I quite often sell my old stuff (mainly DVD box sets once I’m finished with them) on eBay, but I know you can also sell your stuff on Amazon and Play.com (and probably elsewhere).

I’ve created this simple tool which I’m calling “Make the Most” to help be (and you) calculate which site will let me make the most profit.

It’s pretty simple. You decide what you want to sell, tell it how much posting it will cost, have a look at each site to see how much they are going for, and it will calculate all the fees and tell you how much profit you expect to make on each site. It has to make some assumptions, but it should give you a good idea.

Currently it only has data for CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays, but I may add more shortly (let me know if there are any requests).

Of course there may be bugs, so let me know your comments and suggestions below. I accept no responsibility for any errors etc.

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Update (02/02/2010): It would seem from the comments that this was a legitimate request for an autograph! MAybe I’m more famous than I think? Original post continues:

A few days ago I got a surprising email asking for my autograph (full text below). Despite getting literally tens of visitors to this blog per day, I am by no means a celebrity, so this either there is some famous person with my name (so famous I’ve never heard of them), this person is just trying their luck sending hundreds of emails hoping to get a real one or two, or this is some new scam to get my signature and use it to steal my identity.

I’ve searched for the sender of the email (Lalit Kumar Bajaj), and I can only find a few comments on blog posts requesting autographs and not much more, but it could be very new, or could be the scammers (if they are scammers) are using multiple names.

I’d be interested to know if anyone else had got anything similar? The full text of the email follows (I presume Lalit doesn’t mind me publishing his address, since he has posted it to other blogs, but I’d be happy to remove it if requested). It really was in all caps, and really was bold!

DEAR SIR / MADAM ,

I HAVE THE HONOUR TO INTRODUCE MYSELF , I AM A SERIOUS COLLECTOR OF AUTOGRAPHED PHOTOGRAPH OF THE GREAT CELEBRITIES LIKE YOU.

IN THIS CONNECTION I WOULD FEEL HIGHLY OBLIGED IF YOU KINDLY SEND ME YOUR AUTOGRAPH FOR MY COLLECTION. I WILL NOT ONLY PRESERVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH BUT I WILL TAKE THESE FASCINATING HOBBIES AMONG YOUNGER GENERATION TO CREATE AN AWARENESS BY WAY OF EXHIBITION. MY NAME AND ADDRESS IS GIVEN HEREUNDER FOR YOUR KIND INFORMATION :

LALIT KUMAR BAJAJ

40 , STRAND ROAD

4TH FLOOR

KOLKATA – 700001 (INDIA)

MAY I THEN LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR USUAL KIND CO – OPERATION?

THANKING YOU IN ADVANCE.

VERY TRULY YOURS.

L.BAJAJ.

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I am guessing with the number of invites that Google have given me that they aren’t exactly in short supply, but in case anyone still can’t find an invite for Google Wave, let me know and I’d be happy in add you to my invite list.

Once you are on Wave you may find you have no-one to wave to, so check out my list of people who want contacts.

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We’ve owned our house for three and a half years now, but it’s only relatively recently that we’ve had to start using local tradesmen for maintenance etc. I found it very hard to chose who to call. There are loads in the Yellow Pages, but without personal recommendations it’s hard to tell one from another.

In order to help others in a similar situation I’ve decided to write a review of all the tradesmen we use, starting with Nortons Heating in York.

I first contacted Nortons about 8 months ago when I decided we ought to get our boiler serviced (I know we’re meant to get it done every year, but we didn’t!). I can’t remember how we found them, I think it was probably via a Google search and we chose them because they were one of the closest (if not the closest) to us.

I get the impression that Nortons is run by a husband and wife team, with Andy (the husband) doing the servicing etc, and his wife doing the admin and taking bookings. Being a small company it’s sometimes not as easy as it might be ton get hold of them on the phone, but at least you don’t have to deal with a call centre.

Andy came and serviced the boiler. He was very friendly, and cleaned up after himself. Unfortunately servicing the boiler didn’t solve an intermittent problem we were having, so I called him back again a few weeks later. He had a good look at the problem, suggested he replace two parts (the cheaper two of three possible faults), and came back a few days later to fit them. This solved the problem.

All this was a few months ago. A few days ago out heating failed completely – it just wouldn’t fire at all. The morning after the fault developed (luckily it was a mild night), I rang Nortons. I got through mid morning. When she found we had no heating and hot water she said she’d try and fit us in. By the time I’d told Abby I’d got hold of them, he was at out front door! The boiler just needed a clean, and Andy was finished in under an hour!

I can’t remember how much we were charged for the service and first problem, but it didn’t seem unreasonable. We haven’t had the bill yet for the recent problem.

Overall Nortons are definitely a company I would recommend, and would use them again (having used them three times now). They have their faults (mainly how long it can sometimes take to get hold of them), but who’s perfect!?

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I just had a customer contact me asking if I had any idea why his email was being rejected by the Yahoo mailservers (which also deal with all BT addresses).

The rejection message said:

554 Message not allowed – [320] (in reply to end of DATA command)

A quick Google search, and a look at the message that was rejected, told me that the time on the sending machine was wrong – it was set 1 month in the future. It seems Yahoo won’t accept mail sent from the future, so if you are getting similar rejection messages check your system clock!

I hope this helps someone.

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I watched last week’s Gadget Show last night (I’m a week behind), and saw their review on the Sanyo Xacti WH1 waterproof camcorder. They listed it as “from £165″ which sounded amazing value, and considered buying it. Unfortunately it looks like they made a mistake on the price, as I couldn’t find a price anywhere near it.

I did find it at £189 however on a site I’d never heard of: Electronic Megastore electronicmegastore.com. I’m not sure what first made me wary of this site. Probably the fact it was at such a great price, and I’d never heard of the site before.

A quick Google Search came up with a page of customer reviews on Shobby. Some are great, but appear to be from similar IP addresses. The rest all talk about them being a scam run from a petrol station! This could be innocent and just a disgruntled customer/employee trying to spread rumours.

I decided to do my own investigations into the site, and have concluded that in my opinion the site is a scam, for the following reasons:

• A banner proudly states they accept PayPal and Worldpay, but when you go through to the checkout it asks you to enter your credit card details into their own form (which has a slightly suspect security certificate). It also has a logo for Paypal Virtual Terminal, which is a product meant to taking order by phone/fax!
• Another banner says you can “Shop without sharing your financial information”. Proved false by the above.
• There is no postal address displayed on the site!
• Images on the About Us page show reviews from Kelkoo, Shopping.com and Pricerunner. This is clearly a fake as there is no record of Electronic Megastore on any of these sites.

The links to Internet Shopping is Safe (ISIS) and Safebuy seem to be legit, which gives me little faith in those schemes. The McAfee Secure badge is real, but all that means is the site can’t be easily hacked, it doesn’t mean the people running it are for real!

I am not 100% that the site is a scam, but I wouldn’t place an order there. It will be interesting to see how long they last!

[Update]: I’ve had quite a few comments on this post, mainly from disgruntled customers. It seems in at least these cases that money has been taken by credit card, but when a refund is requested they ask for a bank account or Paypal account to return the money to, and don’t offer to refund the money back to the credit card (sounds odd to me). Experience of actually getting a refund seems mixed.

One thing I am able to learn from the comments, is they do actually have some products to ship, although the person in questoin received the wrong product!

Of course a post like this is only likely to get comments from the people who have had bad experiences, and it is possible there are some peoploe who have had good experience.

I have also had a comment from Louise who works for the company. Obviously not pleased about this post, but fails to address any of the points made. The “customer” reviews she refers to are suspicious to say the least.

I would love for this company to be legitimate, but they need to make some serious improvements to convince me.

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Last weekend we went to  a wedding (at which we had a very good time). We had Izzy with us, for the day, and of course had to feed her.

Abby was all for buying some pouches of mush, but we decided there is no reason we couldn’t continue with our baby led weaning. We chopped up some fruit, put it into small pots, and took it with us. We were provided with a high chair, which is where our first realisation comes. One problem with baby led weaning (at least with Izzy) is we can’t really use plates – she just picks them up and tips them over – we have to put the food onto the highchair tray. This is fine at home, but when out and about you don’t know how clean it is. We wiped it down with a baby wipe, but are going to get some anti-bacterial wipes to keep in the changing bag for future.

Anyway, she ate her food very well (as messy as usual), and we packed her off to her grandparents for the evening.

The next day we went to pick her up, and went out for lunch at a carvery. The idea here was she could just have some of the veg (which was cooked nice and soft). Again we had the same issue with the high-chair tray, but settled for baby wipes again.

Unfortunately Izzy had been a bit sick that morning (I don’t think she was used to so much formula), and wasn’t interested in much food, but she did chomp a bit on a parsnip. The theory was good, but didn’t work in practice this time.

Generally though Izzy is getting really good at feeding herself. We can happily put a selection of food on her tray and leave her to it, and a lot less is ending up on the floor! I can happily get on with something else in the kitchen (or even elsewhere in the house) while she is feeding herself – hard to believe she’s only 6.5 months old, and only just over a month into solids!

We’ve also started to concentrate on giving Izzy the same food as we’re eating. The first attempt was a butternut squash risotto. Good in theory, but we spent too much time making it so it was a bit late. By that time she was too upset, and didn’t eat very much. I also made the mistake of getting her ready to eat before it was cool enough, so she hurt her hand (not badly, but it upset her).

The second attempt was a bit more successful. Abby made a lovely mild curry with parsnip, chicken and coconut cream. I’m not sure how much rice she managed to eat, but the large chunks of parsnip went down very well. She tried a bit of chicken, but found it a bit much (we confiscated it after she choked (gently) on it 3 times!).

We’re really starting to get the benefit of baby led weaning now, and are getting more adventurous with food choices!

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If you’ve been following this diary, sorry for the lack of entries. I decided it was getting a bit samey and have decided it’s likely to be better to make occasional entries  when we have any new developments.

Izzy’s been eating that same sort of stuff. She’s really learning to pick things up on her own and put them into her mouth. I’m quite mean with this – I’ll hold something up for her, but won’t put it in her mouth when she “calls” for it. Instead I let he watch me put it down so she knows where it is, and she quite often picks it up on her own. Sometimes I put it into her hand, and sometimes I give in and put it in her mouth.

She can be quite greedy at times and pick up one thing in each hand and put them both in her mouth at the same time.

She’s also still regulating her own intake. Some meals she’s very hungry, while others (like this morning) she doesn’t eat a lot at all.

We’re going to a wedding this afternoon and then she’s staying overnight at her grandparents’ house so getting food ready is a bit new for us, although I’ve just read a bit more of the book and realise we’re not being as adventurous as we could with what we offer her, so I think I may be offering her some food off my plate!

We did give her a bit of lactose free yoghurt the other day, but it had quite a lot of sugar so I think we’ll save that as a treat. She seemed to like it, but soon got frustrated with not being able to feed herself.

I’ll try and add updates as we try anything new.

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Today was a little odd as we had a very broken night (Izzy was suffering from constipation) and then we slept quite late. This meant meal times were all over the place.

Breakfast:
Stewed apple and pear. At first she didn’t seem bothered at all, but she did have a small amount of apple.

Lunch:
More apple and pear, but still didn’t eat much.

Dinner:
Same again, plus some melon. The melon was a bit hard so she didn’t have much, and she wasn’t very hungry overall.

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Breakfast:
Banana, and mango. She wasn’t very hungry.

Lunch:
Mango pear and kiwi. The pear was a bit too hard though.

Dinner:
Slightly stewed apple and pear, and some steamed parsnip. She ate loads as she hadn’t had very much earlier in the day.

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