Finding the Perfect Holiday Tech Deals

Shopping during the holidays can be a real pain. I can't stand crowded malls, so I prefer to do as much shopping online as I can. I have found many great sites over the years and I'm going to share them along with some of my tips for having a painless holiday shopping experience.

First, I'm going to share with some of my favorite sites that I frequent when shopping.

Amazon - It's amazing what started as an online bookstore is now a place I can buy a Nintendo Wii and toilet paper at the same time. I shop for TVs, audio equipment and cologne here. I also prefer Amazon's MP3 download store to iTunes as Amazon does not have any DRM in their files and the album artwork is already embedded in the files.

Newegg - I use Newegg for almost all of my computer equipment. I have built many wish lists for different projects that I would like to tackle someday. Newegg does a wonderful job with customer service and they always seem to have the best prices. Always check here if you are looking for computer products. Added plus is you don't have to pay tax.

Monoprice - If you need to get any type of cable for any type of installation, Monoprice.com is your friend. Retail stores like Best Buy make a lot of their money on accessories and installations. A $40 HDMI cable at Best Buy will cost about $4 at Monoprice. The great thing is now that more connections are digital, the cable quality isn't important like it used to be (unless you are doing a really long run).

Here is a list of websites that I'll go to find some really great daily deals:

Techbargains FatWallet Slickdeals

I've also got one other website and tip for finding that hard to find gift. It's unbelievable that it can still be difficult to find a Nintendo Wii two years after it came out. It's crazy that Nintendo can't keep up or chooses not to keep up with production. Anyway, I've got a good system for finding gifts like this. I first go to NowInStock.net and see if they are following any of the products I am looking for. In this case, I chose a Wii. I then subscribed to the alerts and I got an email any time a Wii was in stock. I then set up a filter in my Gmail to forward all of those emails to my phone as a text message. This keeps me on top of when a Wii is in stock and I can then buy it. I was looking for a Wii this past week and I got a text message at 2am on Saturday after getting home from a night out. I was able to purchase the Wii before going to bed and it was out of stock when I woke up. If you really need to find a hard to find gift and need help setting something like this up, Twitter me.

Hopefully you'll be able to find some helpful hints in this post to make your holiday less stressful.