Longklaw.com

I’ve pretty much completely made the switch from eBay to Amazon.com for selling all the old games and DVD’s that I don’t want anymore. I mostly use the money to buy new games and DVD’s. I get more money than I would if I traded them in to GameStop or Sam Goody, I just have to wait before I get anything. When an item is sold, Amazon.com sends me an email with the name and address of the person that bought my item, how much I’m getting, and other useful information.

I’m at the point where Gmail is becoming my main email service. As most people with Gmail accounts probably know, they scan your email and deliver advertisements in the right side of your browser area based on what’s in that particular email. I like the way Gmail handles tracking numbers and street addresses. If Gmail sees a tracking number (UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc) in your email, it’ll give you a link that you can click on to track the package. It saves me the trouble of having to go to the individual websites and going through the steps to track packages that I’m expecting. If Gmail sees a street address in your email, it’ll usually give you a “Map this” link that allows you to map that address using Google Maps. So, if a friend sends me his address in an email, all I have to do is click on that link to see where he lives and possibly get directions.

I get the “Map this” links with the emails that come from Amazon.com telling me that my items have sold and where I need to ship them to. If I notice the links and I’m bored when I’m scanning the emails, sometimes I’ll click on the links just out of curiosity. No, I’m not going to stalk these people. I just think it’s interesting to look at satellite imagery of their neighborhoods and their houses. It may give me an idea of the kind of person I’m selling my stuff to…or maybe not. Oh well, it helps pass the time.

Another sign that I have moved into the 21st century is the fact that I did all of my Christmas shopping online this year. Each of the past couple of years I said that I was going to do that, but I always waited too late and didn’t want to risk not getting my items on time. About 2 or 3 AM on the morning of December 1, I ordered my last gift. I don’t think I’ve ever finished that early before.

So last week was Thanksgiving week. I pretty much had the whole week off. I did as little real work as I could get away with. After pouring more money into my car, I drove it to Jackson and didn’t have any major problems. Whenever I started hearing noises, I just turned my music up louder so I wouldn’t hear them.

Some of the highlights and lowlights of the week:

I bought a wireless router a couple of months ago. Since I didn’t think I would get much use out of my old wired router, I decided to sell it on eBay. A few days after I sent the router to the guy that won the auction, an email correspondence began.

Him: I just got the router you sold me and it doesn’t work. Can you help?
What I’m thinking: Well that’s not much to go on. I know it works because I tested it before I sent it to him. I better not get a bad rating because this guy can’t follow instructions.
What I tell him: I tell him that I’m not sure what kind of problem he’s having. I guide him through the process of resetting the router and logging onto it. I tell him that then he must configure the router. I point out the instruction manual and setup disk that both guide you through the process of setting up the router. I also give him a link the website which also has instructions.

Him: I plug in the router and can’t access the internet. I already tried to reset it. What else can I do?
What I’m thinking: Is he just plugging it in and expecting it to automatically work? Did he even read my last email? I wonder what kind of connection he has.
What I tell him: I ask him if he has cable or DSL. I ask him if he can log on to the router. I ask him he has another computer he can try to connect with.

Him: I have DSL. Is there something specific I have to do before I can connect to the router?
What I’m thinking: Has he not been paying attention to what I’ve been saying?
What I tell him: I tell him that he can’t just plug it in and expect him to work. I say that he has to log into the router and configure it to work with his DSL connection. I told him that I could probably do it in less than 5 minutes if it was in front of me, but I can’t remember what the screens and menus look like. I once again give him instructions and point him and remind him of the instruction manual.

Him: I think I got it to work. Thanks for the help. It was good doing business with you.
What I’m thinking: It’s about time.
What I tell him: I tell him that I’m glad he got it to work and that I hope he enjoys using the router.

I guess I’m too hard on people that aren’t good with technology. You would think that he would realize that since he has to log into his DSL connection he would realize that he can’t just connect the computer to the router and expect it to work. Maybe he doesn’t have to log into his DSL. Maybe he does log into it and doesn’t realize it. And you would think that he would be able to follow simple instructions designed for people that aren’t technology oriented.

I finally settled on a new RSS reader. I am now using Bloglines. I didn’t want to use an online system because it’s dependent upon being able to access the website. So far I haven’t had any problems with this site being down. And I like the fact that I can access my feeds from anywhere.

I still have some organizing to do, but you can view my subscriptions here.

I came across this link on Wil Wheaton’s website. It’s an article about the end of the Golden Era of Geek. With Star Trek going off the air and the release of the last Star Wars movie, what do we have now? I thought it was interesting. Check it out.

Once every few months I use eBay to sell stuff that I don’t want. It’s probably never more than 5 or 6 items at any time. I use the money to help pay for more junk that I don’t need.

One of the items I decided to sell recently was an old 40 GB hard drive. The auction was set to end on Sunday, March 20. A couple of days before the auction ended, one bidder asked if it would be ok to send payment on Monday, April 4, because they wouldn’t have the money until Friday, April 1. Being the nice guy that I am, I said ok because I didn’t see the harm in waiting a couple of weeks. I personally don’t think you should bid on an item if you don’t already have the money, but that’s just me. I was hoping that bidder wouldn’t win, but he/she did. The following is a summary of what happened later that I created using the emails that have gone back and forth. I will refer to the winner as a he because I am not really sure

March 20 (Sunday): The auction ends. The winner sends an email saying he will get the money on April 1 and asks for the grand total and a mailing address to send the payment to. I use eBay’s invoice feature because it sends the winner an email and automatically inserts the grand total (cost of item + shipping) and mailing address that I have on record.

March 29 (Tuesday): I get an email from the winner saying that he would send the payment on Sunday, April 3, and gave me the address that I should send the item to.

April 12 (Tuesday): After not hearing anything, I sent an email asking the winner if he had sent the payment or if he was no longer interested in the item. The winner replies saying that he sent payment on March 30. He wants to know what is going on.

April 13 (Wednesday): I reply saying that I never received payment. I ask what form the payment was in and ask him to attempt to trace the payment.

April 21 (Thursday): After hearing nothing, I once again ask the winner if he is still interested in the item. I inform him that I intend to put the item back up for sell in a few days. He replies by saying that he sent a money order and that it was cashed. He wants to know what is going on. He really needed the item and thinks he is going to get screwed.

April 22 (Friday): I reply saying that I never received a money order. I ask him what he wants to do. He replies saying that he is very upset. He wants me to tell him what to do. He really needed the item and is upset that he won’t get it because someone stole his money.

I don’t think I’ve even seen a money order in years. I do not intend to send him the hard drive without getting anything. I’m starting to get more suspicious of people, so I wonder if this is some kind of scam to get items without paying for them. There have been some inconsistencies from him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s intentionally being deceitful. I guess that from now I will only accept payments by Paypal. I try to be nice and give people different methods of payment, but I think there is less room for error if I only use Paypal. This is the first time that a buyer has used a method other than Paypal to buy something from me in years. It could be that this person is just a new eBay user (he had no feedback) and just doesn’t know how people usually do things. I just hope he doesn’t think that I’m trying to screw him out of money. This could be a situation that doesn’t turn out well for either of us.

Update: 4/24/2005
I checked the winner’s feedback. He won an auction for a power supply around the same time as he won my auction. He never paid for that either.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 was released yesterday, so go try it out. It looks like the traffic to their website has slowed down since yesterday. You might want to uninstall any old copies first. Just leave the directory intact.

A couple of days ago I reinstalled Linux on my PS2. I messed something up the first time and I never got a chance to do any real stuff on it before. I was able to get some simple OpenGL programs to run. I’ll be making the next Final Fantasy in no time.

I installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 on my laptop. It only took about 2 hours. I hope I don’t have any major problems with it.

I’ve been playing a lot of GTA 3 lately since I never beat the game and the sequel comes out soon. I’m a little behind on the video games.

Check out these links when you have time:
Halo 2 gameplay footage – I can’t wait to play this game.
How to Write Unmaintainable Code – Jason sent me this one. It’s a little long, but I thought it was pretty funny.
HomestarRunner – Really cool Flash stuff. Check out the Strongbad emails if nothing else. Thanks again to Jason for telling me about this a long time ago.