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‘Ramblings & Misc’ Category

  1. Craigslist etiquette (netiquette?) guide for buyers

    November 28, 2011 by Andrew Block

    As someone who sells stuff on craigslist semi-frequently, I am usually appalled by the lack of…

    • Common sense
    • Grasp of elementary school concepts
    • Disregard for any sense of etiquette

    …that occurs during most craigslist transactions. While this post is targeted at the annoying things buyers do, there are plenty of annoying sellers, too. So, here are my top five pet peeves about craigslist buyers, in no particular order of annoyance.

    RTFD (Read The Freakin’ Description)

    What is wrong with this scenario?

    Item title: Black and White Wing Back Style Recliner – $135

    Buyer’s email: How much for the chair?

    (Note: if you can’t figure it out, you’re probably an avid craigslist buyer)

    Keep in mind that this buyer was so lazy that he didn’t even finish reading the item title. Oh no, he didn’t even have to delve into the description for this – it was right there in the title!

    I tried to sell an iPhone recently. I can’t tell you how many people asked me if the charger was included. Now, granted, this juicy tidbit was in the description, which is a lot of work to find.

    Here is another lame-brained inquiry about the iPhone:

    Title: iPhone 3G; 16GB; requires AT&T sim & activation – $75

    Buyer’s question: Will it work on T-Mobile?

    Blerg! How are you still in the gene pool? But my favorite idiotic craigslist inquiry went like this:

    Hey what are you selling???

    Maybe this one was some kind of scam / phishing attempt. I hope so. If not…there are no words. You just randomly clicked an item, clicked the email address without reading anything, and asked what I was selling?

    So to sum it up (if you’ve gotten this far, chances are you don’t use craigslist): Read the description before sending an email (if you really have A.D.D., at least read the title). It makes you look like a moron if you don’t.

    Lowballing in a passive aggressive way

    This one really irks me.

    Let’s be honest – we’ve all made a lowball offer on an item at some point in our lives. So if I’m selling Modern Warfare 3 for $50, and some kid offers me $10, I’ll politely tell him “No Thanks” and we’ll both be on our merry ways.

    But have you ever gotten this one? This is an actual email I received from a buyer on craigslist regarding a chair my wife and I were selling:

    What would your bottom $ on this be?? thanks so much.

    So in other words, this person was too timid to make a lowball offer, and instead wanted me to name a bargain bin price … on my own item! Argh, grow a pair and make the lowball offer yourself. If I listed a chair for $75, it means I want to make $75. I might entertain a reasonable offer – say $65 – but I’m not going to name a ridiculously low price for you.

    Buyers expecting sellers to meet ridiculously far away

    OK, so you’ve weeded through the idiots and you’ve actually found someone who can craft simple sentences, operate a phone, and read at a 2nd grade level. Congratulations!

    Now comes more frustration: they want you to drive halfway across your state to meet them so they can buy your $25 pillow.

    If I am selling an old phone for $40, I am not going to drive from Minneapolis to Duluth to meet you. That was a joke; sorry non-Minnesotans! That’s a three-hour drive. I once asked a guy if he could pick a place to meet between my city and his, and he named his own city. Apparently the concept of “between” was not taught in some grade schools.

    Note: if it’s a large-ticket item and I stand to make a good chunk of cash, this doesn’t apply – I’m definitely willing to make the drive on bigger sales.

    Being snarky with a seller who won’t budge

    Here is a fun conversation about a chair I was selling for $150:

    Buyer: Would you take $75 cash for the chair?

    Me: No, sorry. I am pretty firm on the price and $75 is much lower than I intend to sell it for.

    Buyer: Ok thanks for the reply. FYI…Its probably an old chair that someone bought fabric for and re-upholstered. Good luck getting $150

    Me: It was new when we got it. It was from a model home. They are selling the chair for new on overstock.com.

    This scenario ties into an aforementioned irritant, which is buyers not reading the description. If this buyer had read it, she would have learned that it was actively being sold on overstock.com and was not a re-upholstered chair, as she so snarkily implied. Instead of just walking away, she had to taunt me a bit. Sore loser!

    Random “call me” emails with no context

    If someone is selling a $40 phone, please don’t send them an email like this:

    Hi can you pls call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX?? Thanks!

    Um, no. Make an offer. P.S., do you notice how double punctuation is a sure indicator of a dufus?

    So there you have it. I hope you are as agitated as I am when I try to sell stuff as craigslist (I am not normally this irritated!). In summary, if buyers could just do the following, craigslist could be a cool & groovy place:

    • Do read the description, or at least the title if you are really that lazy
    • Don’t be too wimpy to make an offer and expect the seller to suggest a bargain bin price
    • Don’t expect a seller to spend more in gas driving to meet you than the item is worth
    • Don’t be snarky when a seller doesn’t give in to your crappy lowball offer
    • Don’t send random (and creepy!) “call me” emails with no context

    I could have gone on and on, but keep in mind my target audience here.

    So what agitates you about craigslist transactions? (buyers or sellers, doesn’t matter – I’d love to hear your angst-ridden stories either way)

    Category Buying/selling online, craigslist, Humor, Ramblings & Misc, Tips of the Trade, Writing & Blogging | Tags: , | No Comments

  2. How much RAM is enough?

    December 26, 2010 by Andrew Block

    Having an excessive amount of system RAM is the computer geek’s equivalent of bragging rights. It’s like buying a 6.1 liter V8 engine when the four-banger would really do just fine. Do you really need all that horsepower? No, but man that car flies when you want it too. It’s pretty satisfying watching a tricked-out Honda get smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror, right?

    The same philosophy doesn’t hold true for system RAM unfortunately. Whereas buying a bigger car engine will typically give you more noticeable power & performance, system RAM’s usefulness drops off pretty quick (BTW, I’m talking about “normal” computer users and gamers here, not universities building cheap supercomputers or anything like that).

    For example, take Mike, who left a comment on another post of mine. He informed me that he’s running 24GB of RAM in his gaming rig (but, he informed me that Crysis is still crashing).

    And here I thought I had a lot with 8GB!

    The latest Steam Hardware Survey shows that most users are running 3GB of RAM. Truthfully, when I switched from 4GB to 8GB, I didn’t notice a thing in any of my games or applications. Even firing up Crysis 64-bit typically results in a gig or two of usage. So 24GB in a gaming rig seems like a lot of electricity being wasted for no good reason.

    So the question is: how much RAM is too much excess just for the sake of excess? How much RAM do you currently run? Any other thoughts or comments on the matter are welcome.

    Oh and if you feel like it, please post your system specs.

    Category Crysis, Gaming, Ramblings & Misc, System Memory (RAM), Windows | Tags: ,,,,, | 3 Comments

  3. Create a simple JavaScript redirect that is trackable with Google Analytics

    November 10, 2010 by Andrew Block

    At work, we sometimes use a homegrown, .NET-based CMS for client websites. The CMS, while powerful and flexible, does have some limitations. For example, it has ugly URLs. Often, clients want pretty URLs to use in marketing materials or promotions. The easy solution is to create a vanity URL & redirect using IIS, but what if it needs to be tracked? For that, we use a simple JavaScript re-direct & Google Analytics event tracking:

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
	<head>

 <script type="text/javascript">

  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXX-X']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
  })();
</script>

	</head>
	<body onLoad="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'category', 'action', 'opt_label'])">
    <script type="text/javascript">

	function redirect()
	{
		window.location = "http://www.google.com"
	}

	var temp = setInterval("redirect()", 3000);

</script>
	</body>
</html>

    To set up this re-direct:

    Let’s pretend we’re setting up yoursite.com/awesome.

    1. Create a directory in the site’s root called awesome.
    2. Create a new file in your new directory. You can use whatever file extension you want. We usually go with default.aspx or index.html.

    3. Note: Double check the default document in IIS on your directory. Make sure it’s set to whatever document you created. This allows yoursite.com/awesome to work without specifying the document.
    4. Edit the file:
    5. Change the title tag if you like
    6. Change the Google Analytics ID to match yours
    7. Set the category, action, and label that you want to call the event
    8. Change the URL to whatever you want it to go to
    9. Navigate to yoursite.com/awesome and verify it’s working.
    10. The data will show up in event tracking in Google, and will not increment your regular page views.

    That’s pretty much it. Since the Google JS calls are asynchronous, we add a little delay to force the tracking to increment before the page redirects.

    This redirect method is useful only if you plan to track these redirects as events; if not, it’s easier to set them up in IIS alone.

    Category Google Analytics, marketing, Tips of the Trade, Tracking | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  4. How to: install WordPress on a GoDaddy-hosted account

    October 30, 2010 by Andrew Block

    I get asked fairly often by friends and family to install WordPress on GoDaddy-hosted sites, so I thought I’d post a how-to here. This guide is aimed at beginner’s who don’t care to tinker with it beyond the default settings. More advanced users may be disappointed.

    Important: Before you begin, make sure that your GoDaddy-hosted account is set up as a Linux account.

    To check this, log in to your GoDaddy account, then click the “Hosting” menu, then click “Hosting Management.”

    Now scroll to the My Accounts area of the page, find your domain, and make sure it says “Linux” somewhere under “Plan.” If it does, you’re all set. If not, you need to call GoDaddy and see if they’ll switch you over to a Linux account.

    With that out of the way, let’s get started!

    Note: Click on any of the images to make them larger.

    Step 1: Download WordPress

    Easy enough. Go to http://www.wordpress.org and grab the latest version of WordPress.

    Step 2: Upload the files to your GoDaddy site

    The easiest way to do this is through GoDaddy’s File Manager. Log in to your GoDaddy account, then click the “Hosting” menu, then click “Hosting Management.”

    Next to your domain (under Products > Hosting), click the big green “Launch” button to launch your hosting control panel.

    Now, click the “Content” tab, then click “File Manager.”

    Once in File Manager, make sure you are in the root (“html” by default) folder of your site. Then, click the “Upload” button.

    Click the “Browse” button.

    Locate the WordPress file on your computer.

    Click the “Upload” button.

    After the WordPress file finishes uploading, locate the file and check the box next to it. Then, click the “Unarchive” button.

    Under “Select Destination,” make sure it’s set to the root folder (“/”).

    You’ll now see a “wordpress” folder in the root folder of your site.

    The next step is to move the files out of the “wordpress” folder and place them in the root folder of your site; so, go into your “wordpress” folder. From the “Page Size” dropdown menu, select “50″ so you can see all of the files at once.

    Then click the check box to select all files, and then click the “Move” button.

    Choose the HTML folder from the left-hand side, and click OK.

    Note: This guide assumes you want your WordPress files in the root folder of your website. If that’s not the case, simply place them in the desired folder instead of the HTML folder (if you wanted your site to be http://www.website.com/foldername, for instance).

    Congratulations! All of your WordPress files are now where they need to be. The next step is to set up the database.

    Step 3: Create the MySQL database

    Assuming you’re still in the File Manager, click the “Databases” menu, then click “MySQL.”

    Click the “Create Database” button at the top.

    Enter the following information:

    Description: this can be any text you want to describe your database.

    MySQL Database/Username: This is the name of your database and the username that you will use later to let WordPress access your database.

    Password: Enter something that would be hard to guess or hack!

    You don’t need to enter the read-only database and password, and you can leave the MySQL version set to 5.0. Click the “OK” button at the bottom.

    The database is now “pending setup.”

    I’ve found it takes about 15 minutes GoDaddy to finalize everything. This would be a great time to take a break…grab some coffee, a snack, play Plants Vs. Zombies…whatever. Once the database is set up, there is one more piece of information we need…so keep checking its status.

    Important: Note all of the information you entered on this step, as WordPress will need it!

    Once the database’s status changes to “Setup,” click the little pencil icon next to its name. Write down or copy what is says next to “Host Name.” I’m not going to show you mine, so just copy whatever yours says. :)

    We’re officially done with the database, and almost ready to start using WordPress.

    Step 4: Go to your site’s URL and complete the WordPress setup

    Open a new tab in your browser and type in your website’s URL (like http://www.andrewblock.net/). If all goes well, WordPress will complain that there is no configuration file, and will offer to create one for you. This is the easiest way, so click “Create a Configuration File.”

    On the next screen, click “Let’s Go!”

    On the next screen, use the information from when you created your database. The username and database name are the same (what is called “MySQL Database/Username” by GoDaddy). Also enter your database password. For the Database Host, enter what you grabbed from the “Host Name” after you created the MySQL database. When you’ve entered all the information correctly, click “Submit.”

    On the next screen, click “Run the Install.”

    You’ve nearly reached the final step! Simply enter a nice, descriptive title for your WordPress site, a username, a strong password, and your email address. Click the “Install WordPress” button when you’re done.

    Just click “Log In” on this screen:

    Log in to WordPress using the username and password you just created.

    You did it! You can now see the sweet WordPress dashboard and start blogging using the best blogging platform in the world.

    Questions / issues / problems? Something I forget to add? Let me know in the comments below.

    Category GoDaddy, Linux, Linux Tips, Tech Tip, Wordpress, Writing & Blogging | Tags: | No Comments

  5. R.I.P., Dell XPS M1330

    July 2, 2010 by Andrew Block

    My Dell XPS M1330 died after only 14 short months of ownership (conveniently two months after the warranty expired). Dell’s tech support proved to be completely useless. Don’t recommend Dell, and definitely won’t buy another one.

    Will this be my turning point in getting a Mac? Time will tell…

    Category Laptops, PCs & Hardware, Ramblings & Misc | Tags: , | No Comments

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