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Apple personal computer sells for $210,000 (and it’s not even a new one)

Mike Halsey MVP — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:38:42 +0000

Okay, so I might poke fun at the price Apple charges for its computers, but this one is truly antique. One of the very first Apple personal computers, first sold as a run of only 200 in 1976, has just sold at auction for £133,250 ($210,000) complete with signed letters of authenticity from company founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozinak (the latter of who was present at the auction).

Originally sold for $666.66 it was bought at auction house Christie’s by Itlian businessman and private collector Marco Bogline according to the BBC.

The Apple I as it was known would be restored to working condition by its new owner however it is lacking a keyboard, power supply and display. It was the only personal computer at the time to come with a fully assembled motherboard.

To put into perspective just what this computer is capable of it contains a 1MHz processor and 4K of RAM (Expandable to up to 48K). It’s graphics capability extended to 40 x 24 characters on screen (with hardware-accelerated scrolling) and Apple’s iPad is at least 1,000 times as powerful.

That said this is a unique piece of computing history and is clearly well worth the money paid for it. As a society we need to preserve our computing heritage as it’s all too easy to forget just how recently things all began. This computer, while an antique is lets not forget, only 33 years old!

eBay overhauls feedback system

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:23:47 +0000

The online auction website eBay plans to overhaul their feedback system later this year by removing the ability for sellers to leave feedback after an auction completes. This means that only buyers will be able to leave feedback about the transaction after it completes. Some might say that this gives the buyer an unfair advantage over an seller while others would say that the move makes perfect sense.

I’m not using eBay that often anymore since all that professional sellers turned it from a private to private auction site to one where professional sellers dominate. It never made that much sense to leave feedback for buyers anyway in my opinion and it was used by sellers to put pressure on the buyers. I more than once did not leave negative feedback because I knew that the seller would do the same not caring about the justification for the feedback.

Feedbacks are a way of finding out if a seller is honest and delivers the goods after payment. If an auction goes wrong or an dispute comes up sellers (and buyers) still have the option to contact eBay directly to sort things out.

Good move, bad move ? What’s your take on the change ?

Ebay Sniper Software

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:33:26 +0000

Ebay Sniper tools give users the edge over those who do not use them. It takes just a fraction of a second to bid on an item using eBay Sniper softwares while it usually takes between 5-10 seconds if you bid on an item manually. These tools are usually configured to make a bid just a second or two before the auction ends making it impossible for manual bidders to place another bid before the auction ends.

Ebay Sniper tools have another use that makes them superior. It is possible to group items and configure the sniper tool the way that it bids to win one (or more) of the items in that group. So, if the price that you want to pay for an item was not enough to win the auction in the first attempt it might succeed by bidding on another item in that group.

The best free eBay Sniper software that I know is called Biet-O-Matic and can be downloaded from Sourceforge. It supports item groups, remote control over email, user accounts, unlimited items, adding items by article number or browsing and support of different languages.

Read More:

Ebay Sniper Homepage

Etsy the Ebay for handmade goods

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:47:01 +0000

Etsy is a website where people can buy and sell (only) homemade goods. Everything is neatly categorized and accessible through various innovative methods such as colors where you choose a color and the site displays everything that is offered in that color. Anyways there is also the traditional way of clicking through categories like Furniture, Children and Weddings.

Don’t expect to find anything mainstream at Etsy, most stuff looks pretty unique and would probably make great presents for close ones. The toy section will its dolls looks nice and the teddy bears and dolls would surely make children happy. Most sellers seem to come from the United States but some Europeans seem to also use Etsy to sell their wares.

Oh, they also got a bags and purses category. Any women left on my site ? Just kidding. How about shoes ? Knew i got the last one with this one, hehe. Pastry Shoes are also very nice.

What can I say. Etsy is a real nice site and I surely will use it to buy presents to women and children (mainly) in the future. Let me know what you think of this.