May the source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Softpanorama: (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society
Computer science related content (under the Open Content License) for self-study. Online resource for students with a special emphasis on unfashionable topics like algorithms, scripting languages, computer security, extremely useful but undervalued tools ( Orthodox file managers, Folding Xedit-style editors) , the importance of using the best available computer books for self-study (especially books by Donald Knuth), open source software development problems, and the problem of information overload.
Support Usenix: the only computer professional society that opens its magazine and proceedings after one year
To find best price one needs to know the publisher and check the publisher WEB Page for specials and stores that have huge discounts for this particular week. Amazon recently has a good discounts on O'Reilly books. I also recommend to check alldirect.com and Bookpool. I would like to stress that both are on average is close to No.1 and you probably do wise by checking them in any case. a1books.com, varsitybooks.com also sometimes has great prices too.
If you are looking for a college textbook, then try Book Byte Textbook. it has very good prices on used college textbooks ! It does not make much sense to buy a new college textbook. Most of them are not that good anyway ;-).
For O'Reilly books (in unlikely case Amazon or Bookpool have less than 25% off) the second place to try is DigitalGuru. It looks like it has very good discount. It looks like they have slightly better price than Amazon but worse than alldirect.com IMHO Digital Guru is especially attractive if you prefer UPS shipping (UPS is faster. I also had a couple of books lost with USPS; you mileage can vary). On April 12, 2002 I compared prices for the Softpanorama mini-bookshelf. The results were:
As for price comparison bots I mainly use good old Pricescan. AddALL is very good too and it lists contents on the book found. Recently I have several successful searches using AAABookSearch. It is limited to technical books, but like any specialized search engine in certain cases can provide links with better price than other engines for books in its particular domain. It also use to list coupons, but as of Sept, 2002 they are not current.
But sometimes you can find a better deal because of coupons and publisher website information. In experiments that I made AddALL book search and price comparison was good in finding the minimum price of Unix shell books; it also provides information about coupons (that often make B&N much more competitive). That makes it very attractive price search engine. AAA BookSearch is also good and couple of times was able to find the best price on new books.
The other good comparison shopping engine is evenbetter.com comparison shopping. This is a specialized service that is designed for books, movies and CDs only. It provides more information but cover less bookstores. www.pricescan.com is old good and very reliable price comparison engine. It was my first engine and I still periodically use it. See Yahoo! Book Search Services Price Comparisons for additional links to book price comparison services sites.
For rare books one can try Bublos.com.
Nikolai Bezroukov
1 | www.alldirect.com (excellent prices on O'Reilly books 36% off or better; but you need to know what you want) |
| 2 | a1books.com (excellent prices for some Perl books) |
| 3 | Bookpool (generally very good prices) |
| 4 | www.varsitybooks.com (generally very good prices; sometimes better than in bookpool) |
| 5 | DigitalGuru. Prices close to Amazon but with cheaper shipping charges. Cheap UPS rate. |
| 5 | Amazon (very good prices on O'Reilly books, other usually 25%-30% off ) |
| 6 | B&N (usually is competitive only with coupons, but has probably the largest selection of books) |
| | New & Used Books - Find the lowest price |
Interesting site the provides thumbnails along with found books. Sometimes it is able to find bargains unavailable to competing services (try, for example, Laura Lemay, or Mark Sobell and compare with a couple other servises).
Used Textbooks College Textbooks Used College Text Books - Book Byte Textbook very good prices on colledge textbooks !
bookcloseouts.com. Search for the list of discounted O'Reilly books, and the list C++ books. some decent books (Delphi) can be found among $1.99 bargains. BookCloseOuts.com Bargain Books - Book Store - Book Sale
DigitalGuru. Prices close to Amazon but with cheaper shipping charges. Cheap UPS rate.
Book search and book price comparison - AAABookSearch -- somebody send me this link. I tested it on Donald Knuth Art of computer programming 3 volumes boxed set (Published On: October 1998 ISBN: 0201485419) and was pretty impressed. It does make sense to use this site. In this search it has found a minumum price that was lower both Bublos and Pricescan by $20 !. The site is slow.
Bublos.com Compare Real-Time Book Prices And Buy Books Cheaper -- pretty interesting price comparison engine with links to rare books
DigitalGuru periodically is offering up to 20% of all PH PTR tiles. Get 15% to 25% off Prentice Hall/PTR titles from Readme.doc!
Application Compares Prices of Online Booksellers --March 26 1999
The question of who owns the title of the Earth's cheapest bookstore may soon be answered, with Friday's launch of ClickTheButton.com, Inc.'s free application that enables users to compare book prices of rival online bookstores.
The tool allows users to compare prices at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and Booksamillion.com.
With the click of a corner screen icon, bibliophiles can see prices comparisons displayed in their active browser window. Dubbed The PriceSlicer, the add-on can be downloaded free and works with more than a quarter million book titles on sale at the three book-tailers. The icon is installed on the Windows desktop next to the clock in the lower right hand corner of the screen.
The Princeton, N.J.-based company said it does not have business relationships with the booksellers. It also plans to support additional products and e-commerce sites within the next few weeks.
[Jan.20.1999.] Trouble in the Amazon.com by Craig Bicknell, Wired News, There's a new business model creeping into Web retailing that could spell trouble for Net superstars like Amazon.com .
Well, here's the idea: If enough people come to your Web site to buy whatever you're selling at a loss, you can still make money by selling ad space on the site. Computer retailer Onsale unveiled just such a plan Tuesday, dubbed Onsale atCost. Buy.com, which competes directly with Amazon in book, music, and video sales, has a similar business blueprint. "It's still too early to tell whether this is a flash in the pan or the beginning of a massive tidal wave," said Derek Brown, an analyst at Volpe Brown Whelan. Read the full article: http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/business/story/17444.html?wnpg
[October 25, 2003 ] POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site (first chapter)
[October 25, 2003 ] The MIT Press
Yahoo! Book Search Services Price Comparisons
| More than 50% | 50% | 40% to 25% discounters | Linux | Book Auctions |
BookCloseOuts.com closeouts up to 80% off
www.1bookstreet.com -- bargain book up to 75% off.
**** HamiltonBook.com -- more than 50% discounter; Shipping is only $3 for any number of books you buy. Now they have limited selection of computer books (in 1998 it was much more decent). But periodically you can find excellent deals in the computer books section. I use it several times and the service was great. Check it out. Recommended...
Half Price Computer Books is an independently-owned and operated retail and Internet computer bookstore est. June 1, 1996. HPCB now has three stores with the opening of their newest store in Vancouver at Cambie and W 8th. The other stores are in Richmond, BC., just southwest of Vancouver, and in Burnaby, east of Vancouver. We stock over 20,000 books per location and are always growing. Selling only computer books, we can specialize our knowledge in this industry and cater more specifically to the needs of computer users. All of our titles sell for 50% off of the listed retail price, with some books at further-reduced prices.
Budget Books - some discounted books. Not impressive selection.
Linux Mall -- a very good site
Linux System Labs Bookstore -- 25% discount on all O'Reilly books !
CheapBytes Catalog and Ordering (has offices in Russia and Ukraine)
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Last modified: October 25, 2003