Tech Support Alert has a list of the 46 best freeware utilities. Skimming some of these, I think I'll be going out and adding some new utilities to my system. [via The Daily Grind]

Buy.com has a rebate form that will give you a 128M Compact Flash card for $2.99. Yup! $2.99! I know it isn't that great of a card, but, come on, $2.99 is hard to pass up. My camera uses CF, and a cheap 128M card as a backup will come in handy.

This deal is good from December 1 - December 15.

Greg Duncan has a link to Egghead Cafe and Lokas' offer of a bunch of free icons and graphics. Wow! They are really nice looking. I'm horrible at creating graphics, so this is going to come in super handy.

I've been known to buy stuff off buy.com, which means that they have my email address, so I get lots of mailings from them about their sales. They sometimes have decent prices, so I like getting them. This weekend (March 27-28), they are having a weekend sale for $10 off a purchase of $100. They say in the email to share it with friends and family, so here we go:

$10 OFF the purchase of $100 valid in all Stores http://enews.buy.com/cgi-bin5/DM/y/eaWg0GjKgl0EI30BenY0CI This weekend only, take advantage of extra-special savings! Starting NOW, you get $10 off any purchase of $100 or more, valid in ALL stores! Plus, as a thank you for being a valued customer, we encourage you to forward this coupon to your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers so they can take advantage of the extra savings. But hurry! Like sleeping in, this offer is only good through the weekend, and ends Sunday, March 28th, 2004 at 11:59 P.M. PST. Some restrictions apply. See site for details. If you need something, go for it.

A few weeks ago, I got some “free after rebates” stuff at Staples. I got 100 slim-style jewel cases and a 5 plug power strip. A couple days ago, the rebates came in, one check for $15, another for $5. Hurra! I'm going to have to start up a page to track the stuff this year.

http://www.freeafterrebate.info/

It looks to keep up on products that I can get for free after rebate, as well as notes about shipping and handling for the items. It turns out that the USB wireless adapter that I got at www.pcmall.com is also at www.ecost.com, but the S&H turns out to be cheaper. Now, I couples the pcmall one with the other free thing, so the S&H evened out. Got to keep an eye on that, though.

And, they have an RSS feed. AWESOME! Loading it up in IE, though, doesn't show anything. I'll put it in Sharpreader when I get home.

Another free after rebate deal at pcmall.com (other than the free USB Wireless Adapter) is a 7-in-1 USB Memory Card Reader. Now, since I'm already ordering the wireless adapter, I may as well order this and put it on the same shipping & handling ($8.72 for both). It is $14.99 with a $14.99 rebate. That means free! Coupling these two purchases together, I'm only paying $4.36 for each! I'll update this when I get the merchandise.

While browsing around my local Microcenter, I noticed that they were selling these cool little Gigafast Ethernet 5-port network mini switches for 29.95. Well, there was also a rebate for it for 29.95. This meant that, if I was smart and remembered to send my rebate form in, I could get it for free!

Now, this is especially cool, since Mary's brother, Brian, his friend, Dave, and I get together somewhat regularly to play Ages of Empires II on the lan. Now, when they would come over, I always had to disconnect my cable modem, run the linksys router all the way downstairs to the living room and then hook our machines up. With the new switch, I can just plug it in, then plug the computers in. We tried it out last Sunday, and it worked great! Plus, it is super small, so I could see taking this somewhere when I go out and meet friends at a bar for geekfests, or the like. :)

This switch worked absolutely flawlessly on Sunday. I'm always a little bit nervous about just plugging the computers in and having them see each other, but this worked like a champ. AWESOME!

Well, one of my new goals for 2003 is to get as much free stuff as I can. I've got some ideas that I'll be exploring sometime in the future, perhaps even on the blog. :) For now, I'm sticking with rebates and attempting to get stuff through reviews. I'll keep tabs on the free stuff I get, alerting all of my ever-so-avid readers of free things that they themselves can get.

Now, it is always good to remember that the “free” in the online deals is actually free except for shipping & handling. So, for example, the Free USB Wireless Adapter is free at PCMall, but you still have to pay a minimum of $8.72 in shipping in handling.

I also want to keep to the idea that I don't just go out and get all the free stuff that I can, whether or not I really need it. I'm going to try to set my sights only on those things that I actually can use. There may be a few things here or there that slip in, though.

Well, PCMall is effectively giving away free USB Wireless LAN Adapters. Basically, you pay $29.95 and get a $29.95 rebate.

[Update: Wade Denton ordered one of these, received it and says that it works AWESOMELY! So, go ahead and order one. I'm going to be ordering one, as well.]

[Update: I'm ordering one now.]