No Postal Service Tomorrow

I have a couple of packages to set out for the postman in the morning.  Then I remembered tomorrow is Columbus Day (Monday observance) and couldn’t remember if the Post Office worked it or not. 

I finally found a list of holidays that the Post Office gets off!  Previously I’d looked and didn’t find it.  I have it book marked now so I can find it next year!  You can find the list here. 

Friday, January 1 - New Year's Day

Monday, January 18 - Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday

Monday, February 15 - Washington's Birthday (President's Day)

Monday, May 31 - Memorial Day

Monday, July 5 - Independence Day

Monday, September 6 - Labor Day

Monday, October 11 - Columbus Day

Thursday, November 11 - Veterans Day

Thursday, November 25 - Thanksgiving Day

Saturday, December 25 - Christmas Day

Saturday, January 1, 2011 - New Year's Day

Best Moments in Teaching

I heard my favorite words from students again yesterday. 

I was teaching basic Facebook and was giving an example of how to wish a friend Happy Birthday.  I always like to add a few well-placed music notes as if I’m singing (believe me, you don’t want to actually hear me sing!). 

As the students watched me key in the notes, they all asked, “How’d you do that?”  So we had a quick lesson on ASCII code and what it could do.  After showing them how to make notes, a heart, a cent sign, and more, a couple of them said, “Wow! That by itself is worth the price of admission!”  The others all agreed and I momentarily basked in the warm glow of admiration…..then it was back to reality…

Funny, that was the exact same thing some students in a basic word processing class said last year when I taught them how to make a new folder on their desktop…I love teaching; sure wish I’d started it long ago!

Frustrations

Today has not been the best...the modem to my desktop computer is not working right.  I have had to work on my little mini laptop, using the hotspot function on my Palm Pre...I suppose it could be worse--I might have no internet connection at all and have to go work at the library...


And, to top it off--eBay is having a 3-day listing sale!  I could have gotten a lot of work done if I had the larger computer available.  I did get three items listed: a Christmas sweatshirt with a McDonald's theme (the arches are peppermint sticks and the Hamburgler is peeking out from behind one arch), a glass mug dated 1979 with Ziggy on it, and an antique cloisonne vase from either China or Japan.  In the description  I asked for help identifying it--sometimes that helps.


Anyone else out there taking advantage of the listing sale on eBay?  Remember: all auction style listings cost just ten cents no matter what yoyr asking price is!  That offer is good for three days--today, Wednesday, and Thursday. 

What's New? Mugs!

What’s new?

I’m listing mugs today. This two handled mug has pink elephants walking around it…after listing it I decided to tweet about it and get some new lookers….so I did and when I checked back to see how many people had looked at it I noticed I still had the description from another mug on the pink elephant listing—OOPS! I hurried back to fix it, and then had to go back to twitter and explain myself. That could be a good thing, though—I might get even more lookers by explaining my goof up.

Are you old enough to remember Davy Crockett on TV? Sing along with me: Dav-ey, Dav-ey Crockett—King of the wild Frontier….. Well, enough of the singing; anyway, here’s a great find! A FireKing mug with Davy Crockett on it. It’s a double-good seller: anything with FireKing is always collectible, and old TV show memorabilia is good, too!

I also have a Starbucks mug—it’s a 35th anniversary one, with a mermaid and tropical flowers. If you don’t know by now, Starbucks mugs are very collectible, especially ones that are from a particular city. I think they got the idea from Hard Rock Café, but hey, it works!

Do you sell mugs? You can find some interesting ones at yard sales, thrift shops, or even in your own cupboard! They are easy to pack: one will fit into a #4 USPS Priority box. Just protect it well with bubble wrap and stryofoam peanuts. I charge $8.50 for postage, which I figure will get it anywhere in the US.

Double-Check your Spelling!

When a seller describes an item's condition as "exallent,” it totally blows his credibility! Poor grammar and spelling makes you look like a lazy seller.

EBay has a spell checker: always use it. It's always difficult to see your own spelling errors, awkward sentences or faulty grammar. Ask someone else -- spouse, friend or work colleague -- to check your listing and see if it reads well. They'll be flattered you asked them.

Rules for Strong Passwords

I hate having to make a complex password I can't remember. So here's a little information on what it takes to hack an eBay password and how you can create highly un-hackable password you can remember.

Rule #1 - Create a password longer than 4 characters
The more characters in a password, the harder it is to crack. You probably knew this already, but did you know that a password of 4 characters or less can be hacked instantly using any number of commercial programs?

Rule #2 - Use upper and lower case letters in your password plus digits
Lowercase letters are the easiest to break. Adding upper case letters increases the level of difficulty, but is still not the best solution. Adding a digit is also a good idea. See Rule #3 below.

Rule #3 - Incorporate the full set of ASCII characters in your password
What's an ASCII character? Anything on your keyboard is an ASCII character, but the characters above the numbers (!,@,#,$,%,^,&,*,(,)) are particularly useful in creating a powerful password. Here's an example. If my password is "ebay" a password-breaking program would crack this instantly. If my password is "ebay3" it would take 2 minutes to get into my account. If I added an uppercase letter and made my password "eBay3" it would now take 12 minutes to gain access. But if I added an ASCII character, "eBy!3" it will now take 4 hours to get into my account.

Rule #4 - Choose an uncommon or non-existent word
Common English words are subject to Dictionary attacks. This is where a password cracking program runs through every word in the dictionary to find your password. Even if you put two common words together to create one that is not an actual word, for example "sidebook," a dictionary attack can still find it.

Now, here's a simple way to create a secure password you can remember that complies with all the rules above. Think of a sentence that describes something you can remember. For example, "I live at 45 Maple Street in Ohio" or "My 3rd grade teacher was Mrs. Smith at Franklin. Then, create your password by taking the first letter or number from each word in the sentence. So, our first example would become "Il@45MSiO" and the second would be M3gtwMS@F.

Want to know how long it would take a program to crack those passwords? 44,530 years. Yes, it would take a program that long. If you remove the @ sign and replace it with the letter "a" it drops to 178 years, but still a very powerful password.

Now, make a resolution to keep your eBay account secure and change that flimsy password to something powerful!

Selling Postcards

I have started listing a few old postcards lately.  A few years back I had quite a few listed, but got away from it.  There are lots of postcard collectors out there, so it’s a nitche worth exploring.  And, if you recall, my first interest in eBay started with old postcards.

Collectors often look for cards with interesting automobiles, specific buildings, people, and of course the older the better.  This card is of the Magnolia, Arkansas Court House in 1950.   It probably looks much different today!  Click HERE to see the cards I have listed.

When listing your cards, the description should always include a date (or general date) if at all possible.  When you have a postcard with a postage stamp but can't quite make out the year in the cancelled postmark it may help with this guide.

1872--1 cent stamp

1917--2 cent stamp

1919--1 cent stamp

1925--2 cent stamp

1928--1 cent stamp

1952--2 cent stamp

1963--4 cent stamp

1968--5 cent stamp