Some people give up on buying on ebay because they never win. I’ll tell you the secret to never losing. Never bid on an item until the very last split second, or you are bidding against yourself.
But, you don’t want to sit at the computer when every auction closes? Here is the secret- use a sniping service like eSnipe.
Esnipe allows you to place as many bids on as many auctions as you want (in a “bid group”) where it will automatically bid your max dollar until you win.
Example- my girlfriend wanted a Sonicare toothbrush. These cost about $116 new, but plenty are available on Ebay auctions NIB (new in box). We bid on a bunch of auctions to end up at $65 with shipping. E-snipe kept bidding and losing, until, jackpot- we won one with free shipping for $54! Cost to us- esnipe sells credits for pennies on the dollar bid- so under $1.00 extra to get a toothbrush for half price.
Hard lesson, expensive lesson. And one you never want to learn the hard way. Do you backup your computer daily? How much would it cost you if your computer crashed RIGHT NOW? What files would you need for that big deal that’s coming up tomorrow?
If you haven’t been backing up then you need to run, don’t walk, to buy an external hard drive that’s at least as big as your computer drive as well as some kind of backup software. We’re a Mac shop, so system 10.7 has Time Machine built in which does hourly backups, but before that: Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner were our backup software of choice.
And, while it’s good to have a backup handy right next to your computer – what if your building burned down? Do you have a backup offsite?
There are remote backup services available that can backup your computer over the internet at night, but just remember it will take a while to upload the files.
While tape drives used to be a great option and give you multiple versions of the backup, they are also slow. Besides, with the size of harddrives going up fast and prices coming down all you need a couple of external hard drives to keep your data safe.
Large offices can have a central server to store critical info, and have it all backed up centrally or on a redundant drive.
One neat trick for really important stuff is to e-mail it to your Gmail account, which has lots of space.
Something to think about next time you’re working on a huge project.
It’s great to see How Design University recognizing how effective WordPress is to run your site- but, what they do in 28 days, we do in one, plus we teach you all the ins and outs of how to optimize your site and content to get you to the top of Google.
From their course description:
WORKSHOP BEGINS: View upcoming workshop schedule for dates
WORKSHOP LENGTH: 4 weeks
TUITION: $199.00 ($179 for Design Insiders)
INSTRUCTOR: Jesse Friedman
You likely know it as a blogging platform, but WordPress has evolved into a full content management system and has been embraced by developers and designers all over the world. Building your website on WordPress can be simple and quick, or it can push the limits of your creativity through thousands of plugins, themes and widgets available for use with the system. Join Jesse Friedman on a journey to create your first WordPress site. In just 28 days, you’ll learn about server requirements and hosting, customization, resources available inside and outside of the WordPress community, functionality—and at the end you’ll have a site of your own.
In this course you’ll learn:
About creating your first website in WordPress
Server requirements and hosting
Selecting themes and functionality
Choosing the right settings
Who should take this course:
New web designers
Marketing professionals
Entrepreneurs
via 28 Days to Your First WordPress Site | HOW Design University.
We’ve been teaching Websitetology since Nov of 2005- and have graduated over 1000 brilliant websitetologists who are using WordPress today. We realize we’re not an online course, but, we’ll gladly come to your town to teach any group of 10 or more.