I've been busy listing mugs on eBay today. But, I thought I'd take a peek at Facebook to see if my friends were doing anything interesting....and there was a note from my daughter Samantha, who lives in Colorado.
Sam wrote: So I put in my search box "mom" because I wasn't thinking and it actually came up with you. Odd. But the reason I am writing on here because you are never going to believe what I got...
Wow--I guess I didn't realize you could do that! I tried it myself: I typed "daughter" in the search box, and there are all of my daughters listed! How neat!
Friday, September 30, 2011
All that fuss over $10...
Yesterday morning my email box had a note from a customer who thought the book she bought was "not as described," so she was asking for a refund. I thought I had described the negative parts of the item well enough, but in the interest of customer service, I agreed to refund her money--she even asked me to refund the amount it was going to cost her to send it back. I don't usually do that, but didn't want to spend time discussing it with her, so I also agreed to that. After sending that information back to her, I received another note--this time she said, "I would be happy with half the purchase price refunded. 10.99/2=$5.50.
Does this sound fair to you?"
Yes, it sounds fair to me! I immediately refunded the $5.50 and wrote her a quick Thank You/apology note and forgot all about it until later that afternoon. I was checking my sold lists looking for an item I needed to leave feedback for....and, I discovered she had left a neutral feedback for the transaction! Needless to say, I was not pleased since I had tried to accomodate her earlier in the day. The one neutral did not affect my 100% feedback, but still I didn't want it there for everyone to see! So, I went into eBay where you can request a revision of feedback (feedback forum/request feedback revision), filled out the required information, and where I could leave her a note, I wrote:
I tried hard to fix the problems in our transaction per your wishes. I was willing to pay your postage to return the book to me, but then you said you would accept a refund of ½ the original price- I immediately did that. In many people’s eyes, a neutral is just like a negative. Could you please change the neutral to a positive? Thanks so much! -Rae
Originally I had written a longer note, but eBay only lets you use 500 spaces. I wanted to include the entire story so eBay would understand the details in case I had to discuss it with them....
So I went about my business for the rest of the afternoon, hoping for the best outcome...a couple of hours later I got another email from eBay saying she had agreed to redo the feedback! Whew!
Does this sound fair to you?"
Yes, it sounds fair to me! I immediately refunded the $5.50 and wrote her a quick Thank You/apology note and forgot all about it until later that afternoon. I was checking my sold lists looking for an item I needed to leave feedback for....and, I discovered she had left a neutral feedback for the transaction! Needless to say, I was not pleased since I had tried to accomodate her earlier in the day. The one neutral did not affect my 100% feedback, but still I didn't want it there for everyone to see! So, I went into eBay where you can request a revision of feedback (feedback forum/request feedback revision), filled out the required information, and where I could leave her a note, I wrote:
I tried hard to fix the problems in our transaction per your wishes. I was willing to pay your postage to return the book to me, but then you said you would accept a refund of ½ the original price- I immediately did that. In many people’s eyes, a neutral is just like a negative. Could you please change the neutral to a positive? Thanks so much! -Rae
Originally I had written a longer note, but eBay only lets you use 500 spaces. I wanted to include the entire story so eBay would understand the details in case I had to discuss it with them....
So I went about my business for the rest of the afternoon, hoping for the best outcome...a couple of hours later I got another email from eBay saying she had agreed to redo the feedback! Whew!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
A New Site to Watch
Check out Craftgawkers.com....This site has so many great ideas--all in small pictures that are linked to other individual sites that give more information or instructions on how to make the item yourself.
As an example, these cute decorated pumpkins are found in the blog Glorious Treats, written by Glory, a housewife in northern California. (She's got other great ideas, too!)
Monday, September 19, 2011
I Changed My Mind!
This is a "Heads Up" notice for all my former eBay students....
Previously I always told you how I like to make my titles in Capital letters--I told you it was just my personal preference, and you could do it any way you like.
But now I have found that if you use all caps your items will not show up in the Google products search for fixed price. Google disallows all listings that do not use standard capitalization.
Previously I always told you how I like to make my titles in Capital letters--I told you it was just my personal preference, and you could do it any way you like.
But now I have found that if you use all caps your items will not show up in the Google products search for fixed price. Google disallows all listings that do not use standard capitalization.
So now, I'm going through my listings, changing titles that need to be upgraded. And now that we're allowed the 88 spaces, I can add to some of them, too.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Keyboard Shortcuts
Sometimes the keyboard is faster than the mouse. If you know a few simple ways of using the keyboard instead of the mouse, you will greatly enhance your computing experience, but you will also amaze some of your friends!
Right Click
Before we get into the keyboard shortcuts, here's a tip that will open up a completely new world of ease of use and power to your computing experience and mark you as "in the know:" Use the right button on your mouse. The right click offers you extraordinary possibilities most people don't know exists. The next time you want to do something and it isn't obvious how to do it, try right-clicking and see what happens. You will be amazed. Experiment with this at other times, to see what you might want to do later. Now let's discuss the keyboard itself...
Before we get into the keyboard shortcuts, here's a tip that will open up a completely new world of ease of use and power to your computing experience and mark you as "in the know:" Use the right button on your mouse. The right click offers you extraordinary possibilities most people don't know exists. The next time you want to do something and it isn't obvious how to do it, try right-clicking and see what happens. You will be amazed. Experiment with this at other times, to see what you might want to do later. Now let's discuss the keyboard itself...
Enter
It is extremely easy to spot a neophyte with a computer. They use the mouse when they shouldn't. And the most frequent misuse of the mouse is to click on the Enter button on the screen instead of touching the Enter key on the keyboard. In either case the function is the same: to get the computer to accept what you just typed. In a scenario which happens countless times on a computer, you have just typed something on the keyboard (your name, a word or two you want to do a search on...) and now you have to tell the computer to "Go do it". Almost always there will be a button which can be clicked with the mouse make the computer go do it. This means you need to take your hand off the keyboard, position it on the mouse, determine where the mouse shows up on the screen and then move it over the button and click. Or, you could simply touch the Enter key, usually the second biggest key on the entire keyboard.
It is extremely easy to spot a neophyte with a computer. They use the mouse when they shouldn't. And the most frequent misuse of the mouse is to click on the Enter button on the screen instead of touching the Enter key on the keyboard. In either case the function is the same: to get the computer to accept what you just typed. In a scenario which happens countless times on a computer, you have just typed something on the keyboard (your name, a word or two you want to do a search on...) and now you have to tell the computer to "Go do it". Almost always there will be a button which can be clicked with the mouse make the computer go do it. This means you need to take your hand off the keyboard, position it on the mouse, determine where the mouse shows up on the screen and then move it over the button and click. Or, you could simply touch the Enter key, usually the second biggest key on the entire keyboard.
People have been conditioned into thinking that they have to use the mouse for everything. But now you know, and now you can start building a new, more productive and very professional habit by using the Enter key more often.
F1
Most people know about this key, but they don't use it when they need it most!
Hit Function key F1 to get help in almost any windows program.
It's amazing what you can learn when you use the F1 key.
Most people know about this key, but they don't use it when they need it most!
Hit Function key F1 to get help in almost any windows program.
It's amazing what you can learn when you use the F1 key.
Ctrl-W
to close the current window works in MSFT Explorer, but use "Esc" in Outlook
to close the current window works in MSFT Explorer, but use "Esc" in Outlook
Alt-F4
This immediately quits the current program.
It's a whole lot faster than clicking on that little box in the upper right!
This immediately quits the current program.
It's a whole lot faster than clicking on that little box in the upper right!
Esc
to Escape from the current document or window without updating or changing anything.
to Escape from the current document or window without updating or changing anything.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
More Facebook Changes Coming
Beginning Wednesday, Facebook will make it easier to share photos, posts and links with smaller, isolated groups of people. While the site has allowed users to separate their friends into lists since 2007, this option took quite a bit of work and only a small fraction of Facebook users took advantage of it.
Now, Facebook will automatically group your friends based on whether they live near you, went to your school or work with you. You can read posts or share updates with specific groups instead of dozens, or hundreds, of "friends" at a time. Facebook will use the colleges, workplaces and geographic locations that users share on the site to organize people into groups. Called "smart lists," the feature is optional to use, and the lists are customizable.
In addition, you can create your own friend groups with as few or as many as you would like, based around hobbies, work projects or relatives, for example.
Listing people as "close friends," will let you see the posts and photos from the dozen or so friends you care about the most. Updates from these people will feature more prominently in your news feed and you can opt to receive email notifications every time they post something on Facebook.
Conversely, those categorized as "acquaintances" will feature less prominently on your Facebook page, and you will see just big news, such as marriages and new babies.
Now, Facebook will automatically group your friends based on whether they live near you, went to your school or work with you. You can read posts or share updates with specific groups instead of dozens, or hundreds, of "friends" at a time. Facebook will use the colleges, workplaces and geographic locations that users share on the site to organize people into groups. Called "smart lists," the feature is optional to use, and the lists are customizable.
In addition, you can create your own friend groups with as few or as many as you would like, based around hobbies, work projects or relatives, for example.
Listing people as "close friends," will let you see the posts and photos from the dozen or so friends you care about the most. Updates from these people will feature more prominently in your news feed and you can opt to receive email notifications every time they post something on Facebook.
Conversely, those categorized as "acquaintances" will feature less prominently on your Facebook page, and you will see just big news, such as marriages and new babies.
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