IT Guys blog

Information Technology Tips & Tricks

FREE eBay Auction Sniper Service


Have you ever wondered why when you are trying to bid on an otem on ebay and you are the highest bidder then all of a sudden you right before the auction ends, someone comes in and snatches it from you whether it is in the middle of the day or middle of the night, it just happens. The chances are, the person overbidding you is not really sitting in front of the computer, all what this person did is use a sniping program or a website service like Gixen where you enter the ebay item number and the highest amount you are trying to bid and what the website service do is go out a few seconds before the auction ends and place the bid for you. This way you avoid getting into bidding war, you do not have to stick around the computer to find out make sure no one overbids you, and lastly, you bid like a pro.

We have evaluated different programs and website services that offer snipping services, truth told, the real nice one we liked was Gixen. It is a website service that is offered to the public for free and you can bid on as many items as you want. it uses SSL for encypting and securing the data transmission.

Other competitor websites and programs would charge you a fixed percentage of won items or insertion fees.

 I have been using Gixen for a few months and have been very pleased with the service therefore, have decided to share the wealth about this free ebay sniping website service.


Goodlink stops syncing contacts on Treo Palm or other PDA devices


If you have a device running Good Messaging (formerly known as GoodLink) and it stops syncing, the first thing to do is make sure you have a data connection by attempting to go out to an internet site (such as www.google.com) from your device. If that doesn’t work, then contact your wireless provider, because your data connection is not available or you have no data coverage where you are. If you can get out to website, you probably just need to reset the Goodlink software.

 Here are instructions for to reset your goodlink software on a treo or a PDA device:

  1. On your wireless device, go into Good Preferences | About Good Mobile Messaging
  2. Type in “debug” without quotes. You will not see the text on the screen as you type, but it will open a hidden command prompt.
  3. When a command prompt window opens, type in “reprov” without quotes and press the enter key.
  4. You will be prompted that this will erase all data from the handheld. This only refers to data synced with the Good software. Type in “yes” without quotes and press the enter key.
  5. Your device will restart and the Good software will resync all of your emails/calendar/contacts/etc.

This usually does the trick and all should work like a charm.

I hope this tip helped you out.


RSS Readers Sharp Reader


I remember back in the days when I had two or three favorite sites, but nowadays, with so many different topics, gadget news, website deals, and more, it is hard to keep visit all of them more often, this is where RSS comes to the rescue and offer you the ease of keeping up with all the sites in one simple application with highlights of each website… Not all website have RSS capability, but it is becoming more and more common.

There are two main ways to get the RSS feeds, the first way is through a web application (kind of like different Google Reader where you have to have your web browser open and logged in to your Google account, Yahoo, and MSN offer it too) or a desktop application where you can open it up like Microsoft Outlook… I have been through a few RSS readers and found Sharp Reader to be the best one out there due to its simplicity, new RSS notifications, and most of all, stability (the coolest thing, it is FREE).

Download Sharp Reader Software RSS Reader


PST Password Recovery for Microsoft Outlook Free


So many passwords, only a few can be remembered, the ones that are hard to remember usually are the ones that are seldom used. This is the case with my friend Jane who setup a password on her PST file a few months ago and now needed to get some emails out of it, the only problem is she could not open it as she did not know the password.

Thankfully, when she called me, I had the PST Recover Password utility available and was able to crack it open. It is a free utility, almost impossible to find one like it for free.

Download Recover PST Password for Microsoft Outlook


Free utility to import N2K file


Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Microsoft Outlook 2007 do not store email addresses you correspond to via email in your address book, what it does, it stores all these email addresses in what is called the cached file called N2K file. The N2K  file cannot be read via a regular text editor nor can it be directly imported into outlook contacts.

Many users get bumped when they find this out, (especially noticeable when they receive a new computer).

The utility we have can open up the N2K file and export all the addresses into a CSV file. Best of all, it is free. :)

the N2K file can be located at the following path C:\Documents and Settings\(Your USERNAME)\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.NK2

Download the N2K tool.

If you have similar tools or cool tools please share it with us…. we will credit you for it
Enjoy

Attached is a utility that would extract the nk2 files into csv (so they can be imported into address book) 

Once in a CSV, you can easily delete invalid exchange addresses and maintain the smtp addresses.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

it is a beta version but has always worked for me.  ;)