( Table Of Contents )

1. Introduction
2. Dominant Ad Creator 2.2.1 has been released
3. Free themes for Dominant Ad Creator now available
4. eBay's page layout and other changes that affect Dominant Ad Creator
5. News about Volcanic Software's website
6. Online auctions in the news
7. Auction tip of the month
8. Closure
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Introduction

Welcome to the second issue of Volcanic Software's auction newsletter. The format of this newsletter is still being decided upon, but by the time the next newsletter comes out (approximately August 20th), everything will be in a permanent style and also available in HTML format from the main Volcanic Software website. In this issue, I will discuss the latest update of Dominant Ad Creator, the changes in eBay's auction system that affect Dominant Ad Creator's behavior, and share some important information about the website and what is to come.

I have not yet created an official newsletter signup form on the website, so as of yet the only people receiving this newsletter are those that registered Dominant Ad Creator, or one of the other tools available from the website. But since the website, ad creator, and other features of Volcanic Software are quite well sitting on solid ground now, I will be adding the newsletter feature to the site and begin advertising the forum and chat as best as possible before the next newsletter comes out. As always, if you have any suggestions for improvement on the website or this newsletter, please reply to this message and let me know...
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Dominant Ad Creator 2.2.1 has been released

Yet another minor update to Dominant Ad Creator is available. In this new release, there are no significant new features, but instead it fixed several small problems found in previous versions. To be specific, the new features consist of: The filename you have open is displayed in the title bar so you never forget what file you are working on, and also the entire help system has been re-designed (same content, but fresher look). Some problems that have been resolved include the fact that in prior versions, the 'page background' texture path would not be shown after you reloaded a saved file. Also, several templates had incorrect default color settings than what they should have been. For a complete list of new features and bug fixes, you can always check the site (http://dac.volcanicsoft.com).

Full download (4.26MB): http://dac.volcanicsoft.com/downloads/dac221.exe
Upgrade download (1.34MB): http://dac.volcanicsoft.com/downloads/dac221u.exe

To install the update correctly, refer to http://dac.volcanicsoft.com/updates. In brief, you simply need to download the upgrade and install it into the current Dominant Ad Creator directory and it should be all set. Ensure all instances of Dominant Ad Creator are closed before updating.
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Free themes for Dominant Ad Creator now available

A collection of 100 theme files (five colors for each current Dominant Ad Creator template) have been released and can be downloaded via http://dac.volcanicsoft.com/downloads/DACThemes.zip. The entire collection is a mere 28KB, so they will only take a matter of seconds to download and use. These files can be extracted to any folder on your hard drive, and you simply load them up in the same way that you load any file in Dominant Ad Creator. The current themes consist of Blue, Red, Green, Violet, and Yellow styles and each has a preset light-textured background that goes along with it. Each theme file has a name that corresponds to the template and color it represents. For example, the red colored theme for template number ten is named, '10-red.eza'. After loading the theme file, you can simply enter all of the information as normal and then preview / generate the ad. Be sure to save the file as a new name (save-as) so the text and description you entered does not save over the blank template file. Although not certain, I do have plans to create additional themes in the future consisting of more textures and designs than the ones available now.
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eBay's page layout and other changes that affect Dominant Ad Creator

Just a little while ago, eBay introduced its new page layout as a permanent feature (despite many negative responses to the new design). This new layout prevents the full page background from appearing over the entire page, but rather limits the page background to only appear in the 'description' portion of the page. This means that where the important auction information is (such as seller, bidding details, etc.) the background will always remain white no matter what texture you specify. So just to clarify, if you do list items on eBay using Dominant Ad Creator from now on, the page background you specify will not appear over the entire page but rather it will appear over the entire description section of the ad. All other colors and textures for the tables still work as expected.

Also, if you have specified to include a link to your website in your auctions that you put on eBay, you could potentially have the auctions cancelled due to an eBay policy regarding links you can put in your listing. If you do post a link to your website, make sure that you aren't selling items on the website and that the site is related to what you have listed on eBay. For all sakes, it is probably best to just not use the website link in your listings.

The right-click disabler found in Dominant Ad Creator still appears to be working in eBay auctions, but you should really consider watermarking your images to ensure full protection of them (http://www.volcanicsoft.com/tutorials/watermarking/index.htm).
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News about Volcanic Software's website

Although I intended on having a lot more information and content on the site by the time I released this newsletter, I got wound up with other aspects of Volcanic Software such as redoing the DAC help system, creating all of the theme files, etc... Having said that, I will put full efforts towards adding a multitude of new tutorials and features over the next month. That is all I can really say for now, stay tuned for full details on the next newsletter release.
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Online auctions in the news

As some of the more avid eBay surfers should know (or you may have even heard it on the news), in the past month a man listed a French Fry on eBay which he suggested may be the longest fast food fry in the world! The listing ended at over $200, and has spurred an interest in people trying to find long French Fries and putting them on eBay. This article talks about employees at fast food restaurants who are now searching for long fries while working! http://www.wisinfo.com/newsherald/mnhlocal/284991995833743.shtml/
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Auction Tip of the Month

A large majority of eBay seller's pay the extra $0.25 per listing to have their item added to the gallery. By using the gallery feature, you allow people to see a small image of what you are selling before they ever click on the listing to go to the description. The problem most people have with using the Gallery, is that the image they use will often be stretched, squashed, or too tiny for it to even be worth it. The main reason these problems exist is because the gallery images automatically are resized to 96 x 96, where as most pictures are not square and usually much larger in proportion (such as 640 x 480). When the picture gets resized to such a smaller scale, if you originally had a lot of area shown around your item, the item will appear extremely small when the entire image is shrunk down. There are a number of ways to overcome this problem. The main one consists of simply taking a picture that is zoomed up as close to the object in question as possible, with not a lot of excess space that serves no purpose. Some people prefer to crop the original picture down to a square size, and then resize it to 96 x 96 using an image suite such as Paint Shop Pro so the quality stays top notch.
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Closure

Well that does it for this month's issue, and by next month this whole newsletter deal will be in a permanent format (and also available online). I hope I informed you of a few subjects that will be of some importance to you, and feel free to send me any comments or suggestions for future newsletters.