Archives For technology

[ebay]

You can read the changes for yourself here.

Reduced listing fees

Pro Con
Of course, it’s cheaper to list products. Gallery pictures are now standard. What they didn’t say in the announcements is that they’ve jacked up the final value fee percent by 3%. That means that sellers make less money. Way to encourage your sellers, eBay!I like the option of not having a gallery picture. As a buyer, if someone doesn’t have a gallery picture, I’m usually not interested. It helps me weed through the listings.

Rewards for great sellers

Pro Con
Higher rated sellers float to the top of searches. Lower fees for Power Sellers. So what about those of us that aren’t Power Sellers?

Feedback changes

Pro Con
Three day waiting period for leaving negative or neutral feedback. Positive feedback percentage based on last 12 months of feedback. Sellers can no longer leave negative or neutral feedback. What about sellers leaving negative feedback as a warning to other sellers about deadbeat buyers? Feedback extortion does occur. How does this help in that situation?What incentives will the buyers have to complete the terms of the terms of an auction?

Overall I think eBay is doing an overall disservice to sellers with these most recent changes. Obviously it’s a money grab.

move_window.jpgHave you ever had a program show in the taskbar as running, but not show anywhere on the screen? (I’ve only had it happen in a dual-screen environment, but I suppose it could happen with a single screen.)

Anyway. Alt-Space is your friend.

Hit Alt-space, choose Move and then use the arrow keys to move the window back to the visible screen.

taskbar1.jpg

If you are like me and often have a lot of apps open in Windows, here’s an easy way to get more room in your taskbar. If you’re wondering why my taskbar is dark gray, I’m using the Zune theme for Windows XP.

®= right-click, © = click, © © = double-click

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1. ® on an empty place on the taskbar, © Properties

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2. © Customize next to the “Hide inactive icons” checkbox

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3. Note the Behavior column

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4. Next to each “Hide when inactive” entry change it to “Always Hide”

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5. © OK twice and you’re done. Voila. Nice, huh?

Here are some things that I think can be improved in Wii Sports.

  • Stats! The message board is not a good place to view my personal best scores. I’d like to see a table of all Miis on the console and their best scores in each sport.
  • A way to turn off the strap warnings and things that slow the game down. I know they’re necessary, but once my Mii has acknowledged them, don’t show them again.
  • It would be cool if some functionality could be unlocked when you get to a certain skill level in all of the sports. I know bowling pros get a different color ball, but what about the other sports?
  • Tennis – when you’re not playing against the computer, there are some unhittable service returns. It’s not quite fair.
  • Baseball
    • It’d be sweet to pick the players on our team from our pool of Miis.
    • I know the minimalist nature of Wii Sports is what makes it cool, but some more action on the baseball players would be nice, especially fielding. For example, if you hit a line drive to first base, the fielder should step on the base.
    • It’d also be cool to be able to position yourself in the batter’s box.
  • Golf – If there’s one of the sports that a movement that is counter-intuitive, it’s golf. Maybe it’s that I don’t like golf in general.

firefox_ie.jpg

Caught this article about the first year of IE7 in one of the feeds I read. Nothing like a sneaky plug by a Microsoft employee on a Microsoft product. Stuff like this is what flame wars are made of.

Well, played.