Does the mouse seem kind of old and outdated? Well, that’s because it is. Update your mouse with the Microsoft Wireless Touch Mouse from CanadaComputers!

• Click here to upgrade your mouse @ CanadaComputers.com

Microsoft’s Wireless Touch Mouse is normally $64.99, but with this deal you save $35. That means you only have to pay $29.99!

The traditional mouse is really outdated. I mean, there have been some minor changes, but nothing significant. What we’ve been seeing is other input methods, mainly the touch screen, taking over. Even things like Microsoft Kinect, Sony Play and the Nintendo Wii were considered new methods of input. The mouse has been left in the dust.

Since then, Microsoft (and others) have decided that no, the mouse wasn’t ready to die yet. They’ve taken the mouse and married it to the touch screen. We’ve all used touchpads on laptops and as of late, traditional touchpads have been getting a bit more advanced. They’ve begun integrating some of the touch gestures we have become used to with our phones and tablets. That’s pretty much what Microsoft’s Wireless Touch Mouse is: a mouse whose top surface is a touchpad. It lets you zoom, manage apps, scroll and do other things via different gestures. Very cool.

Shipping from Canada Computers is based on where you are, so it will vary, but if you’re in Toronto, for example, it’s $7.50.

(Expires: 31st May 2013)

With this superfantastic deal from WagJag, there is no reason not to own an xBox 360 anymore!

• Click here to get your 4GB xBox 350, Kinect & 2 games @ WagJag.com!

That intro was a lie. Maybe you just don’t want an xBox 360. I’m okay with that. I understand. Especially if you already have a PS3 or an xBox 360. For those of you who want one, this is a great chance to get one for super cheap. Also, Superfantastic is a word. Look it up. No, don’t. That was also a lie.

This is what the deal includes:

• 4GB xBox 360
• Kinect Sensor
• Two games – Kinect Disneyland Adventures and Kinect Adventures
• One controller

The games included aren’t the best things out there but they are fun enough to toy around with and to test the Kinect. The retail price of this package is $338 but you get it for only $199. You save $139! This deal is limited so if you’re gonna get one, get one now. Shipping is included in the price.

(Expires: 27th April 2013, 11:59PM ET)

Late to the xBox game? Well, now is the time to pick one up! And if you’re picking one up anyways, you might as well get it at EB Games and get a $25 gift card with it!

• Click here to shop for xBox 360′s and accessories @ EBGames.ca

They have two different xBox 360s sets available. One is the xBox 360 Elite 250GB and one is, from what I can tell, the same console but with two games. I feel like I must be missing something but it is what it is. Shipping will be around the $10 mark for the consoles and $5 for the accessories and games.

It’s hard to do an article about the xBox 360 because I feel like everyone who would buy one already knows about it. The xBox is just a great console with great games. You can’t say much else about it. It has awesome games, a great online experience and it can be used as the center of your living room’s media setup.

The main part of this deal, for me, is the $25 EB gift card. That in itself is enough to make it a good deal, but EB just won’t quit! They are also offering up to 30% off the xBox 360 headset, the xBox 360 controller or a twelve month xBox Live plan. You can even get a deal on Halo 4!

Since I don’t really have much to say about the xBox 360, how about you tell me about the xBox 360? Is this your first xBox 360 or have you had one for a while? Why do you love it? Is it the games? The media stuff? Maybe you just love Kinect! Whatever it is, let me know in the comments below!

(Expires: Unknown)

Amazon Canada and Microsoft are teaming up to bring you 50% off some great Microsoft Hardware Accessories.

•  Click here to get up to 50% off Microsoft mice and keyboards @ Amazon.ca

Listen people, I don’t like Microsoft. I really don’t. I’m a Linux guy at heart and use Windows and other Microsoft software, grudgingly. Microsoft hardware, and specifically their computer accessories, is a different story. They make some really good products. They aren’t always the fanciest but they are almost always solid products. This sale has five items but only four of them, for some unknown reason, show as having any discount. I’ll only include the four that are discounted which include mice, keyboards and combos. it has some wireless stuff too.

• Wireless Mobile Mouse 1000 - Was $22.95 - Save $10 – Now $12.95
• Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 - Was $69.95 - Save $35 – Now $34.95
• Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000 Keyboard and Mouse - Was $88.99 – Save $29 - Now $59.99
• Wireless Desktop 2000 Keyboard and Mouse - Was $49.95 - Save $15 - Now $34.95

Microsoft is offering a FREE Trial of their Windows Azure cloud platform. If you’re looking to do something in the cloud, this free trial could be your jumping off point.

•  Click here to get a FREE trial @ WindowsAzure.com

This FREE trial is actually quite beefy. It comes with the following:

• compute / 750 small compute hours per month
• web sites / 10 web sites
• mobile services / 10 mobile services
• relational database / 1 SQL database
• SQL reporting / 100 hours per month
• storage / 35GB with 50,000,000 storage transactions
• bandwidth / unlimited inbound & 25GB outbound
• media services encoding / 50 GB (input & output combined)
• cdn / 20GB outbound with 500,000 transactions
• cache / 128MB
• service bus / 1,500 relay hours and 500,000 messages

This cloud stuff is primarily meant for business and, if you’re the IT guy or boss at a business, you should really be looking into this. There are non-business uses, though. For example, I used cloud storage to host and serve a podcast. If you do any video work, you can offload the encoding work to their “media services encoding” tool. If you take a look through the list of things they provide there is bound to be something you can use a free trial of!

Pricing after the trial varies based on your usage so make sure you figure out costs before you do anything with Azure.

(Expires: Never)

There are a lot of constants in life. We’re all going to die. The sun always rises in the east. And we always have to shell out another $50 for a game after we get a new console. The only way to get around it is to buy your xBox 360 from Amazon Canada and have them buy your game for you.

• Click here to get a $50 video game store gift card @ Amazon.ca

I wish that you got this deal every time you bought a console. I understand it’d be hard and expensive to let you pick whatever game you want and get ir for free with every console but maybe the console manufacturer could let you pick a game that they published. Buy an xBox, get a Microsoft game, buy a PS3, get a Sony Game. Buy a Wii U and get a terrible console… I mean a Nintendo game.

Well, that’s just a dream at this point so companies like Amazon Canada have to step in and hook us up. Like I said in the title, the gift card is only valid for video games purchased from Amazon Canada, not for general Amazon purchases. Also, it isn’t an actual card, it’s a virtual one. They email you a coupon code that you can use to save $50 off your game purchase. The xBox is the $199.99 4GB version of the 360.

As per usual, purchases over $25 ship for free from Amazon.

(Expires: 31st December 2012)

If you’re a Halo fan, why not get some more Halo in your life? Comixology is offering more Halo to you in comic form!

• Click here to pick up your Halo comics @ Comixology!

There are four comics here for $6.99 each and they are all bigger than your standard comic, coming in at between 105 and 125 pages. As is usual, Comixology doesn’t include their “before” prices. These are digital comics and you can read them ony our computer, iOS device or Android. I suggest their tablet apps. They are fabu.

I think media properties like this are an odd thing. I’m not a huge fan of Halo (even though I have been known to partake in a Halo LAN party or two) but I’m definitely interested in the comics. I definitely won’t buy Halo 4 (which comes out today) but if I can convince myself that it’s a good idea to buy more comics when I have tons pilingup already, then I will be grabbing these. There are a few things like that. Twilight for instance. I know people (guys) who would rather gag themselved with a knife than read the Twilight books but totally dug the movies. The Walking Dead is another. I think my heart would stop from shock if I ever saw my wife pick up a Walking Dead comic but we watch the latest from the TV series every week. It’s an interesting phenomena.

(Expires: 6th November 2012, 11:00PM ET in North America, local evening times elsewhere)

So Windows 8 came out last yesterday and a lot of retailers, Tiger Direct Canada among them, are quite excited. They’ve decided to throw a party but instead of bringing food, they are bringing deals.

• Click here to shop all the Windows 8 launch deals @ TigerDirect.ca

There are some free shipping deals as well as some product deals. I’ll give you a few product deals and then I’ll fill you in on the free shipping.

• Windows 8 OEM (64-bit) – Was $99.99 – Save $20 – Now $79.99
• Windows 8 Pro OEM (64-bit) – Was $109.99 – Save $30 – Now $89.99
• Kingston 120GB Solid State Drive – Was $109.99 – Save $24.02 – Now $79.97
• Seagate Barracuda 1TB Hard Drive – Was $79.97 – Save $10 – Now $69.97

Many of these require coupon codes, make sure you enter them before you hit buy!

You don’t generally see any major sales on Operating Systems. These are likely as much of a discount as you will see for quite a while. They also have sales on Windows 7 if you aren’t into the Windows 8 thing. In it’s current iterations. Windows 8 holds no appeal for me personally but there are certainly many people and use cases who are going to want to jump on ir. One more thing to note is that this is OEM software. This is meant to be sold to someone who is building a computer. An Original Equipment Manufacturer, as it were. This means you cannot use it to upgrade, you cannot get the free phone support Microsoft offers with their retail versions and the packaging is very minimal.

I mentioned laptops and desktops earlier. There aren’t any huge sales on these items, per se, but they are all shipping for free and, from the look of things, they have a decent stock of them so there shouldn’t be any delays.

(Expires: 28th October 2012)

Whether you don’t have a current Gen console at all, or you have a PS3, or even if you already have an xBox 360, this is a stupid good deal.

• Click here to get your xBox 360 4GB at Amazon.ca

This console is normally $199 but you only pay $133.56. That’s a 33% savings.

Do you realise that this makes the xBox 360 LESS than the Nintendo Wii!? That’s a ridiculous price. I often talk about prices being so low on certain products that you can pick up a few just to have them laying around. This is the kind of low price I’m talking about. At this price, you can put one in your living room and your bedroom or one in each of your kid’s rooms.

Like I mentioned above, even if you have a (ahem, superior) PS3 you can still justify getting this just based the handful of xBox exclusives that come out here and there. Even if you have a bunch of friends who do LAN parties with their xBox’s and you are sitting on your throne made of PS3s, you can slum it for a while with an xBox 360.

I’m always impressed at how much they can get in these thin consoles. The cheapest model available at launch was $400 Canadian. That was the core model (later the arcade model) which is the closest to the 4GB slim. It also makes me laugh that the full blown xBox 360 was $500 and it only had a 20GB HDD at launch. You had to pay to upgrade it to a 40GB.

(Expires: Unknown)

Dell Canada wants you to be productive, so they’re offering Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student versions for only $89.

• Click here to shop for computers @ Dell.ca

Office is normally $99 to $119 but Dell is offering it for only $89! They say in some places that it is on select computers, and other places that it is on all computers, so be careful when you’re buying that you get the deal.

I don’t think this is an overly common deal. I certainly haven’t seen it recently but then again I’m don’t constantly watch every deal on the Dell website. In any event, I don’t think this is a deal that will make someone decide to buy a new computer but if you’ve been eying some new ones lately, or the machine you’re on right now is due for an upgrade, this is a nice little perk.

The big problem that most consumers have with Microsoft Office isn’t the program itself, it’s the price. Microsoft knows they can charge stupid high prices for consumers because most of their money comes from companies buying license codes or a manufacturer sales person pushing it on an unsuspecting customer. They make comparatively little on people actually walking into a store or going on a website and buying their product but the people who do drop their money on buying Microsoft Office as standalone piece of software don’t really care about the price. Fortunately this deal helps relieve the pain that Microsoft’s high price can cause.

(Expires: 31st August 2012)

You need an office suite for your home, and for your business. Why not get Office 2010 Home and Business? And while you’re at it, get free shipping AND a $25 gift card.

• Click here to get Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business @ NCIX Canada
• Click here to get Microsoft Office 2010 Professional @ NCIX Canada

The Home and Business editions cost $209.98 and come with a $25 gift card and free shipping. The Professional edition costs $439.98, comes with a $30 gift card and free shipping.

If you’re looking at getting Microsoft Office, there is no reason not to get this. You get the gift card and if you order anything else with your office product key, you get free shipping. This is a key for a download, not a physical disk. There are some rules so make sure you read them.

I really like this kind of deal. It isn’t like they’re trying to get you to buy something that you don’t really need, it’s like they’re rewarding you for buying the product at their store instead of elsewhere. Of course every aspect of this deal is meant to make you buy more.

First, they give you free shipping on something that barely costs anything to be shipped. So what do you do, you go shopping of course. You don’t want to give up your free shipping on a product key card. Maybe you get a USB key, a Blu-Ray Player, a memory card for your camera. Suddenly you’ve spent another $200.

And then there is the gift card. The amount is, I’m assuming, lower than their average purchase. They know you won’t come on the website and buy $24.32 of goods. They know you are much more likely to buy a $500 laptop and put your $25 card on it.

Click here for more NCIX.com coupon codes from Bargainmoose.

(Expires: 12 August 2012)

Microsoft Store Canada has announced their Back to School deal. Get $20 off Office Home and Student 2010 (3 PC version).

• Click here to get Microsoft Office Home & Student

Regularly priced at $159, the 3 PC version is discounted to $139. The 1 PC version costs $129, so when you think about it you are the extra 2 licenses for only $10… a worthy deal. If you and a couple friends need Microsoft Office, I suggest splitting the cost 3 ways: you will each only pay $46.34 (+ GST) per license.

Microsoft Office includes:

• Word 2010
• Excel 2010
• PowerPoint 2010
• OneNote 2010

It is available in either English or French.

Expiry: 14, September 2012

Need a computer now but don’t want to break the bank to upgrade later? Bargainmoose has got the hookups.

• Windows 7 to Windows 8 Upgrade for $14.99

Microsoft is really running after Apple lately and this offer is just one of the ways they are doing it. If you buy a qualifying PC between 2nd, June 2012 and 31st, January 2013, you can get a super cheap upgrade to Windows 8. You should read through their Program Information and their FAQ just to make sure you get the deal. If you want to make it real safe though, buy a PC directly through the Microsoft upgrade offer on a computer store website. That way you make sure the products you are looking at are eligible.

Lucky for you we have one of those links for you right here. Tiger Direct has a section with all the eligible products.

• Windows 8 Upgrade deal @ Tiger Direct

I’m not going to lie to you beautiful people. Microsoft and I haven’t seen eye-to-eye for quite a while. I can, however, admit it when they come out with a product that isn’t trash. Windows 7 is certainly not trash. That being said, there is always a time to move on. In all honesty, based on what I’ve seen, I probably wont upgrade my wife’s computer to Windows 8.

You know what though? I sit atop my elitist nerd tower and cast judgement upon the non-elitist nerds. My opinion and moral hang-ups aren’t yours so maybe you really want Windows 8 and that’s fine. If you do, seriously, get all up on this deal.

(Expires: 31st, January 2013)

At Staples Canada, when you buy Microsoft Office Home and Student for $128, you’ll get TurboTax for free! TurboTax has a value of $37.99.

• Click here to shop @Staples Canada

• Discount: Free TurboTax With Office Home and Student Purchase
• Coupon Code: 95338
• Expires: 6th March, 2012

The Microsoft Home and Office for $128, is a Product Key Card where you can activate a preloaded or digital download of Microsoft Office 2012. There will be a 25 character Product Key used to activate one PC only, in English. The Office Home and Student 2010 includes: Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, and OneNote 2010.

The free TurboTax 2011 Software is a Standard Edition, good for couples and families for up to 8 returns. It also includes Quicken Cash Manager 2012 to help you manage your bills, save more and set financial goals.

There is a limit of one per customer, while quantities last.

The comparative price at WalMart Canada for the Office Home and Student Software is also $128, but doesn’t include the free TurboTax.

Microsoft Store Canada has an awesome coupon code out right now that will save you 25% off any products up to $1200.  This coupon is valid until 31st January 2012.

• Click here to shop Microsoft Canada

Here are the details for this deal:

• Coupon Code: NYP25OFFCA
• Discount: Save 25% on all products up to $1200
• Expiry: 15th February 2012

Some highlights at Microsoft Store Canada right now:

• Office 2010 starting at $159
• Visual Studio Lightswitch 2011 now $267/ was $399
• Windows 7 starting at $224.95

What’s different about this coupon code than other ones is that you can use it without a minimum purchase.  A lot of codes out there need you to spend a minimum amount to use it. You can buy something as small as a home PC game like this flight simulator game selling for $39 or go as high as $1200 and still save 25% off your purchase. Good for businesses who need a bunch of software!