Two big TUAW snaps up to reader Timothy Colburn for tracking down this fab iPod nano offer. Between now and June 30th, when you buy a refurb nano, Apple is going to throw in a $15 iTunes gift card. Sweet! Make sure to read through the how to and the terms and conditions because they're significantly longer than the offer itself.

So does this mean that Apple is readying itself for an iPod refresh? We have no idea -- but a nano in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Update: Just got back from my son's school play and found several notes in my mailbox about this offer. Apparently, Apple sales associates are not honoring this promotion any more and the promo has been removed from the website.

The word that there might be as many as 9000 switchers a day got us thinking: maybe all those switchers could use some tips on how to save a few bucks while hopping the fence to white, black and aluminum pastures. Sure, Apple typically doesn't offer much in the way of excitement when it comes to zany blow-out sales on their products, but who says you have to buy your Apple stuff from Apple? There are plenty of resellers who offer some great deals to lure customers away from Apple's shiny stores, and discount watching sites can help you jump on time-sensitive sales. If you take our tips to heart, we guarantee both you and your credit card will sleep better at night with your next (or first) Mac purchase.

CBS Records, in its first life, was home to a pretty amazing stable of artists, including Frank Sinatra, Billie Holliday, Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith. It was sold to Sony for a couple of billion dollars almost twenty years ago. Since then, "CBS Records" essentially ceased to exist.

So why the renewed interest in music? CBS apparently wants to leverage their TV shows as marketing tools for the music industry. Nothing creates buzz quite so quickly or quite so well as a TV show promoting a particular artist or single.

Here's a holiday deal from the folk who brought you Parallels. If you buy Parallels by the 23rd of December, you qualify for free upgrades for a year. Here's how it works or at least, here's how it works according to the Parallels salesperson I talked to on the phone this afternoon.

You have to buy your copy either through the Parallels website itself or through one of their approved outlets like CDW. People like me who purchase from normal retail places (I bought mine from Amazon) are not qualified to get in on the deal.

When you buy your copy from the Parallels site (or approved outlet), you'll be sent a special key that will activate upgrades for the year. When upgrades are released, the software will autoupdate and activate those enhancements.

Parallels estimates this at a $50 value for a single upgrade, and more if they release more than one major upgrade throughout the year.