Many moons ago there used to be several electronics store chains that were truly good at what they did. Back in New England where I grew up, Massachusetts had quite a few of them both regional and national, such as Tweeter, Nobody Beats the Wiz! (which still exists,) Fretter and so on. Even Service Merchandise (which also exists but online-only) had a truly decent electronics section back in the day.

Right now what we have for electronic stores in the US are big-box free-standers, such as Best Buy. The problem with stores like this is that they are very disconnected from the customer base due to their size. Yes, you can get help when you ask for it, but personal service is usually at a minimum and product knowledge low.

Another problem is that the big-box electronics retailers are essentially all the same. Using the now-defunct Circuit City as an example, if you were to ask somebody, "What was the difference between Best Buy and Circuit City?", the answer is, "Um.. one was red and the other yellow?" There was literally no other difference.

Some would say, "What about Radio Shack?" RS doesn’t sell electronics anymore, I don’t care what anybody says. Their primary focus is cell phones and has been for some time. That is what they push more than anything else, and it’s always the first thing you see when you enter the store by design.

What is desperately needed these days are smaller electronic stores. Electronics has had a huge resurgence in the market, and more people are gravitating towards the brick-and-mortar compared to online. The problem is, at least in the US, that our choices for true electronics stores are terrible. We have places that are either way too big, or traditional department stores like Wal-Mart or Target that simply have a "department" for electronics and nothing more. Both are equally awful.

I am 34 years old, meaning I’m smack dab in the core demographic of people that purchase mid-to-high end electronics for the home – but I have nowhere to go to shop for this stuff save for what’s mentioned prior.

The store chains I mentioned at the beginning of this article would typically not sell cheap stuff. Almost everything in the store started in the mid-range territory. This was actually very good to know, because no matter what you bought, you knew it at least wasn’t bottom-of-the-barrel crap and that what you bought was a quality product.

There were several other good advantages to the small-box electronics store:

• You could browse a ton of products without having to walk the length of a football field just to do it.
• For audio products you got a much more accurate representation of what it would truly sound like in your home due to the store’s smaller size.
• The box your product came in was always perfect (hey, it matters.)
• Staff was very knowledgeable about just about every product in the store.

Is it time for the small-box electronics store to come back? I think so.

What do you think?

I personally find it comical how many users of the YouTube site believe they have "rights" on a private system that doesn’t grant them any. I also find it comical many believe that they can simply dictate to Google what they should and shouldn’t do with their own video sharing web site that’s free.

A classic example of this is in this video. Of course, you’ve got the standard "YouTube is dead" message (geez, how many times have we heard that?), followed by a seriously lame cinematic-style soundtrack and stuffed with a lot of "GOOGLE, YOU MUST DO THIS AND THIS AND THAT" dictator-style crapola. Way to put on the spin there, guy. You should work for Fox News.

It is very well known that Google has been trying like crazy for the past several years to turn a profit out of the YouTube site because it’s been losing money from day one. Everybody knew more big names were coming. Everybody knew more ads were coming. Everybody knew video  advertisements were coming.

None of the upcoming changes for YouTube should be a surprise to anybody. And yet some are just "shocked" by it.

Be shocked  all you want. YouTube is a business, and Google is trying to make some money with the site. In its first few years online, YouTube was a free-for-all. Rules be damned. Law be damned. And Google literally paid the price for it by being sued left and right several times. Lessons were learned and now they follow the rules as they were ordered to.

Now comes the point where they’re making good with all the businesses that were previously enemies. They’re saying, "We follow the rules now. Let’s make a deal." Deals were made. And you’ll be seeing them soon.

To all fervent YouTube "community" users: Please stop whining just because Google is trying to turn a profit from something that’s been losing money hand over fist for years. And yes, you are whining. You don’t have to pay to use the site. And you could use another video sharing site if you wanted to. So shaddup.

Oh, and one final note: The video linked above mentions Firefox 3 because it’s not a Google product and that you should use it because of that. Answer this: Why do you think Google is the default search engine in the Firefox browser? I’ll tell you. It’s because Google is the single largest overall fiscal contributor to the Mozilla Foundation, the makers of Firefox. Looks like you’ll have to start using Opera or IE.

In the world of business there are many corporations that do not follow the calendar year (i.e. year begins on January 1) but rather the fiscal year. While it’s true that a fiscal year can start anytime depending on the business, most of them will use September.

As an example, high schools in the United States traditionally use September as the beginning of the year. Car manufacturers also introduce their "new year" models in September (right now you will find 2009 models even though it’s not technically 2009).

In the world of computers and electronics, a ton of new hardware is usually put out there as well. Motherboards, televisions, you name it. Lots and lots of new stuff.

In addition to the new stuff that’s out there, it is traditional that more or less all computer and electronic manufacturers are scrambling to dump last year’s stuff to make way for the new. Whenever anything new is introduced in computers and/or electronics, it’s obviously replacing its predecessor.

And that’s where you can save a buck if you’re in the market to buy.

There’s only one word you have to look for at your preferred computer/electronics retailer, and that word is "clearance". The new stuff is here and the retailers have got to clear the shelves to make room for it.

Typically you will find the best deals of the year right now. Not for the new stuff obviously but for the "old" stuff that’s still new that needs to be sold.

How to find clearance sales

With major big-box electronics retail (i.e. Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.) you will not see the drastic-price-cut items online because the inventory varies from store to store. What this means is that you have to physically go to the store to see how far they’ve slashed the price on certain items.

Typical items you will find on clearance in September:

Laptops

$900 laptops are slashed down to as low as $500 just to get rid of them. Remember, they are new and come with full warranties.

Overstocked peripherals

Premium keyboards, mice, audio gear, etc. Don’t bother looking at the cheap stuff, look at the good stuff that’s been marked down.

Media drives and media itself

Hard drives, optical drives, blank discs, etc. All this stuff is usually marked down this time of year – particularly the hard drives and flash media (USB sticks).

Digital Cameras

The more expensive digital cams are usually slow sellers, so the older models that need to get off the shelves usually have a nice fat price cut on them.

Other stuff

There may be stuff in the big-box store you spot where you say "Wow, can’t pass up that deal!" that you won’t see any other time of the year.

Stop by your local big-box electronics retailer. There’s probably some good deals waiting for you right now.