LAUG 2.0 News

Books on eBay remain popular, as readers dream of raking in Internet riches, clearing out their attics, or feeding their own collections. For beginners, Dummiescompetently covers the basics. Dummies nicely summarizes the basics of effective eBay interactions.

The book is divided into five parts. Each part has three or more chapters. Part I: Forget the Mall: Getting a Feeling for eBay

The first chapter gives you a really quick overview and history of eBay. There are several types of auctions on the site (traditional, reserve-price, restricted-access, private and Dutch), and a description of each is listed.

The last half of the first section offers step-by-step instructions for signing up on eBay, creating an eBay home page, and customizing various options on the site.

Part II: Are You Buying What They Are Selling?

This section discusses ways to get the most for your money. There is a true art to successful bidding, and the authors discuss that here. Also important is researching the history of the item(s) you want, to make sure you don’t overbid.

The 6th chapter holds your hand as you make your first bid. Also helpful,is the explanation and emphasis on members’ feedback ratings. This is an excellent gauge that can be used to see if a member is trustworthy. Members with poor feedback are usually a high risk.

When the auction is over and you’re the winner, eBay For Dummies discusses the different payment options, including escrow services.

Part III:Are You Selling What They Are Buying?

Chapter eight jogs your brain for trash and treasure that can be found around your house. The next chapters give you step-by-step instructions on preparing and listing the item for sale on eBay.

The 11thchapter offers various troubleshooting tips. Want to maximize your profits? In chapter 12, the author recommends you add a photo of your item.There are instructions for selecting the right scanner or digital camera, achieving a clear image, and storing images on your computer.

Part IV: Oy Vay, More eBay!:Special Features.

The theme for the 13th chapter is protecting your privacy. eBay does collect information on its users. How secure it is on the site? eBay has a program called Safe Harbor. Safe Harbor protects the good users from the site abusers. There are instructions for reporting abuse to Safe Harbor. Other topics covered in this chapter are suspensions, insurance, mediation, appraising, ID verification, and fraud.

The 15thchapter discusses the eBay community. There is a whole other world of clubs and message boards out there. Also discussed in this section are the eBay charity auctions.

Part V:The Part of Tens

This section is a quick review. Where else can you shop in your jammies, never have to hunt for a parking space, and find someone eager to pay you for that ridiculous-looking lamp? Turn clutter into cash, find great deals,and shop safely.

• “Get in,get out”information
• Icons and other navigational aids
• Tear-out cheat sheet
• Top ten lists
• A dash of humor and fun
• Participate in different types of auctions
• Develop bidding strategies that win
• Take digital photos that sell items

Pros: Easy to navigate and find just what you need to know. Nice worksheets.
Cons: Written for the novice computer user. Too simplistic… but then again it’s a Dummies book… and I ain’t no dummy.

3 out of 5 dog cows

David Pogue many years ago noticed that programs were no longer including manuals and started his series called the “the Missing Manual.” These books are designed to be both reference guides and how-to’s on the subject covered. The author of this entry in the collection, Nancy Connor, focuses more on the manual portion to the point of information overload. The book is not designed to be sit and read cover to cover, but it’s also not well organized to find specific information. However, there is a great table of contents and index which helped me find the answers to some of the questions I tested it with. Unlike other quality manuals, her sections lacked a clear conclusion and summary. This omission made it difficult to sit and read the book, because one easily gets lost in the details and how they relate to the subject at hand.

This book is not the best book for beginners. The average person starting on eBay would have trouble finding the simple basics of buying and selling on eBay and could be intimidated by the overwhelming information. To her credit, Connors covers every aspect of eBay giving each area fair and equal attention. For example, I never understood how people can buy cars or real estate via eBay. She does a great job of explaining it. If I ever decide I want to sell my car or house on eBay, this will be a good reference to use.

Some other areas she covered that I find intriguing, though not applicable to me, includes how to make a living off of eBay and how to use the eBay forums to enhance your buying and selling experience. After reading the book, I feel like there isn’t an aspect of eBay I don’t have at least a passing familiarity with at this point. Connors covers the proper paperwork and even the details of hiring employees in your eBay business.

Like the average manual that once came with software programs, I’d recommend this book to someone how needs a reference guide to cover specific information. eBay, the Missing Manual, is an ideal supplemental book for someone who wants to move from the basics of buying and selling and make it into a hobby or a lifetime profession. If you’ve never bought and sold on eBay and simply want to get your feet wet, I’d suggest starting somewhere else.

Pros:Covers every aspect of eBay and the eBay experience.
Cons: Some aspects need more attention, and some need less.

5 out of 5 dog cows

Ever notice when you are looking for computer oriented books, you tend to gravitate towards the biggest one. Bigger is better for books, right? I mean a $20 book that has 250 pages is a better value than one that has 75. I’m guilty of this sometimes and that’s a shame, because you’d miss out on “The eBay Survival Guide” and waste time reading those extra pages.

In preparing for this month’s reviews, I looked at a lot of different books. I’ve always been fond of “No Starch Press” books because they are straightforward and to the point without all the fluff and needless information. There’s an eBay for Dummies and this book could be called “eBay for Smarties.” I don’t need my hand held on how to point and click (some people do and this is NOT the book for them). Tell me how to do something and I’ll figure it out, and avoid giving me a side bar about the history of double-clicking.

This book is a comprehensive guide to everything the average person would want to know about buying and selling on eBay. For example, it doesn’t include details on how to make a living on eBay nor does it go into great details on advanced topics such as power sellers or posting real estate. However,this book is an expert guide on how to quickly get up to speed on eBay. The author’s real world eBay experience comes greatly into play. He not only tells you the basics of buying and selling but really excels at the nuances of the experience. Of all the books I looked it, this one had the best section on how to write your search terms to hone in the item you are looking for. I’ve now got a sticky in the computer that covers all his tips. He tells you how to find stuff to buy and sell on eBay, how to make sure it sells, what to do when it doesn’t sell, and of course what do to when there are problems.

Dealing with eBay problems is a topic Banks covers well. In particular, Banks’ realizes that the basics buying and selling on eBay is easy, it’s when problems develop that you need a book to help you through it. Approximately 25% of the book covers how to avoid the typical eBay problems, both from buyers and sellers. If I had purchased this book when I first started, I could have avoided many sleepless nights. I was confident in my ability to avoid buying into scams, but as a seller I’ve been scammed many times by buyers trying to hustle me.

While the book extensively covers buying and selling, it comes up short on the nuisances of Paypal. Paypal is the most popular method of paying on ebay and is in fact owned by eBay. Problems with Paypal however could take up a book in and of itself. Maybe Bank’s next book will be the Paypal survival guide.

Overall,the “eBay Survival Guide “is the perfect book for someone who wants the basics of how to buy and sell on eBay, without having to read a treatise on the subject. It would be the first book I’d recommend to the average eBay newbie.

Pros: Straightforward, direct advice on how to buy and sell on eBay. Assumes you don’t need lots of hand holding. The Anti-Dummies book.

Cons: Doesn’t cover Paypal very well.

5 out of 5 dog cows

Adam Curry is accepted by most podcasters as the leader and founder of the podcast movement, and he wrote the introduction to this book. ’Nuff Said.

Ok, I probably should say more than that. The book Podcast Solutions will probably be recorded by future podcasting generations (those in the first half of 2006) as the bible of podcasting.

Author Michael Geoghegan takes you through absolutely every detail of podcasting, with the assumption that the reader has only basic knowledge on the subject. The book’s sections are logically divided into key tasks in creating your own podcasts. The sections are short reads with quality summaries that put each particular task into the overall podcasting picture. Sometimes in technical books, the chapters are so dense and long, you forget exactly what you are reading about! Every aspect of podcasting is covered, from where to find podcasts all the way through publishing and at the end he includes ways of making money via sponsors and affiliate programs.

In most sections,Geoghegan gives you good/better/best suggestions on software and hardware. That approach is very handy, because he gives you a shopping list to start off with, and then gives you the shopping list you need when you out-grow the equipment. When showing examples of a particular concept, the author varies the software and hardware combos he uses and provides ample screen shots to illustrate what he is talking about.

My only major complaint is that Geoghegan does get extremely technical in certain places on how to get the absolute best podcast. It went over my head pretty quickly in some sections, because I didn’t have the advanced software and hardware he was talking about. However, I think you can safely ignore some of his suggestions to start off with and then as you become more serious and spend the money for the professional equipment, you’ll want to know all about “RMS normalization” and “De-esser.”

Best of all, the book includes a CD that contains almost all the software mentioned in the book. Sure you can download the programs from the Internet, but books with a cd (a throwback to an earlier day) when books came with software and software came with manuals is a very nice touch.

Overall, an outstanding book on how to create and distribute a quality, professional podcast.

Pros: Covers every step of podcasting, assuming nothing, and leaves
you absolutely confident you can do this yourself. It comes with a CD too,
a rare find.

Cons: Gets a bit too technical in certain areas, but you can safely skip those parts until you become a serious podcaster.

5 out of 5 dog cows

Finding a podcast book today is like trying to find a book on this years football season, the information is too new and too much in a state of flux. Given those restrictions, Bart Farkas gave it a noble effort in his books Secrets of Podcasting, but this book doesn’t quite provide what the title indicates. For obvious reasons, his writing style seemed like a blog that was turned into a published book. The structure lacked a consistent flow and jumped from place to place. He included interviews with many of the key players in the podcasting world,that were interesting, but not relevant to the content being discussed in the chapter.

In his efforts to be thorough, I found Farkas wasted valuable space talking about information that wasn’t very helpful and was probably out of date by the time the book was printed. Reminding me of the sketch in the movie Airplane! where the guy talks about the earth cooling, dinosaurs, and Mercedes Benz, Farkas actually discusses the invention of the home computer and Internet! An example of this information overload is the fact he spent 30 pages talking about every podcast agregrating software out there for Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, and Mac. That’s a bit over the top. I would have rather he named three or four ones he liked than giving me a dizzying array of options, especially since most people are probably going to use iTunes. The same over-attention to detail was his anaylsis of mobile MP3 players. He listed every popular one on the market and gave a description. Hardly a secret, especially since they were old versions and models! With iPods having 70% of the market share, why go on from there? It’s podcasting, not MP3 casting.

Ironically, the chapter on creating podcasts is significantly shorter than the introduction of podcasting. Farkas doesn’t even get to creating a podcast until you are halfway through the book. Again, we are faced with too many choices in software and hardware. When he finally gets to the instructions of creating the podcast, he uses both a Mac program and a Windows program and gives great step by step guidelines. Here, his thoroughness really pays off, but creating a podcast is only half the equation.

In the last section, Farkas drops the ball and doesn’t explain enough about how to distribute your podcast via RSS feeds. This is the shortest section of the book. There is no step by step guide. Not even the dizzying array of software like in the other sections of the book. Maybe he ran out of time, but why run the ball down the field, and then fail to make the goal?

This book is a good overview of the podcasting universe and perfect for someone who might ask, “What is a podcast”, but if you know what a podcast is and understand the basics of recording audio content, look elsewhere for a book on the details (see my review of Podcast Solutionsfor a book that picks up where Secrets of Podcastingleaves off). Hardly a book about secrets, more appropriately it should have been titled Podcasting for Beginners.

Pros: Great overview of podcast options and ideas to create your own podcasts.
Cons: Skimps on details of how or what to do after you create your own podcasts. Bores you with lots of details on software and hardware options that are out of date by the time the book was published.

3 out of 5 dog cows

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Visual Quickstart Guide by Maria Lange

This was one of the first books to come out for Tiger and primarily designed new Mac/OS X users. It is a good reference guide that you need not read in any particular order. The author presents all the aspects of Tiger that would interest the average starting user. No previous knowledge of Mac is assumed, which can get annoying for users familiar with OS X already. Visual Quickstart books are designed with great screen shots showing you want you’d see on the computer screen (visual) and tells you what you need in order to get up and running with the program (Quickstart).

Intermediate users can skip the introductory sections and focus on areas they aren’t familiar with such as Widgets or Spotlight, but only the most basic aspects of these concepts are introduced. Switchers will find this book exceptionally helpful because of the straightforward way the Mac OS is introduced and the fact no previous knowledge is assumed.

Pros: Perfect for new Mac users and Switchers.
Cons: Doesn’t tell you much about the new Tiger features or go into any great detail.

3 out of 5 dog cows

Robin Williams (no, not the one from Mork and Mindy) is an industry standard when it comes to writing about the Mac. She wrote the best book on managing your fonts, How to Boss Your Fonts Aroundand the preeminent book on design, The Mac Is Not A Typewriter.

Recently, she’s been writing more technical books, but with the style that is Robin’s hallmark:great explanations that are personalized in such a way with real world examples that you end up viewing her more as a friend than a Mac expert. The book is visually stunning.

This book should be read from cover to cover to really help you understand Tiger. Each chapter connects with other chapters, strongly focusing on the interconnection between Tiger functions that can make you more productive.

This book assumes basic knowledge of OS X and focuses more on the tips and tricks that work in Tiger. For example,I never knew there was a “Web Receipts” folder that you can create when you choose to print to PDF.

Pros: Very well written and laid out. Focuses on Tiger’s integration among the included applications and iLife.

Cons: Focuses on introducing functions, without going into great details. Difficult to look up how to do a specific task.

4 out of 5 dog cows