Welcome to the March 23, 2008 edition of online auctions.

This is the first edition of the Online Auction blog carnival.   For those of you not familiar with a blog carnival, think of it as a magazine related to a specific topic.  Authors will submit their posts/articles to the carnival and then an editor (me) will put them all together for my readers to enjoy.

This carnival is specifically related to online auctions.  If you have any thoughts or comments related to the online auction environment then we would absolutely love to have them posted here for all readers to enjoy in a quick, concise format.   You can click on the submit post link above it will take you to the correct submission page.

This is the first edition of this carnival and there were not too many submissions…  All are related to eBay so I have broken them into separate categories

eBay Auction Tools

Bill presents a review of a tool that he uses to place SNIPE bids on items on eBay.  Sniping on eBay is the act of bidding in the last few seconds of an auction not giving any of the other bidders an opportunity to react to your bid.  The article titled Free eBay Sniping Software – Gixen Review can be found on his blog Projects Possible.

eBay Auction How To

Raymond presents a great article called eBay Guide To Buying and Selling Wholesale Products posted at Money Blue Book.  In this article he points out some great tips for buying and selling on eBay and points out quite a few SCAMS that are in play and what you can do to avoid getting caught up in them.   Great reading for all eBay buyers and sellers.

eBay Auction Controversy

Raymond also presents Feedback About eBay’s New Pricing Structure and Policy Changes posted at Money Blue Book.  With eBay’s recent announcements about changes to their platform, there are a lot of opinions out there as to what if anything this is going to do to the eBay venue.  This article gives one viewpoint.

Bill presents a different viewpoint in these two articles found on Projects Possible.  The first article My Thoughts on the eBay Seller Strike list the pain points for sellers and the author’s view of those pain points.   The second article Another eBay Seller Boycott – May 1 discusses the continued dissatisfaction of the sellers and their intended boycott to begin on May 1.  This one also has a link to a YouTube video that is circulating.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of online auctions using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.  Remember this carnival is about anything and everything related to online auctions.  I’d love to get some posts about different online auction sites, tools that you use to bid, buy, list, etc… Next posting will be in the middle of April.

Technorati tags: online auctions, blog carnival.

Blog Carnival
online auctions - archives | submit post

Email is a strange thing.  The more you send the more you get which causes you to send more and you end up in this vicious cycle where you can’t seem to get caught up.   If email is part of your work this can result in literally hundreds of email exchanges in a day.   The purpose of this Blog Carnival is to highlight what others are doing to become more productive with their email and to keep email as a friendly medium not something that you HATE to visit every day.

Email Etiquette

On my blog here – ProjectsPossible you will find the post: Email Overload and Reminders – The Nagless, Productive Way! This post highlights a real effective strategy of getting a response to things that you need without really looking like you are nagging the person that you are needing to get it from.   I use this one all the time.  It works great!

Email Utilities and Addons

This category lists posts that point us to other programs that we can install that will help us in our goal of increased email productivity.   They will fall into the categories of spam filters, information management, searching, indexing, or in some cases the email program themselves.

Spam is a nasty problem, but then so are all of those mailed pieces of junk mail that I never open and just toss into the recycle bin.  Nesher presents 30 Top Freeware Spam Filters as posted at Freeware Reviews.  This post also has some interesting statistics about spam.   Scroll to the bottom for the link to the 30 Filters.   I have used Spam Bayes and I find it one of the best out there. 

Nesher also presents another list: 40 Free Disposable Email Address Services to Fight Spam posted at Collection of the Web Freebies, saying, “The best way to avoid spam in your mailbox is not giving your address to the potentially spammers. Free disposable addersses will assist you to keep your address safe.”  I’ve never really considered this as an option because usually when I leave my email I am wanting a response back or something similar and I don’t want to have to go to a ton of different email addresses to find what I’m looking for.   Again the rateitall link is at the bottom of the page.

For those of you that use your email to make money, Robbie presents Money Talks: Using Autoresponders posted at MMS Make Money Online.  The purpose of these autoresponding programs is to make sure that when someone does send you an email that they receive some kind of information or exchange in return.   For example if someone is seeking general information they could send an email to a specific address and an autoresponder would send them a brochure.   Personally I think there is a fine line between a true autoresponse and spam.   Take a look there are a number of suggestions.  Some better than others for sure.

Email and Creativity

In this category our lone entry goes to Madeleine Begun Kane she presents Spam Haiku posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.  You can’t take life too seriously and Madeline has done a great job in the area of Spam Humor.

Email Tips and Tricks

The Art of Personal Productivity presents How to Answer E-Mail Overload posted at The Bubble Planner.  The methodology mentioned here is very similar to what you will find with the Getting Things Done movement.   File It, Delegate It, Do It, or Defer It.

Our last posting for this month comes from Guy Patterson. If you use a Blackberry and Microsoft Exchange this How-To article provides you with the “need to know” information to get encryption working.  Blackberry & Microsoft Exchange Email Encryption How To – Nullamatix – Technology Made Simple posted at Nullamatix – Technology & Security Made Simple.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of email productivity using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: email productivity, blog carnival.

To set the stage I think it is important to understand what a “blog carnival” is.    If you look at the Wikipedia link you will see that a “blog carnival” is a blog event.  It is described a really nothing more than a collection of permalinks on a particular topic.  It is likened to a “magazine” in that the host, acting as the editor, compiles the stories into a post and lists all of the links to the blog articles that were submitted.  The readers of the post have a plethora of information at their fingertips on a specific topic, and the blog authors have a link back to their blog.

The Email Productivity Carnival is anticipated to be a monthly compilation of blog posts related to email productivity and email tools that increase productivity.  Submissions will be accepted through the last day of the month and then I will edit them and create a posting in the “Carnival” category on the Projects Possible blog approximately 1 week later.

Article or Post Suggestions:

• Reviews of software applications
• Tips and Tricks
• Email Etiquette
• Feature and Functionality of Mail Clients

The Email Productivity Blog Carnival is posted on Blog Carnival if you would like to submit links.   You can also submit links by clicking on the Contact link at the top of all of the blog pages.   Comments on this post might also work but there is no guarantee that I will get them included in every posting…

Check back around March 8th for our first posting…