Shoot For The Moon... Even If You Miss, You'll Land Among The Stars

I just got my yellow star on eBay; I'm so happy! Basically "reputation stars" sort of represent how good of a buyer/seller you are. Ideally for each transaction you complete the person you sold an item to or bought an item from will leave you feedback, either positive, negative or neutral. Each positive feedback raises your feedback score by one, and when you get to ten, you get a yellow star! I know this is really lame :P but I believe I'll be using eBay more and more in the future, maybe when I start piling up junk that I need to get rid of. From what I've seen, there are certainly many people who make their livings off eBay. Apparently, if you earn more than ten thousand dollars a month off eBay, you qualify for some of the benefits you might categorize with a regular nine-to-five job, such as dental, health insurance and other benefits, although I haven't really checked to verify if this is true.

However, there are people who sell a CRAPload of stuff each month. For example, some people I buy from are green or silver shooting stars... that's from five thousand to one million items sold! Holy crap.

For now though I'm content to purchase items on eBay and have no inclination to start selling; I don't really want to deal with the shipping details and the costs to list an item with eBay just yet.

Cheers

Kamster

Quick Update

Yoooo March Break is coming up I am excited. Amazingly, I have two weeks off from class whereas most of my compadres have only one - which is good and bad. It's kinda bad because - obviously - we can't hang out for one week; in fact, I'll have one week with almost nothing to do except mope around the house and do work. But it's also good in that I can take that time to visit universities that are having early open houses; I definitely need to make time for some of those. What's also nice is that I have almost no work these upcoming two weeks; most of my classmates are going off on a trip and teachers are scared to assign homework, so the rest of us that remain behind are having it real nice 'n easy.

Oh, and I just downloaded Opera 9.6, and it is really amazing - SO much faster (and smaller) than Internet Explorer, and very user-friendly. Download it here.

Cheers,

Kamster

Feed Me Now!

If you have been keeping up with Up the Ante these past few months, you may recall a previous post where I lamented about Google's up and coming domination of cyberspace and their rapid emergence as Microsoft's biggest competitor in the computer/internet marketing realm of today. Well, it seems that Google hasn't let up as of late, continuing on to swallow up smaller companies who simply don't have what it takes to resist the enormous pull of Google's gravity.

When I signed into my Feedburner account for the first time in a while, I found out that Google had taken over FeedBurner!

Quoting the email to my inbox:

"You may now view and manage your feed and its settings by visiting this address:

http://feedburner.google.com

You will no longer be able to sign in to feedburner.com, but that's okay: from now on, there is no reason to do so. Also, your old FeedBurner feed, found at feeds.feedburner.com, will automatically redirect traffic to its new address on the feeds2.feedburner.com domain. You may still want to update any links or buttons on your website to use the new feeds2.feedburner.com address."

Actually, they had bought over FeedBurner in 2007 but I didn't know until now! Apparently it took them the better part of two years to integrate FeedBurner into their group services, but now they've done it. Like I've said... Google is taking over the world (although, I haven't noticed any differences with the *new* FeedBurner except for a change of domain name)!

Cheers,

Kamster

Phone Problems Solved!

A while ago I had this phase where I tried really hard to get some games on phone, a Samsung D807. I didn't want to pay money to buy from Rogers, and so I tried to download some free games off the internet. After doing some searching around, I found some sites that offered free phone game downloads. The problem was however, that the file extensions were really weird; for some games they were .jad and others they were .jar, and for a few games, both types of file were offered. By this point I was totally confused. Other than telling me to "download and install", I had no idea how to turn these confusing files into games that I could play.

In this situation, a site like File Extension Library would have helped me out greatly. Until today, I had no idea what those two file types were, but after visiting File Extension Library, I have learned that .jad files are actually a small type of file that contains instructions for the retrieval, installation and identifications of MIDlets (a java application that you can run on your phone - usually a game). I also learned from the file extension library that the .jad file opens your phone browser to download and install the game automatically. No wonder I couldn't get those games to work! My phone's browser was disabled! I realize that File Extension Library is a great resource that I can and definitely will use in the future when I'm dealing with confusing file types, such as .bup, .jar and .dll files, just to name a few. Indeed, the comprehensive library contains dozens of odd file extensions, the likes of which I have not (and hope not) come across. However, with software becoming obsolete the moment it's bought, you never know when you'll come across some file your friend has sent you that you have no idea how to deal with. Like today; how was I supposed to know that .doc files (the standard for Microsoft Word documents, or so I thought) are no longer used, and instead have been swapped for .docx? Good thing I came across File Extension Library at the time I did. Hopefully now I'll be able to get DawnOfDarkness.jad to finally work!

Cheers!

Kamster

Ey Bay Bay!

I recently made my first-ever purchase of eBay, and it was quite a pleasant experience. Many of my friends had told me that eBay is a great place to get items a lot cheaper and you can in a store, and I really wanted to test that out. Plus, I rationalized it would be great having the item shipped to my house rather than having to waste money getting to the store I would normally purchase the item.

After browsing the items on eBay.ca, I found exactly what I was looking for. After reviewing the shipping details, I purchased the item, and lo-and-behold; it arrived at my door just four days later! Considering the shipper lives in another country, I was rightly impressed when the item arrived in perfect condition, just as he had described it. With that I continued shopping, and have since purchased several other products on eBay.ca.

Here are some eight things I've picked up in my first two weeks of using eBay:

1. Know exactly what you're looking for. This should be really obvious, actually - have a clear idea in your mind what kind of item your looking for, whether you want it new or used and whether that item is very common or more rare. Knowing beforehand will help you sift through the endless listings of stuff that will surely show up on your first search.
2. Have a budget. This is another obvious one - know how much you're willing to spend, and stick to it. I would suggest contacting local store owners who sell the same item and ask how much it is locally. This way, you can make the most out of your shopping experience by getting the same item shipped to your house for cheaper than it would cost for you to drive out and buy it yourself!
3. Be open-minded. The first couple times I went shopping on eBay, I totally ignored those items that didn't have a "Buy it now" sign next to them; those were all auction items and I decided I would rather get the final price up front at the beginning of the sale. However, after going through a successful auction and winning the item (for several dollars less than the lowest "Buy it now" price), I always look at the auctions and the non-auction items. Many times you will be able to get yourself something for much cheaper if you look at both types of listing instead of just one.
4. Read the fine print. When buying an item, it's absolutely necessary to read the fine print closely. What do I mean by this? My friend Adrian recently asked me to bid on an item on his behalf - a set of four playing identical cards, or so he thought. The card is quite uncommon, and so the price was high - about four dollars each. Upon closer inspection of the listing however, I realized that the listing - which included a picture of four of the card in question - was only for one card, not four! Imagine if I had taken the picture at face value and not looked closely at the actual item description; I would be out sixteen dollars cash, with no one to blame but myself. Also, it would be wise to take a close look at the shipping details; you don't want to purchase an item only to realize that the shipper does not ship to your country.
5. Only bid when you are certain you are going to buy the item. Don't bid for fun - ever. This may seem a bit strict, but it's really not a nice (or legal) thing to do at all. When you bid on an item, you enter into a legally binding agreement to purchase that item if you are the highest bidder come listing's end. If you bid and win, but decide not to pay up, you could have strikes placed on your account, or worse, an account suspension. Although you may never be sued for not paying up, it's really not nice to put the seller in that sort of situation anyways. If however you bid and realize later it was an honest mistake, explain your situation to the seller, and they may be gracious and cancel your bid for you, though this is up to their sole discretion.
6. Keep in mind currency differences. Most items on eBay are listed in USD, and so it would be more than wise to visit a site like xe.com to convert the listed price into your local currency. Otherwise you may find yourself paying more than you might have to - even more than you would have to pay at a local store if you fail to take this into account.
7. Get a PayPal account. Most sellers prefer PayPal (indeed, many only accept PayPal), and so it is a good idea to go get an account. Of course you can link your PayPal account with your bank account to transfer funds back and forth, although you don't necessarily have to. However paying for eBay purchases with PayPal is fast, easy and safe, and will make your eBay experience much more pleasant.
8. Leave feedback. Did the seller refund you the value of a discount after you had already paid? Did the seller go the extra mile to make your transaction a pleasant one? If you feel your transaction was a pleasant experience and are satsified with your purchase, leave feedback! All eBay members have a "feedback score", based on ratings left for them by other people that have either bought their items of sold them items. The higher your score, the better - people will be assured that you will pay when you purchase an item. So, when you've had a nice experience with someone, repay them in kind with positive feedback.

Hopefully this was helpful and you will find your eBay experience as enjoyable as I have found mine.

Cheers!

Kamster

Oh Boy...

Has anyone heard of this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1144244/Teenage-sister-boy-father-13-baby-age.html

When I read this I was absolutely astonished. I mean, I've long heard and regarded Britain's social decline of years past, but this is really something. A twelve year old father? You know something is wrong when a kid doesn't know the meaning of the question "What are you going to do financially?"

I don't think this kid is particularly "bad", per se, but more like misinformed and ignorant of the social standards and acceptable behavious in his community. To most of us this may seem to be some sort of abomination, a sign that society has degraded so far as to behold the new fatherhood of twelve year old boy. However, it's safe to say this is an unusual occurence, an anomaly, an example of someone who has fallen through society's moral safety net. In this case, I believe the parents should be blamed for not making clear to the child that having unprotected sex with someone at the age of twelve is, well... wrong!

Best wishes to the (very) young couple and I just hope that the judicial system will find a fair and beneficial solution to this unseemly situation.

Cheers!

Kamster