Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Can I get a Free Mac?

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Can I get a Free Mac?

Posted 2005-09-09 08:20 PM in DasBlog.

I totally want to get this Free Mini Mac. You can see the advert on the top of my site. Basically the deal is that you give them your information and sign up with one of their affiliates. The assumption being that you'll start a business relationship with the affiliate. They are ones like BMG (free CDs) or Columbia House (free DVDs) or BlockBuster (ala Netflix) that you've heard of, and lots you haven't. You sign up and you get an ID, so you can refer people yourself. It's a scheme, but it's legal. My buddy Greg Hughes got one using this system.

If I have a Mac, I'll start running Mono on that Mac, and get DasBlog 1.8 running on it, and who know what could happen. (Yes, I know DasBlog 1.6 runs on Mono on Linux now, but I'm stretching here.) Regardless, the wife will never let me get a Mac unless it was free.

I've done a little analysis and the one that's the easiest and most useful is called InkBlvd. You have to spend at least $30 (which is easy when you're buying ink.) Anyway, if I can get 9 more people to click this link and sign up for a deal, I'll get a Mini Mac. Then, if you do the same, you get a Mac.

So, if you need printer ink or dvds or cds or want to sign up for blockbuster...:)

UPDATE: I've got 11 out of 10 so far, so that's rockin' sweet. I'll let you know how it goes when the new iMac shows up!

Saturday, September 10, 2005 6:13:25 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I figured I would help out as I wouldn't mind hitting up Columbia House to pad out my DVD collection (about 2,000 right now) but the free mini mac links say they only work in the United States (I'm in Canada). Bummer.

Bil Simser

Saturday, September 10, 2005 6:51:35 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Well, kudos for trying Bil, you're good people. ;)

Scott Hanselman

Saturday, September 10, 2005 7:42:56 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Isn't the point of these things to generate more SPAM (both of the e- and snail mail variety)?

Joshua Flanagan

Saturday, September 10, 2005 12:31:07 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

The ink company wasn't one of my options. No sale!

Wade

Saturday, September 10, 2005 1:27:34 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I fell for the Mac-Mini thing about 6 months ago. All I got was spam.

Hope it works out for you.

Kathleen Weaver

Saturday, September 10, 2005 8:58:38 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Weird. Thanks for trying Wade. Maybe the offers they give are random, we'll see!

Scott Hanselman

Saturday, September 10, 2005 8:59:44 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Josh, I wouldn't do this if I didn't trust Greg. (He's in charge of our security department) He said he didn't receive any additional spam, snail or otherwise. Plus, he did receive his Mac, so this is direct from someone I know.

Scott Hanselman

Sunday, September 11, 2005 12:27:22 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Hey, I'd like a pony. Can I get a pony?

Jeff Atwood

Sunday, September 11, 2005 12:33:25 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I did a similar deal about half a year ago thru freeminimacs.com and also did get a free one a few months later (see http://www.hutteman.com/weblog/2005/01/15-218.html and http://www.hutteman.com/weblog/2005/03/09-220.html
)

I don't know about freepay, but freeminimacs did not send me any spam (even though the terms stated they did reserve the right to send me emails - so I created a new throwaway email account just for them; it's been empty ever since).

These companies make their money on referral fees for the deals you sign up for, which is 10 for a minimac. It turns out to be far more than 10 per mac for them though as many people try to get the referrals but only get a few, and others (like me) end up getting way more than the necessary 10, but they still only have to send a single mac.

Personally, I haven't used the mac much since I got it. While it's got some nice features, it won't replace my PC (for lack of .NET, Java 1.5 (unless I pay $100 or so for OS/X Tiger) and games), and just about everything I can do on the Mac I can also do on the PC, so why bother switching back and forth constantly?