoing …read more

Computer World has a holiday gift guide containing 18 economical, expensive, and just plain weird tech gifts for your friends and family. But these are hard times and so you may find this comprehensive list of best Black Friday deals more interesting. My interest of late has been about Netbooks (mini-notebooks). I’m surprised that Dell Inspiron Mini 9 is at 5 and HP Mini 1000 didn’t make the Top 5 in this list by PC World.
Before you jump on to the buying binge, Lance Ulanoff, the Editor-in-Chief of PCMag Digital Network, warns of what not to buy, what to buy, and things …read more