( Table Of Contents )

1. Introduction
2. Volcanic Software News
3. eBay changes and additions
4. Online auctions in the news
5. Cool Auction Site of the month
6. Auction tip of the month
7 . Closure
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Introduction

Greetings, and thanks for checking out the seventh installment of the Volcanic Software Auction Newsletter! I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday this past week and I wish you all the best in the new year. Statistically speaking, online auction sales decline from roughly the 20th of December until the new year begins. For this very reason, eBay will usually offer a free listing day for the U.S. near the end of December. On the 26th of this month eBay announced another free listing day, and thousands of folks from all parts of the U.S. worked around the clock trying to list as many items as possible without having to worry about tedious eBay fees. If you missed out on it this year, there's bound to be at least one again next year around the same time (be prepared). Now that the new year is almost hear, sales should start to pick up the pace! With that said, lets get started with the actual newsletter!
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Volcanic Software News

For all current users of Dominant Ad Creator, there is a minor patch available which resolves several issues. If you installed Dominant Ad Creator 2.2.1 prior to December 1st, you may wish to download this tiny update. Here's what has been modified:

• An error was discovered (thanks to Tony) in which when you would save an ad that used the portrait style image dimensions instead of landscape dimensions, then tried to reload the ad, it would cause an error.

• Template number 15 has been updated to support ten images.

• The 'include links to other auctions' option became invalid after eBay changed certain aspects of their site. It has been fully resolved now and will link properly in eBay auctions.

To download the newest update, simply click on the link below. The file is in ZIP format so the contents must be extracted using another utility. If you are using Windows ME or Windows XP, it should open right up and you can then copy and paste the two files into the correct locations. Otherwise you may download the trial version of Winzip from http://www.winzip.com. The EXE file in the ZIP file goes into the Dominant Ad Creator root directory (C:\Program Files\Dominant Ad Creator\), and the TPT file goes into the 'Template' sub-folder of the Dominant Ad Creator directory. If you extract all contents of the ZIP file to the root Dominant Ad Creator folder, it should automatically place the template file in the correct location.

http://dac.volcanicsoft.com/downloads/dac221r.zip

Aside from the minor update, I have been considering some BIG changes for the Volcanic Software website for quite some time now. Nothing will be final for a good month or two yet, but... I've been planning to completely change the domain name, and name of the site to something more auction oriented. Also, it would then become a HUGE resource and auction news site; much more useful than what it is now, in which people could go and get all types of tips, tutorials, resources, and a lot of other auction-related content. I'd still have Dominant Ad creator and the others available, but I would also be providing a lot of free utilities and accessories to help people on their online auction adventure. Originally when I started Volcanic Software, I had planned on offering a variety of different types of applications, but soon realized I enjoyed online auction related material much more than general applications. The change of my domain name would be much more appropriate for auction resources and would most likely draw in a lot more people. Full details will hopefully be available with the next newsletter!

One last note to point out is that I have updated the support section to include October's and December's newsletters. However, I can't recall ever sending out the November issue of this newsletter, and if I did send it out then I have NO trace left of it on this computer! I know I typed it all up, but I honestly do not know where it has gone. If any one of the readers would happen to have a copy of it, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could forward me a copy so I can get it in online format. If you never received the November issue, I'm sorry but its gone forever now!

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eBay changes and additions

There hasn't been many big updates on eBay since the last newsletter. Some changes include the fact that within a very short time, users that use their e-mail address as their eBay ID will be required to change the name. Everyone that is using their e-mail address surely has been notified by eBay about this situation already. What is their motive behind this new change? Well, there is a lot of e-mail harvesting software circulating in which the software runs through websites looking for any references to e-mail addresses, and then the addresses found are added to mailing lists etc.. So basically, eBay is looking after your privacy and making it harder for spammers and scammers to get a hold of your e-mail address.

Another new 'feature' is that users are required to sign-in whenever they wish to search for completed items. EBay mentions that they made such a change because "Completed Items data can be valuable information that is generated by the eBay Community, so it will be available only to registered members of the eBay Community." Was the change necessary? Not really! Even before this change was made, many people were annoyed at how many times they were equired to sign-in when they visited the eBay site. A final change since the last newsletter is that sellers can now give a second chance offer to multiple bidders, not just the second-highest (so if you sell similar or identical items, you can offer additional ones to all past bidders of a closed auction).
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Online auctions in the news

This month's article doesn't completely deal with eBay. However, the topic it covers is one that I feel is very important for people to understand (especially users of eBay and PayPal), and it pertains to something called 'E-Mail Phishing'. If you are unaware of this new term, it refers to scammers who send e-mails that appear to originate from popular online businesses or services. The e-mails ask users to update their personal information on record or their account will be suspended. The user then clicks on a link contained in the message which appears to be secure, and is expected to fill out all of their personal information including password, credit card, and many other personal details that if put in the wrong hands could cause great damage. The truth is that the link they are taken to is not the least bit secure, and the data entered is transmitted back to the criminal's computer in which they can then use it to their liking.

I realize that I have discussed this topic in the past, but according to the article roughly 5% of the people respond to the phishing e-mails! Considering these messages are sent out in massive amounts, 5% of the people is still quite a handful. To ensure you are never a victim of such a crooked scheme, simply do not click on ANY links found in messages that ask you to re-enter your personal information at risk of loosing your account. All the reputable sites including eBay and PayPal will NEVER ask for such information via e-mail. If you are in doubt after receiving a message, open up a fresh browser window and manually visit the site in question. Then log-in and ensure your information is correct.

One last note is that according to research done at Anti-Phishing.ORG, the amount of Phishing e-mails being sent has increased 400% in the month of December!

http://www.wordspy.com/words/phishing.asp (Great information covering all aspects of Phishing)
http://www.nbc4.tv/technology/2730253/detail.html (News article discussing the topic)
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Cool Auction Site of the month

My intentions this month were to describe and post a link to a wonderful little web utility that could quickly filter through any eBay userID and show you only the negatives and neutrals they have received. At least from my viewpoint, I check other user's feedback mainly looking for the negatives or neutrals and to see what they are are all about. Unfortunately eBay has yet to implement a filter and so we are stuck sorting through pages of feedback to find the few we are interested in. The utility that did the sorting automatically is located at http://www.haus.org/cgi-bin/negs, however it has recently been taken down at least temporarily, due to a strain on the server. But you may want to keep the link handy incase it recovers as it really does a fine job!

But, since the above mentioned link is down I will describe another powerful, free utility that can be used to filter through a person's feedback. The program is called GutCheck and it is a small add-on for Internet Explorer (possibly other browsers). What it does is it adds a small addition to the right-click menu, and that addition allows you to right-click on any userID and it will retrieve all feedback that user has. Once the feedback is obtained, you can filter by negatives, neutrals, etc... The only drawback is that the fetching process is rather tedious especially if the user has a lot of feedback. None-the-less, its a free compact program that you can install and forget about, but its always there when you need it (simply right-click on an eBay userID and you can see it in the menu). Feel free to download and test it out!

http://www.teamredline.com/gutcheck
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Auction tip of the month

Since eBay changed the ad layout quite a few months ago, you may have noticed that certain auctions have a small image shown near the top, along with the big one at the bottom of the listing. The reasoning behind this is that anyone who uses eBay's own image hosting service automatically gets the small preview picture inserted at the top of their listings. However, if you use your own image host to store your pictures, chances are you haven't been getting the tiny images in your listings. To get around this problem, you must point to one of your hosted images in the Sell-Your-Item form, so that eBay knows there is a picture in your ad. To do so, follow the directions below.

1. On the third page of the 'Sell-Your-Item' form, under the 'Add Pictures' section, click on the tab titled, 'Your Own web Hosting'.
2. Now enter the picture URL that you wish to use (IE, http://www.example.com/image.jpg).
3. Finish creating the ad and submit it.

With all luck, when you preview your ad you will see the tiny image at the top and thus your ad will appear more balanced when compared to the ones with no picture at the top. The one drawback to doing this is that the small image will also appear in its full size at the bottom of the ad, and there is no way around this as far as I know. Well, you could insert a bit of code known as 'Absolute Positioning' to get the small image to appear at the top of the ad, but unfortunately this is against eBay rules and your ads may be taken down, or your account could be suspended (don't do it!).
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Closure

Here's the end of issue number 6. With all luck I will have some big news for you next month in regards to the new auction site I'm planning. I'm always open to suggestions, comments, and stories you may want to share about your online auction experiences. Please feel free to drop me an e-mail and I'll get back to you ASAP!

Sincerely,

Matt
http://www.volcanicsoft.com