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A Beginner's Guide To Internet Mac Shopping, Part I Should I shop on-line? Is it safe to do so? Are prices better or worse? Who pays shipping? Is the selection any better? How do I find places to shop? All of these questions have occurred to me recently and I decided to try and get some answers to them since the idea of sitting at my computer at any time of the day or night and making purchases without sales pressure sounds delightful. I decided to 'shop' for a new computer and a new printer to check out and compare the various on-line shopping sites with which I am familiar. I choose the iMac (since I really do want one) and a Hewlett-Packard color printer. My first stop was at www.outpost.com. This is an internet-only retailer based in Kent, Connecticut. The first thing I noticed was how user friendly the site is. The home page features specials, a listing of hardware, software and accessories with links to either Mac or PC. This page also lists the products they carry and that they are authorized dealers. Since many were familiar to me, .i.e., well known brands, I felt some sense of comfort. There is also a 1-800 number for both the US and for international callers and the ability to track your order after it is placed. When I clicked on Mac Hardware I was offered links to desktops, notebooks, PCs and Memory. Security is highly promoted and the site states that 'orders placed using our secure server are fully encrypted in transit for your protection.' Features of this site are 24 hour delivery for some items (although the promos give the impression that everything is available for 24 hour delivery) and instant downloadable software. There is also a 30-day money back guarantee. Prices: an iMac G3 233Mhz with Mac OS 8.5, AppleWorks 5, FaxSTF Quicken Deluxe 98, Kai's Photo Soap, MDK, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook Express 4.01, Adobe PageMill and others software packages; keyboard; and mouse; sells for $989.95. The only problem I noted on this site was the listing for this machine as being on sale with the sale ending March 2nd, a week prior to my review. When I clicked to 'order' it I found the computer listed with the shipping estimate clearly displayed. There were also accessories (a zip drive, a superDisk drive, an upper end mouse) listed on the page and the opportunity to add them as well. Ordering was also easy and apparently, after you have given your name, address, city, password, etc. once, that information is retained so that the next time you order you can by-pass that step. My printer shopping didn't go quite so well. I had choices between a portable in-jet (Hewlett Packard Deskjet 340CBI) at $200.99 or HP laser jet's that started at over $1000. I also looked for Apple printers and found one (LaserWriter 8500) which sells for about $1,500. I have used portable printers before and a portable would not be acceptable to me as a frequently used printer. However, over all I was impressed with this site because I was able to easily maneuver through it and find what I was looking for. My primary impression was that this is a business and that it is run like a business. Everything I looked at was functional as opposed to glitzy. My second stop for shopping was at www.mac-o-rama.com. This site does not sell hardware, it is strictly a games oriented site. It was much less professional in its presentation than Outpost, but it is not trying to attract the same kind of audience. I didn't spend much time here because, unless I was looking for a specific game, there wasn't much to retain my interest. I do find their web address to be an interesting choice. Mac-o-rama is not a quick or easy name to type. Most typists are going to have to stop and look for the '-' when entering the name and I wonder if any of the creators thought that through. We become so obsessed with speed on the internet that anything that slows that down must be considered a determent. While this site is not for me, you should tell your kids or grandkids about it as they will be more interested in games. My next stop was at www.macmall.com. I didn't readily find where they are located. I was fairly impressed with this site and noted right off the bat that there were more choices in equipment. Especially for the printers. I found a Hewlett-Packard DeskJet with iMac connection kit for $219.99 and a HP LaserJet for $799.99. There were also good prices for Epsons. The iMac 233Mhz was priced at $898 and included among other things Netscape Navigator, AppleWorks, FaxSTF, Nanosaur, Microsoft Explorer and Outlook Express, and Quicken 98. The fact that Netscape is included would cinch the deal for me right from the start. I really dislike Microsoft Explorer. For all I know, all iMacs come with Netscape, but the Outpost site did not mention it and I therefore assume it is not included in their machine. By-the-way – It is not necessary for everyone to write and tell me that I should be considering a 266Mhz machine. If I were able to actually buy one now that is what I would want, but for the purposes of comparative shopping the 233Mhz is more readily available. Like Outpost, MacMall is set up in a business-like fashion, the brands were well known and they are authorized dealers. It is easy to move around in the site and all relevant information is at hand. They also provide overnight shipping for items in stock. Services include C.O.D. for items delivered in the US with a $6 handling fee. They also state that they will take wire transfers and other payment methods. Ordering is set up the same way as that for Outpost, but there was not the emphasis on security that Outpost offers. I also did not readily find the cost for shipping listed with the machine as I did in Outpost. I will look at more shopping sites for next week's column, but I would like to stop here and report on reader feedback from last week. The subject of the column was searching the net and how to make the best use of the various search engines. Several readers just wrote to say how frustrating the whole experience could be. Luke Daniels from North Carolina described the frustration as 'information glare', which I thought was quite descriptive. Bill Paulson from Lucent Technologies wrote to tell me about www.google.com. I asked my son what a google was and he said it is a 1 followed by a whole bunch of zeros, one of the biggest numbers we have a name for and I think that is an appropriate name for a search engine for those that know. Even for those that don't however, the search engine really worked well! I was totally impressed when I tried it out with the same key words that I mentioned last week. 'Macintosh sounds'took me straight to links for Clixsounds, and 'keep eggs fresh' was a gold mine. There were six appropriate links on the first page alone. I am really glad to know about this engine and will be using it a lot in the future. I appreciate Bill taking the time to pass it on. Luke Daniels favorite way to search the Internet is through Sherlock, but he also recommends www.northernlight.com. This site gave me good links for both subjects, but I found google.com to be the most useful of the two. Jeffrey Martin wrote to tell me how much he uses Altavista's advanced search feature. He notes that it is the only place where 'yellow eggs' doesn't lead him to things like 'yellow dresses with egg stains.' Jeffrey further explained this is because the advanced search uses 'booleans.' I wrote Jeffrey and asked him to explain booleans since I had never heard that term before. He explained that in the top box on the search page you put words that mean how you want to order the results. His example was blueberry. Then in the bottom box you can put stuff like (colors and apple iMac) and not (fruit or MacPlus). This means that Jeffrey wants to look for pages that contain the words colors and apple iMac somewhere on the page, but the page shouldn't contain the words fruit or MacPlus. The results of the search will be ordered by pages containing 'blueberry' first. As always, I am extremely grateful to those readers who take the time to write for those who share knowledge and information. If you have any tips, hints, or thoughts on these topics, make sure you write me so that I can share your thoughts with other readers. |