If you hear of a person being referred to as a mule, you most likely think of a drug mule – someone who smuggles drugs to or from countries. A startup called Mulepool is looking to give the model a slightly more legal spin. If the wanted list on the homepage is any indication, forget cocaine and marijuana  –  iPads, MacBook Pros and iPhones may be the new drugs. Minus the cartels, blinged out weaponry and higher than average probability of death or arrest, of course.

Although nearly every page contains a request for an Apple product, there are requests for Kindles, XBOX games, and even NyQuil caps. From experience with weak cold medication in countries outside the US, we completely understand the last one, even if it seems out of place amidst the electronics that dominate the requests on the site.

The site works by collecting payment for the total price of the item plus the mule’s commission, then holding it in escrow until a code is entered into the website and the item is delivered. Food, like Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter, will net mules anywhere from $2-5 on average, but the real money is in electronics.

Someone is offering a $624 commission for a Canon 5D Mark II camera, and the top commission offer for a MacBook Pro would net the mule $337. Most other commissions for electronics hover in the $1-200 range, but 4 or 5 items could actually pay for part of a vacation to Buenos Aires, which sounds like a win/win to us.

Most of the requests are for delivery to Buenos Aires, where the two expat founders are based, but the site lists Brazil, South Africa and Russia on their future planned expansions list.

{via the High Low}

Special? Definitely. Best deal? Not on everything.

Lots of Mac fans were happy to hear that Apple, notorious for not discounting their products, would be getting into the spirit of Black Friday but if you’re really looking for the best deal on a Mac, your best bet may be with an Apple reseller.

First, some clarification: if you’re looking for a deal on an iPod or iPad, then the Apple store is where you want to shop. On every iPod and iPad model, the Apple Black Friday specials offer the best price. If you’re in the market for a computer though, we did the shopping around and for quite a few models, you’ll save slightly more by going with a reseller. Here’s a model by model breakdown.

Update: Apple’s Black Friday prices may have been one day only, but most of the resellers still have sale pricing available.

MacBook Pro

15-inch MacBook Pro – 2.4GHz

$1698 with free shipping at Apple (all MacBook Pros can be seen at the same link)

$1660.99 with free shipping at Amazon

MacBook Pro 15-inch – 2.53GHz

$1898 with free shipping at Apple

$1834 with free shipping at Amazon

MacBook Pro 15-inch – 2.66GHz

$2098 with free shipping at Apple

$2029 with free shipping at Amazon

$2043.99 with free shipping at MacMall

MacBook Pro 17-inch – 2.53GHz

$2198 with free shipping at Apple

$2054 with free shipping at Amazon

$2094.77 with free shipping at Mac Mall

MacBook Air

MacBook Air 11-inch with 64GB memory

$999 (no promotion) at Apple (all MacBook Airs can be seen at the same link)

$948 with free shipping at Amazon

$948 with free shipping at MacMall

MacBook Air 11-inch with 128GB memory

$1199 (no promotion) at Apple

$1139 at Amazon

$1139 at MacMall

iMac

On the 21.5″ iMac models, there’s promotional price parity, but on the 27″ iMac versions things get a bit more competitive. Apple’s Black Friday price on the Quad-Core 2.8GHz model is $1898 with free shipping. The same version can be found on Amazon for $1859 + $25.49 shipping ($1884.49 total) and at Mac Mall for $1894 with free shipping.

Prices on the 2.93GHz model are the same – $2098 or $2298 depending on how much memory you go for – at Apple and resellers.