It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

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Well, maybe not outside today, where it's a wet and rainy twelve degrees. That will change. Tomorrow, in fact, when as much as thirty centimetres of snow is due to fall. That will certainly make it look a lot more like Christmas - and maybe remind you that there is barely a month left before the holidays. Combine that with the fact that this weekend is Thanksgiving weekend for our neighbours to the south, when Americans follow in the footsteps of their Pilgrim forefathers and give thanks for the blessings of the season by overindulging in turkey and standing in huge lines in overcrowded shopping malls. It can only mean one thing - Black Friday is here.
Not to be left out, the Computer Sales Centre is joining our retail brethren in offering a host of Pre-Christmas Savings and Black Friday Specials to help ease the drain of holiday shopping.

For an sneak peak of some of the savings to be had, take a look at Christmas 2014 Savings and read below for a quick review of some of the best products and the savings that are being offered on them this Christmas.

Here are some of our favourite gift suggestions:

1. Extra Power!  When you get used to having it with you, being without your phone can be like being without an arm. Unfortunately, there is not always an outlet handy when your charge runs low.  The easiest solution? Carry a portable battery pack with you. In the last few years, small battery packs, capable of recharging a typical smartphone once or twice, have become surprisingly inexpensive and compact. Slip one of these in your pocket or backpack, and you need never be stuck without power again. Just remember to pack a spare charging cord along with it!

• Xtreme Universal Battery Bank 1800mAh @ $5.99
• Xtreme Universal Battery Bank 2600mAh @ $7.99

2. Extra Outlets! If you're like me, every day I seem to find another gadget that needs to be plugged in, and there are never enough outlets, or there is never enough room in the power bars for all the transformers, AC adapters, USB power blocks, and cords. Using PowerStrip Liberators (In stock @ $4.99) can help, but the best solution we've found is the PowerCube. The Original converts one plug into five, or buy the USB model for four extra outlets plus two USB charge ports. Add an optional five foot cord, and you can easily have as many outlets as you need, wherever you need them. This is easily the most versatile power device we've seen yet.

• PowerCube Original (5 Plug) - $9.99
• PowerCube USB (4 Plug + 2 USB) - $14.99
• PowerCube Extended (5 Plug with 5 foot cord) - $12.99
• PowerCube Extended USB (4 Plug with 5 foot cord) - $18.99

 3. Portable Speakers!  Bluetooth technology makes it possible to enjoy your music wherever you are and whatever you are doing, by making possible tiny, low power wireless speakers. But don't let the size fool you - some of these speakers pack a big sound for a speaker so small. iFrogz Tadpole speakers ($13.99) are a rechargable, carabiner style speaker so small you could use it as a zipper pull. A little bit larger, the Nyne Mini ($43.99) is a Bluetooth speaker small enough to mount on the handlebars of a bicycle but big enough to kickstart any party.

• iFrogz Tadpole Portable Bluetooth Speaker @ $13.99
• Nyne Mini Bluetooth Speaker @ $43.99
• Nyne Cruiser Bluetooth Speaker @ $69.99

4. Board Games!  Once the temperature plummets, everyone will be looking for things to do indoors. Why not call some friends and enjoy one of the great board games that have become available in the past few years. These aren't the Monopoly and Twister games of your youth. Drawing on the European tradition of high quality printing, wooden tokens, and imaginative game play, games like these will impress even the most reluctant of players. If you haven't tried one of these new generation games, check out Settlers of Catan by Mayfair Games ($34.99), where players race to be the first to build ten new settlements on the mythical continent of Catan. For the younger players, there is Catan Junior ($24.99), which plays very much like the adult game. In fact, adults looking for a two player version of Catan may want to consider Catan Junior as a great, quick alternative to the original.  Other great adult games to consider are Ticket to Ride ($44.99), in which players compete as rail magnates trying to connect the major cities of the US and Canada into a coherant network that delivers passengers to their secret destinations, or Pandemic ($29.99), in which players work cooperatively to save humanity from a worldwide epidemic.

• Mayfair Games Settlers of Catan - $34.99
• Mayfair Games Catan Junior - $24.99
• Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride - $44.99
• Z-Man Games Pandemic - $29.99

While we keep these products in stock all the time, many of these prices reflect holiday discounts that are in effect beginning Thursday, November 27, 2014 until Christmas (or while quantities last).
Things sell fast this time of year, and quantities are limited, so don't wait for the last minute!

Our Best Deals for Strudents for Back to School 2013

Back to School 2013
Our Best Student Deals on the Stuff You Need
Every year the Back to School season brings with it some great promotions and specials on some of your favorite products. Here is out roundup of the best deals we've seen this Back to School season, on the products we know you can use...

1. MICROSOFT OFFICE UNIVERSITY 365 ($79.99): With Microsoft's new subscription based Office suite, you don't have to worry about upgrading whenever a new version comes out. For the period of the subscription, you will always gave access to the newest updates and versions. As an University or College student, the subscription is good for a full four years, rather than the usual one year commercial or home subscriptions, and as an added bonus, until September 28, every copy of Office 365 includes a year of Microsoft XBox LIVE Gold, which normally sells for $59.95 by itself.

2. ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE CS6 DESIGN & WEB PREMIUM ($375.00):  Although Adobe is in the process of switching to an annual subscription based system as well, for now the traditional Creative Suite of products remains available to students. With the Design & Web edition  of the software, you get access to many of the most powerful professional tools on the market for working with images, web sites, and printed pages, including tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver, all for a fraction of the usual price - for students, this is $375.00, while the same software without the educational discount retails for almost $2000. 

3. TOSHIBA SATELLITE NOTEBOOK COMPUTER (from $599.00):  Toshiba's line of powerful, stylish consumer notebooks has always been reliable student computer, but for back to school this year, they have incorporated a feature that will be appreciated by many, though hopefully will only ever need to be used by few. They are including, with several models, a free upgrade from the traditional one year warranty to a three year warranty that covers not only defect or failure, but accidental damage as well. That means that your warranty will cover most damage originating from drops to spills to almost anything else unforeseen. At $599, the Satellite C50 includes a spacious 15" widescreen display, an Intel i3 processor, 6GB of memory and 500GB of storage - sufficient for any day to day computing needs. For the more demanding user, just over $100 more upgrades this to the L50 model ($729), which bumps the CPU to an i5, the memory to 8GB and adds an additional 140GB of storage space.

4. CANON PIXMA MX452 ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER ($44.99): With an automatic document feeder for easy scanning and copying, integrated AirPrint-compatible Wireless printing, and cost-effective high yield and ultra high yield ink cartridges, the Canon Pixma MX452 printer is a steal at $44.99. If you don't need wireless or the document feeder, its little brother, the Pixma MX2220 All-In-One printer is also available, for only $29.99.
 
5. EKG ETHERNET AND USB CABLES ($2.99 for the 7' model): EKG's motto is "Buy the Product, Not the Package", and they certainly live up to this, packing their cables in the most environmentally friendly manner we've seen yet, using nothing but recycled cardboard and twine. In addition, they support a variety of ecologically-minded initiatives, including the Arbor Day Foundation, who receive a percentage of their sales to help with their reforestation efforts. Available in a variety of cable types and sizes.

6. GREENSMART LAPTOP AND TABLET SLEEVES ($15.99-$37.99): Speaking of great eco-friendly products, GreenSmart's line of sleeves for MacBook and similar 13" computers, as well as for iPads and smaller tablets, are among the highest quality, most durable sleeves we've seen on the market, and are manufactured in part from recycled water bottles. They pride themselves in including "the right features in the right places", and their smart designs and non-scratch interior make them the perfect compliment to your new notebook or tablet.
 
7. LACIE PORSCHE DESIGN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE ($119.99): With 2TB storage, this small desktop hard drive provides plenty of room for storing media and backups without using a lot of your space or money. Compatible with any PC or Mac, it works well with any backup software (including Apple's Time Machine backup solution for Mac users). Also available in a 3TB version (LaCie Minimus @ $134.99) and a 1TB portable version (LaCie Rikiki @ $89.99).

Fun and Games

By popular demand, we have expanded our "Fun & Games" section with new and restocked titles, including the newly released Magic the Gathering Gatecrash cards. For MTG players, we have in stock Intro Packs ($11.99), Booster Packs ($3.99), and Fatpacks ($29.99). A full box of Booster Packs (containing 36 standard Booster Packs of 15 cards each) for $99.99.
We have also restocked the most popular Settlers of Catan titles, including the basic game box, Seafarers of Catan expansion, Cities and Knights expansion, the Settlers of Catan Travel Edition, and the spin-off game Merchants of Europe. Looking for a quick and fun variant without the need for the large board? We now have in stock the Settlers of Catan Dice Game Deluxe Edition.

SPECIAL... WHILE QUANTITIES LAST... PURCHASE SETTLERS OF CATAN OR SETTLERS OF CATAN: CITIES AND KNIGHTS AND RECEIVE THE RIVER EXPANSION CARDS FOR FREE!

Are you an Angry Birds fan? The world's number one mobile game has flown out from your SmartPhone screen to land right on your floor with University Games' Angry Birds Action Game. Contains one plastic pig, one plush red bird, one plush yellow bird, gigantic scoring mat, three wooden blocks, score pad and rules.We also have lots of expansions for this, letting you add black, white and green birds, more pigs, more blocks and more!

As if that wasn't enough, we have the Carcasonne Big Box 2012 Edition, containing the Carcasonne base game plus nine expansions, as well as a variety of portable Coffee Time dice games, Bepuzzled 1000-piece mystery jigsaw puzzles, the ever-popular Ticket to Ride board game, and more!

All this on top of our great selection of value priced PC and Console games, and popularf electronic game accessories from Razer and Mad Catz.

Want more? Let us know what you're looking for, and we'll try to get it in... More board games? More card games? Dice? Card sleeves and boxes? We're not sure what you're looking for, but whatever it is, we'd love to get it for you. Leave a comment with your requests and we'll see what we can do...

CES 2013

Intel's "Notebook Tree" at CES 2013

Computer Sales Centre staff recently visited the 2013 International CES, the world's largest consumer electronics trade show. What did we see? Well, the world's largest and most sophisticated televisions, self-driving cars, refrigerators that suggest recipes based on what is inside, $30,000 camera lenses, brain-wave controlled television remote controls, robots, and more. But also some great new products you'll be seeing at the store over the coming months, including new ceramic driver based portable speakers from long-time favourite manufacturer X-Mini, amazing tablets from and notebooks from our friends at Asus, the revolutionary G-Form iPad and iPhone cases from G-Form technology (which utilize an absolutely amazing compound that changes from pliable to rock-hard in response to impact), and much more. Watch here for announcements as new products arrive at the store!

Welcome!

Welcome to the new blog for the UNB Computer Sales Centre. Here we hope to keep you up to date on goings on, events, new products, specials and other information of interest to our customers. Check in frequently and don't miss out on deals and products we have selected to help you with your educational, professional, and leisure needs!