Activist disrupts auction

Posted on 23 December 2008 | by Aaron Traffas, CAI, ATS, CES | 2 comments
US BLM logo
Image via Wikipedia

Red Green and Blue recently posted an article about an activist who wrecked havoc at an auction by the Bureau of Land Management. The bidder essentially ran up the price on several tracts to knock out other bidders, while having no intent to actually purchase the properties himself.

We all have difficulties with bidding mistakes from bidders who are perhaps not well-informed as to the terms of the sale, or disruptions from bidders who are unhappy about the way an auction is being conducted. Politics aside, how would you deal with this type of economic terrorism from activists during an auction?

Posted in community

NoScript add-on provides security in Firefox

Posted on 17 December 2008 | by Aaron Traffas, CAI, ATS, CES | 1 comment

NoScript

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Bad things lurk on the interwebs. Viruses are marginalized by Antivirus software, but most Antivirus software doesn’t protect against malicious websites. Websites can phish and clickjack. They can display an invisible button that infects your computer on top of another button that says “download this antivirus software”. There are actions that can be triggered simply by your mouse moving over an element on a page.

Firefox is a web browser that is constantly gaining market share against Microsoft‘s Internet Explorer. While it’s true that Firefox is a secure browser, as is a fully-patched copy of IE, any browser that properly executes JavaScript and other web standards is vulnerable to scripts that are written to do malicious things. The only way to ensure safety on the modern web is by only allowing scripts that you authorize. Later we’ll examine how this safe practice works with Opera, my new favorite web browser, by today we’re going to look at NoScript.

NoScript is a browser addon for Firefox. I first tried it over a year ago and gave up after a matter of minutes. The default settings for NoScript call for it to present a security warning whenever a website attempts to execute JavaScript, Java, Flash and other scripting technologies on sites you haven’t authorized. Because pretty much every website uses one of these scripting languages for something, and because when you first install NoScript none of the websites are listed as trusted, every single page will present the user with a security warning. The sheer annoyance caused by this behavior resulted in a quick removal from my browsing environment.

NoScript integration with right-click menu

NoScript integration with Firefox right-click menu

I was recently listening to Security Now, my favorite Internet security podcast. NoScript was mentioned as a must for Internet security, along with the secret to maintaining sanity while using it. The secret is to turn off notifications. With notifications turned off, the popups are gone but the security remains. Only if you realize that a site isn’t functioning properly do you need to specifically grant that site permissions to run the scripts. It’s as easy as right-clicking on the website and telling NoScript to allow the site to run scripts. To the right you can see how NoScript shows the scripts that AuctioneerTech attempted to run that were blocked successfully with NoScript.

True, AuctioneerTech doesn’t look as cool without scripts. The pull-quotes – sections of text that are larger and served like pictures showing important passages – don’t work, and neither do the CrunchBase widgets. You won’t see the Google Adsense links to the right or the Google Shared Stuff list at the bottom right, nor will my Google Analytics function. For this reason, I encourage you to select the “Allow all on this page” option if you’re viewing AuctioneerTech with NoScript. However, if this were a malicious website, you would already be infected. This is the reason you should install NoScript on Firefox. You’ll still be able to get at the content you want, without having content you don’t want forced upon you and your computer.

Here’s how to do it. Assuming that you already have Firefox installed, launch it.

  1. Click the Tools menu at the top of the browser and select Add-ons
  2. Click the Get Add-ons button at the top left of the box that appears
  3. In the search box, type noscript and hit enter
  4. Click on the first return that has the icon that looks like the picture at the top right of this article
  5. Click the button that reads Add to Firefox…
  6. You’ll be prompted to confirm your decision. Click Install now on the pop-up.
  7. Restart Firefox

That’s it. NoScript is installed and you’re safer now than ever before. Here’s how to disable the notifications so you can browse in peace.

  1. There is now a small NoScript icon at the bottom right of your browser. Click it and select Options.
  2. Select the Notifications tab at the top
  3. Un-check the option listed as Show message about blocked scripts

Now you won’t get any popups telling you scripts were disabled. Browse the web with peace and security. If something doesn’t look right, simply enable the scripting on the page.

Posted in Security | Tagged , , , , , , , |

Video marketing must account for playback quality

Posted on 16 December 2008 | by Aaron Traffas, CAI, ATS, CES | 2 comments
A Mini-CD is 8 centimeters in diameter.
Image via Wikipedia

Video can be a fantastic marketing tool. The same video can convey a sense of incompetence if not distributed correctly. Ignoring the difference between an expensively-produced video and simple footage captured with a camcorder, both of which can be effective and important as components of marketing campaigns, the way a video is delivered can mean the difference between a customer’s respect and a customer’s desire to do something else.

I’ve seen video delivered poorly. I’ve seen video actually attached to email. I’ve seen video so small that it could have been attached to email delivered on CDs and DVDs. Improper or inappropriate video delivery can result in both poor video quality as well as customer annoyance. Here are a few tips for video content delivery that will help to prevent both of these issues.

Never email video
Email over a megabyte or two annoys customers. Perhaps not everyone gets frustrated by large attachments, but plenty of people do. Some are on slow connections, some use POP email, some use POP over dial-up which means they’ll have to download the entire email before the next emails download. The other factor is that if video is smaller than a few megabytes, it’s probably not worth sending in the first place. YouTube makes large, high quality video distribution very easy. True, YouTube videos are branded for YouTube and allow links to other auction videos, but the benefits of being able to email a link to a video far outweigh  the issues created by trying to actually email the actual video. For a more advanced and non-branded solution, there are Flash video players that will allow you to directly place video content on a website without embedding content from a third party such as YouTube.

Physical media should contain high quality video
The benefit of delivering video on physical media like CD, DVD or flash media is that quality doesn’t have to be compromised. Promotional video can be delivered that looks crisp and clean on even the higher quality HD TVs and computer monitors. Unfortunately, I’ve seen plenty of promos on physical media that look pixelated and blurry when made full-screen. It’s important when creating the video to maintain the quality. Most of the consumer camcorders can take video that looks fair in high definition, but one improper mix-down in Windows Movie Maker can ruin the future chances of playing the video on anything bigger than a postage-stamp-sized video window on a computer.

Build menu systems on optical media
Content delivered on CD or DVD should be playable as a VCD or DVD with a menu system. Computers can read and play menu DVDs, but customers who receive a CD or DVD that don’t have a computer or don’t think to try it will receive an invalid disc message when they throw it into their TV’s DVD player. The odds favor them assuming a defect in the media rather than performing another attempt at reading the discs in their computers.

Remember that there are many ways to deliver appropriate video quality in a variety of methods. As long as production methods account for the quality at every step, the final product will be easy to upload to YouTube as well as serve as a source for DVD or VCD creation that will play in a customer’s home DVD player and computer at high resolution. A thousand dollar video production can be worth next to nothing if the consumer sees a finished product of low resolution.

Posted in hardware, advertising, services | Tagged , , , , , |

NAA releases Auction Answers, NAA Auction Newsroom

Posted on 16 December 2008 | by Aaron Traffas, CAI, ATS, CES | Leave a comment

Auction Answers

Auctioneers educate consumers with launch of Auction Answers

The National Auctioneers Association has recently posted Auction Answers on its home page. The document is a PDF with answers to many common questions, such as “What is the auctioneer really saying?” and “Why sell at auction?” Auction Answers originated in partnership with USA Today and its semiweekly feature, Auction Showcase, which advertises auctions from around the country.

“Auctions fascinate consumers. They’re not only entertaining and fun, but also a great place to buy and sell goods and assets,” said NAA President Randy Wells. “For many, auctions can be intimidating and confusing at times. The goal of Auction Answers is to clear up much of the confusion surrounding auctions, such as terminology and its process. We want every bidder to be prepared to bid on auction day and feel comfortable when they raise their bid paddle.”

In addition to launching Auction Answers, the NAA recently made available from its website a link to the NAA Auction Newsroom. This site offers links to news articles related to the auction industry. There are already several ways to get news about the industry, most revolving around setting a notification using Google Alerts or Google News. What makes the NAA Auction Newsroom different is that the NAA has already filtered the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and eliminated all the non-relevant articles relating to eBay and other celebrity or non-professional auctions that would turn up in a search but not be related to the auction industry. “This is a very exciting tool because prior to this we could not replicate new stories due to copyright restrictions,” wrote Chris Longly, Director of Public Affairs and Communications for NAA, in an email. “I would add that members can place this link on their business website as well as another avenue to promote auctions.” Longly said the NAA Auction Newsroom would be featured in January’s Auctioneer magazine, so keep an eye out for yours in the mail if you’re a member of the NAA.

Over a quarter-trillion dollars in goods and services sold at auction in 2007, and it’s great to see the NAA take a leading role in evangelizing the auction method of marketing. We’ve mentioned previously some of the great educational offerings from the association, and we’ll be talking more about the USA Today Auction Showcase very soon.

Posted in announcements, community | Tagged , , , , |

New York auctioneer implements unique payment arrangements

Posted on 15 December 2008 | by Aaron Traffas, CAI, ATS, CES | 2 comments

Mooney's Auction Service

Mooney's Auction Service

The Maine Antique Digest is running a story about Al Cardamone of Mooney’s Auction Service. According to the story, Mooney’s recently sent out a bulk email announcing a prepayment program in which prospective bidders can exempt themselves from the buyer’s premium, as well as obtain a $7.00 concessions coupon at each auction they attend, by prepaying at least $1000 for purchases. There is no time limit or expiration on the use of the prepaid funds and the entire program is capped at $125,000 on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Does the math add up? If someone prepays for $1000 in purchases – and then purchases $1000 after eating at the concession stand – the auctioneer lost $107, supposing the details of the program are accurate in the story. There was no information available at mooneys.net regarding the program at the time of this posting.

Does the program make sense? Does the possible increase in cash flow justify the loss of the buyer’s premium for the auctioneer? First person to post a comment gets a $7 gift certificate at the AuctioneerTech concession stand.

Posted in advertising, community | Tagged , , |