How to sell on eBay

Ebay is probably seen as old hat these days, but if, like me, you have a gadget habit to pay for and limited funds, then one way to get some cash is to sell some of the gadgets that you have around the place. I’ve been doing a lot of this lately. Here are my tips for successful sales:

• Give the auction plenty of time to run, and let it end at a time when folks are sure to be around and take part in a “bidding frenzy”. I quite like Sunday evening for this.
• Use Buy It Now. I had a lot problems with people making “kamikaze bids” at the last moment to try and snipe the auction. The problem is that if two people are using this “cunning” trick the result is an enormous bid that they is promptly rescinded, leaving you stuck with no sale. The good news is that you do get to hear some great excuses from people about why they did the bid, and how the cat must have pressed the keys, etc, etc, but the bad news is that you have to run the auction over again. For some reason, Buy It Now sales, where you set a price you will instantly sell it for, stop these folk. If you set a price around 10 pounds or so less than the last one sold for then you will at least get the market rate or near enough. You can use Completed Listings on a search to find out how much this was. This can be depressing, but remember the thing you are selling is only worth what people are willing to pay. If charge what you think it is worth you will just lose your listing fees. And sometimes people get so carried away bidding that you actually get paid more than the Buy It Now price, which is rather nice.
• Have it packed and ready to post before you put it up for sale. As far as I’m concerned, the gadget is gone as soon as the listing goes live. Purchasers expect to get their item as soon as they have paid for it, and so you must have it down at the Post Office the following day and away on Next Day delivery.
• Do some research on postage prices. I’ve got stung once or twice where the thing I was selling turned out to be a lot more expensive to post than I expected. As a guide, a small mobile phone will cost around 7 pounds for next day, insured, delivery. A laptop will cost around 25 pounds to send. Of course you should always use tracked, signed for, delivery.
• Use PayPal. And nothing else. Nuff said.
• Be nice. When you’ve posted the item, send the tracking number in an email so that they can watch the progress of their parcel. And you can use the tracking number to make sure that it has been collected at the far end.
• If you are buying a gadget that you might fall out of love with one day (it does happen) then keep the box and all the bits so that you can send out a complete package if you do sell it. This helps with both the price and the speed of the sale. And don’t lose the driver disks.

Getting Started with Gadgeteer

WE had the folks from Microsoft Gadgeteer here to see us yesterday. They brought with them all kinds of cool interfaces that I’m looking forward to playing with, after I’ve finished marking. If you’ve not come across Gadgeteer before it is a .NET Micro Framework based platform for creating, well, er, gadgets.

If you’ve ever wanted to create a data logging, remote controlled, catflap. Or a GPS-enabled TV remote, or a motion detecting chicken counting camera, etc etc, then Gadgeteer gives you the modules to plug together to make the hardware and Visual Studio and C# to write the software, including in device debugging of your code.

There are a huge number of modules available now including camera, LCD panel, gyro, compass, lights, switches, multi-io boards, barometer, soil moisture sensors, heart rate sensors,  Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, GPRS, infra-red, ethernet, USB Host and USB client. Plus you can bring out the individual signals from the processor and use them directly.

You can get started with the Fez Hydra Basic Kit, which you can see above. This costs around the same as a video game and a half. The sensors range from a fiver to quite expensive (for things like the VGA adapter, if you need it). If you want to get started in embedded development, or have an idea for a device and want to make it come to life, the Gadgeteer is a great place to start, particularly if you already have C# skills.

We have been using the Gadgeteer’s older brother, the .NET Micro Framework, for the last couple of years and it has been a very successful means of introducing students to the joys of making hardware do stuff. If you want to have a go with this kind of thing you should take a look.

If you are a student at Hull and you have have a really good idea for a device, and you want some hardware to play with over summer, then come and see me and I’ll see if I can find a kit to loan you.

Name the console

Well? Can you?

Nokia Lumia 900

The guy serving me in the chip shop on Friday caught a glimpse of my Lumia 800. “Good phone that.” he observed. “A mate’s got one. My iPhone is up for renewal soon and so I thought I’d get one as well”. Smooth move.

I really like my Lumia 800. The latest update has removed the only real issue I had with it, the battery life is now excellent. Of course, I’m selling mine now. On Saturday I went up town to not look at, and definitely not buy, the new Nokia 900. Which you can get in White at Phones4U. So I didn’t go in. And I didn’t look at it. And I definitely didn’t want one. But then…..

Having done all the maths and looked up the price on ebay of Lumia 800’s I concluded that if I sold my old iPhone (which I’ve been keeping for mainly sentimental reasons) and my Samsung Omnia 7 plus a few other bits and bobs I could run out even on the deal if I bought an unlocked device. Particularly as the chap in the shop uttered the magic phrase “It does tethering”. This means I can use the phone as a WIFI access point for any other devices that want to talk to the internets on the move. Tethering is promised for the Lumia 800, but my reasoning here is that it is not guaranteed that all carriers will enable it. However, if I have an unlocked device I can just turn it on and it will work. Which I have, and it does.

There is nothing wrong with my Lumia 800 at all. All the problems are with my eyes and fingers. I find the screen just a tiny bit too small to read easily and the keyboard is just a bit too tiny for my lanky fingers to find their way around. It is on eBay at the moment and I’ve had some expressions of interest already.

Changing phones was not too bad. Microsoft Exchange made sure that my address book moved over with no problem. All the pictures from the phone are already on Skydrive. The only real problem is that I’ve lost all my SMS conversations, but I can live with that. The Lumia 900 is properly lovely. I might even show it to the bloke in the chip shop.

Samsung Series 7 Slate Rocks

I blame Black Marble. A week or so ago Robert (Boss) Hogg and Steve Spencer from the company came over to see us and give a presentation on professional software development. Very good it was too. As we were chatting at the end of the session the conversation turned to tablets. I mentioned the Samsung Series 7 Slate that I fancied and Boss said “Oh, we have a few of those. Found a very good price on the internets and Samsung are doing a “VAT back” offer that makes them even cheaper”.

And that was me sold. I had to sell some cameras and lenses to get there, but for a price slightly higher than a fully loaded iPad I’ve now got a really proper portable tablet. It has an i5 processor and 4G of ram, which makes it the second fastest machine I own. The only slight snag is that it has a small-ish 64G internal SSD, but since I’ve been using Live Mesh and Dropbox to store my data I’m used to making do with carrying fairly small amounts of data around with me. At the moment I’ve got pretty much all the software I need loaded up along with data and I’ve still got over 20G left. If I want to take some movies with me I can put them onto a micro SD card and pop them in the slot on the top. I can also be very confident it will play anything without conversion because at the end of the day its a PC.

One standout feature is the Wacom pen support. There is multi-touch of course, but I can also write on the screen surface with a digitiser pen. I can’t really put into words how good this is. The OneNote program, which I’ve always liked but never had the right platform for, suddenly comes alive. I can convert my dodgy handwriting into text and search it, and put my documents into Skydrive for instant sharing. Taking notes in meetings will never be the same.

The tablet also comes with a docking station which gives me HDMI video out and a second USB port (could really do with more). I’ve got at least four hours of use out of my first charge of the battery.

Last night I put Windows 8 on it, following the instructions on the Samsung Windows 8 Preview site. The only really scary bit was deleting every partition on the disk so that I could get the installer to complete, but after that everything went well. And it just works.

I love my iPad, but I hate using it to create anything larger than an email. The Samsung gives me a touchy interface that makes it easy to consume data, plus raw power and a productive environment and all my familiar tools. And a fantastic pen based interface. This and Photoshop would be awesome.

This machine has even replaced the twisty tablet in my affections. I reckon this is a little slice of the future and when Windows 8 launches and these become the norm there is going to be a second wave of tablets coming along, but these will be properly useful.

One note of mild warning: There has been a bit of kerfuffle about problems with the screen glass coming away from the bezel. Some people have had problems with this, particularly with early versions of the hardware. Mine doesn’t look like it is prone to this and the rate of reports of the problem are dying down a bit at the moment. It is hard to make things this small and slim without there being some manufacturing issues. I remember that my first iPhone 3g wasn’t exactly well stuck together, with an overlap on one edge that made the sides not quite flat, but it worked fine for the time that I had it. However, if you are buying one second hand I’d advise that you take a careful look at what you are getting.

Don’t Buy Dodgy SD Cards

Some time back I bought a couple of economically priced cheap SD cards. They were rated at category 10 (the fastest you can get) and were huge (32G). They were from a shop based in the Channel Islands who have sold me good stuff in the past. I can’t precisely recall their name, but I seem to remember that they are open all week.

Anyhoo, one failed shortly after purchase and the other has developed the interesting ability to turn filenames into guacamole and move datestamps into 2315. Having thought about this properly I’ve decided that perhaps I should have spent the same amount of cash on cards that were around a half (or perhaps even a quarter) the size but were from companies that I’ve actually heard of. It is very unlikely that I’ll wander out and take 650 pictures in a single trip (even assuming I’ve got enough battery power to do this).

I’ve come to the conclusion SD cards are one area where false economy will not just fail to save me money, but also raises the possibility that I might not get my pictures back home.

My Two Dogs

Digby and Wrex

Simon Grey has been posting about his dogs. So I thought I’d post about my two. On the left we have Digby, who is sufficiently autonomous that he can fall downstairs unaided. On the right we have Wrex, who doesn’t do much by himself but has a really cool remote control.

Digby doesn’t get out much these days. But today I powered him up and let him wander around for a while. The best comment about him that I ever heard was from someone who actually owned a dog. “That’s just what my dog used to do” she said as she watched him wander around. It is a crying shame that Sony stopped making Aibo robots, they were just getting interesting when the company pulled the plug.

With all the sensor and processor developments taking place at the moment Aibo 2.0 would be awesome.

HDMI to VGA in one Easy Step

If you have a nice new laptop with only an HDMI output, and a rather old monitor with only a VGA input, then I’ve got some good news. I’ve just discovered that you can now get an adapter (like the one above) which for a lot less than the iPad one (like around 15 quid) will convert your twenty first century digital output into twentieth century analogue signals. This is particularly useful if you work somewhere where every lecture theatre has VGA connections for laptops. Like The University of Hull. The adapter I got was from a UK seller with good feedback, you can get them directly from China for even less.

Important Note: There are a lot of people selling HDIM to VGA cables that purport to connect HDMI and VGA systems together. These will not work. The kind of thing you want must have a built in chip that performs the digital to analogue conversion. Make sure that the thing you buy looks like the picture above (with quite a big lump on the VGA socket) and look for phrases like “with chip” and discussions of which video modes are supported in the description.

Gadgets Going

It looks like a couple of my gadgets are going the way of all things. My Chumby, which I got for myself a couple of Christmases ago may shortly turn into a paperweight rather than the Flash Powered internet connected appliance that I’ve had on my desk at home for the last couple of years. This illustrates a flaw in the business model of companies that sell these devices. Once you’ve had the initial hit of profit from the customer buying your product you are then committed to a lifetime of support for it. Advertising doesn’t always work in these situations and so once your funding runs out it is time to shut down those servers. And all your customers become paperweight owners. It’s not all doom and gloom I suppose. The servers are staying up at the moment and there is always a chance that some enterprising folks will stop in and provide their own solutions, but I think that would require some “unlocking” of the devices themselves that might not come to pass.

Then I find out that Alienware are discontinuing the M11x range of high performance gaming netbooks. I got one of these last year, mainly because a student had one and I loved the way the keyboard lit up. I’ve carried it around the world on trips and it has never failed to turn heads. It is a genuinely nice machine, that benefitted greatly from the solid state drive I dropped into it to speed things up a bit. Battery life is good and you can play games on it too. Having said that, I think it might be a laptop too many for me just at the moment. I can get by on my little “twisty top” machine most of the time. So if anyone wants to make me an offer…..

Undercover Laptop Sleeve

If you want something to carry around your big laptop (or even your tiny Butterfly Touch) you could do a lot worse than the Undercover Laptop Sleeve. I got mine last year while I was in the ‘states, and I was quite surprised to find that they are actually made by a UK company. They are basically a thick, padded envelope with a nice soft lining that you can put your laptop in. The envelope is printed with lots of (rather amusing) fake stamps and address stuff that make it look like you are carrying an old envelope, rather than your super expensive laptop.

If you have a tiny tablet like mine you can fold the whole thing double for even better protection and the top uses velcro to keep everything nicely sealed. It is perhaps a bit expensive just for a laptop sleeve (although I’ve seen some with really eye-watering prices) but if friends or family are looking for things to get you for your birthday this would make a really nice present. They also do a smaller envelope that would fit an iPad.

My iPad Beater

A while back I got myself a Packard Bell Butterfly Touch laptop. It reminded me a bit of the Toshiba M200 I used to know and love, with a twisty screen that made it into a tablet or a notebook. I quite liked the machine and found it much more useful to carry round than any device whose name begins with i. A few weeks ago I popped a solid state drive in it (you can get the OCZ Agility 3 120G drives for less than 100 pounds now – excellent value) and loaded it up with Windows 8. Result = happiness. I’m in the process of getting used to Windows 8 (I keep starting up Internet Explorer rather than the Start button) but what I’ve got now is a really useful device with a battery that seems to go on for ever.

I took this machine to Singapore and, although it is a teensy bit underpowered to run Kinect programs, it did everything else I asked of it with aplomb. I did quite literally a whole day’s work at Schipol airport using the device. I really can get 10 hours of useful battery life out of it.  And it can boot faster than my iPad.

Windows 8 on the touch screen works very well, it seems to support the swiping gestures very well, and the fact that I can open it up and start typing into Word, or PowerPoint, or Visual Studio, is just wonderful. I even wrote my first Windows 8 application on the device while I was at the airport, along with my sessions for CampFire.

There are not many “twisty top” laptops out there at the moment, perhaps this will change when Windows 8 gets going. And while I was at CampFire I got a look at Shane’s really nice Samsung Series 7 Slate. But for now this is my weapon of choice for carrying around and doing stuff.

Memory Upgrade

Now got 12 GBytes of memory in the PC. And I’ve found a way of using it up. Go me.

Nerf Firepower

One of my ambitions is never to hold or fire a real gun. But that doesn’t stop me from playing with toy ones every now and then. At Three Thing Game we had a kind of mini arms-race when Christophe turned up with his little Nerf gun and James went home and came back with one of the above. Which is astonishing. It is two guns that make into one big one. It has a sight and everything. And of course I had to have one.

Turns out that ToysRus have them on offer. And if you reserve on-line you get a five pound voucher that you can spend at the store next month. I’m going to use mine to buy some more darts…..

Media Magnet

Jake Zukerman of BBC Look North sets up Lindsay for another take….

In between all the lectures and labs and other stuff for today we had BBC Radio Humberside drop by for a chat with some of our students and then BBC Look North came by to find out more about Three Thing Game and Platform Expo. The radio session was a hoot. Steve Redgrave (someone I’ve known since before he was famous) came along and did a storming interview with a bunch of our First Year students who told him all about the joys of studying Computer Science at Hull.

The filming was fun too, although I never know where to put my eyes when someone is taking video of me. If I look at the camera I worry about seeming too intense, and if I look around I worry about seeming too shifty. And then there is the vexed question of which is my best side….

Anyhoo, it all passed off well enough. Yesterday we had a reporter and a photographer from the Hull Daily Mail come to see us and today I was delighted to find that the article had made it to print, with a great picture of some of our students and some quotes from a bloke referred to as “Rob Mile”. I’ll take that as close enough..

Later on Darren did a very good session about PS Suite, which is the new Sony game development they will be releasing later this year. We’ve got special permission for our students to use it in the Three Thing Game competition, and Stuart Lovegrove of Sony Studios in Liverpool will be taking a look at the things that they have made.

All gripping stuff. And then tonight I’ve managed to build a Gadgeteer device that can talk to my Eggbot. Exciting times.

PS Vita Fun and Games

The picture doesn’t do justice to the 5 inch screen on the Vita, but it does show you just how large the device is.

I wasn’t going to buy a Vita until I saw one running a game. I’d been lulled by iPads and Smartphones into thinking that they were the ultimate in portable gaming.

They aren’t.

The Vita is a proper, high performance, gaming platform that you just happen to be able to fit into your jacket pocket. The games look like PS3 or Xbox 360 games. Playing Uncharted (as I have been doing) on the Vita is just like playing it on the PS3. What’s more, with twin joysticks in exactly the right places, the control is like using the PS3 gamepad as well. It should have at least three hours of battery life too, which is lot more than you will get from a Smartphone if you start playing 3D games with it.

I am very impressed with the gaming experience. I’m also impressed by the other programs on the device. The browser is perfectly serviceable and the on-screen keyboard is one of the best I’ve used. You can also use it for Skype, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr should you be the sociable type. If they put Amazon Kindle on it I’d be happy to leave the iPad at home and take the Vita with me on trips.

There are some niggles. The use of highly expensive, Sony proprietary, memory cards is a pain and the games are closer to console prices than I’d like. And the device itself is a bit pricey. although that might change over time.

If you are a “proper” gamer who wants to take a “proper” gaming experience with them on the bus then the Vita is a very attractive proposition.

PlayStation Vita

Apparently it is called a PlayStation Vita because of the associations with speed and life. I must admit the name makes me thing of crisp-bread. And I wasn’t going to get one. Oh  no. With a phone and a Nintendo DS 3D I couldn’t see a reason to own the device. Until I saw it running.

The graphics are very impressive. Like very, very impressive. It really is a PS3 you can carry around with you. I had a go at Ridge Racer (I think I’ve bought that game more times that I’ve bought different copies of Star Wars) and the presentation and graphics were excellent. And I got a cool pair of (surprisingly good) blue headphones as well.

For casual games phones and iPads are great. For something a bit different and the 3D effect the Nintendo DS 3D has a lot to offer. But for hard core gamers I reckon the PS Vita has an awful lot going for it.

Cameras and Lumps

Here’s a tip. If you are buying a digital camera which is not completely new, point it at a white piece of paper and take a photo. Then look at the result. The photograph will show you if there is any dirt on the sensor or the lens.

I didn’t do this today, which is why I had to take the camera back to the shop……..

Crayola ColorStudio Pen

Drawing with your fingers on an iPad is fine, but not natural. The Crayola colouring pen gives you something to hold on to as you draw, which is nice. I first thought it was just a pen that works on a touch screen, but there is more to it than that. The pen does something with the connection to the screen (I think it turns it on and off quickly) that enables the software in the iPad to detect when the pen is touching it, and ignore fingers. This means that if you accidently touch the screen with your hand while drawing the program ignores this. If you (or a very small friend) want to get to grips with colouring and free hand drawing the program is worth a look. The pen works fairly reliably, although I had to press quite hard to make it work sometimes.

The pen comes with a colouring and drawing application with pictures you can colour in which are quite fun. It has a really nice option you can set. I’ve always wanted something that helps me stay inside the lines..

Lego Star Wars Battle of Hoth

Lego Star Wars Battle of Hoth is a neat little game which they say is for up to four players but works best with just two, light against dark. You take it in turns to move and attack your little Lego snow speeders and AT-ATs in an attempt to wipe out your opponents or storm their defences. It was getting quite strategic until number one son had a run of phenomenal  luck (I suspect the force) and I lost.

Probably not worth the asking price really unless you are a Star Wars fanatic. You could spend around the same amount of money on the Creationary game which has a lot more to it. Having said that, if you have someone little in your family who is a Star Wars nut and you want to get them used to strategy games, perhaps on the way to chess, then it is a good starting point. And being Lego they encourage you to change the rules and board shape to make it more interesting.

Bought a Red Robot USB Hub

These are really neat usb-hubs from Red5. I got the red one. Now I feel a need to own one of each….