On a Mac? Resize Your Photos in Less Than a Minute

Jay OHare — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:13:25 +0000

Use the power of iPhoto (on every Mac) to get your listing photos resized properly.
Here’s a quick video to show you how:

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Resize Your Photos Using Picasa

dwittlinger — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:26:25 +0000

Picasa is a FREE photo editing software offered by Google. You can download it here. This video will quickly show you how to edit the file size of your photos so that they fall within the restrictions when posting a new ad.

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10 Secrets to a Successful Garage Sale

Jay OHare — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:27:15 +0000

Having a successful garage sale can not only make your weekend much better but can also be the difference in making a lot of money or wasting a lot of time. Here are 10 secrets to help your next garage sale be the best. And whatever you don’t sell, you can list here!

1. Schedule a garage sale around the first of the month. Most people who are paid monthly, or bi-monthly, receive a paycheck around the 1st of the month (or the end of the previous month). For this reason, we try to schedule yard sales on the first Saturday of the month.

2. Check the 10-day forecast. Nothing ruins a good yard sale faster than rain. Keep an eye on the 10-day forecast before submitting your advertisements and selecting a date. There are no guarantees, but significant weather patterns (fronts, tropical systems, etc.) are fairly predictable within a couple days.

3. Plan on starting early. Most hard-core yard sale scavengers will start looking around 7:00am (some as early as 6:00am).

4. Consider a pre-sale the Friday night before and invite your friends and coworkers. Assuming you don’t mind friends going through your belongings, ask them to come by the night before to look through things ahead of time. I’ve sold some larger items by doing this, including computer monitors, baby furniture, etc. A side benefit of a presale is the more you sale the night before, the less you have to put out on Saturday morning.

Yard Sale Pricing

5. Leave sentimental value inside the house. People shop yard sales for one reason – to get a deal. Just because the change purse used to belong to your great, great Grandmother who brought it with her from Ireland, it doesn’t mean you should stick a $10 price sticker on it and call it antique. Remember, things are worth only as much as people are willing to pay for them.

6. Sell kids or baby clothing from a big box or plastic bin. Based on the type of clothing, set a fair price for the entire bin and hang a sign made from a half-sheet of paper indicating the price of all items. For example, “BABY CLOTHES – $0.25 each.”

7. If you are short on folding tables, sawhorses and a sheet of plywood make a good table. If you have some old sheets, hang them over the plywood to protect against splinters. This also provides some space under the tables to hide your empty boxes, or additional inventory.

The Day of the Yard Sale

8. Use a staging area the night before the sale. If you have a garage, or another enclosed space you can safely store things overnight, it helps to set up tables the night before. Our family backs the car out of the garage, sets up tables and throws out everything from the boxes the night before. At 6:30 the next morning all you need is some help walking the loaded tables out into your driveway or yard.

9. Have plenty of change on hand. The day before the yard sale I usually make a run by the bank to get some smaller bills and rolled coins. $50 in quarters, ones and fives ought to do it.

10. Remember safety – use the buddy system. The people I’ve encountered in my experience hosting yard sales have all been honest, hard-working folks and genuine collectors. However, the allure of electronics and cash sometimes brings unsavory guests. These types like to try to create a distraction so another one can make off with the cash box. Work in pairs and assign someone to always have an eye on the money.

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How to Resize Your Photos (video)

Jay OHare — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:59:27 +0000

Today’s digital cameras shoot large-sized images. This is great for making prints, but it is a bad thing when you’re sharing images. You don’t want to bog down someone’s e-mail, for instance, with oversized files. Plus, many e-mail programs won’t send or receive large files. If you are posting the images to the Web, it will take too long to load and look weird in its original size.

For the purposes of this tutorial, I am using Adobe Photoshop Elements (Compare prices), as it is a popular photo editing software program. Your digital camera should have come with photo editing software, or you can consult the Graphics Software guide’s list of free photo editors if you need one. While there are subtle differences, most operate in much the same manner.

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