I wasn’t particularly surprised to find no reference to such [...]]]> Considering the majority of IT equipment is practically non biodegradable and can contain substances that are potentially harmful, there is scarce information available to local residents about how to go about effectively recycling their old computers.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to find no reference to such advice on the Torbay Council website. Unfortunately it seems that whilst both national and local government bang on about the importance of public awareness regarding the issues of recycling, they don’t tend to clarify exactly what we should actually be doing. Extending my search to council websites nationwide was just as fruitless, and as such it’s not surprising the public at large are slightly bewildered about the best way to dispose of their IT equipment.

Fortunately there are a number of methods one can use to dispose of their old equipment:

- You could look to reuse the computer yourself and there are a few options available to you here; you could recycle your computer as a hardware firewall, a print server or maybe even a shared network drive. Of course, having a computer using a relatively large amount energy whilst performing, what could be considered menial, tasks would probably be more detrimental to the environment in the long run than simply binning it.

- Sites such as eBay will allow you to sell practically anything, no matter what the age. You may not get much for your old equipment but you’ll stop it going in to landfill and may get a couple of quid to boot. Of course, the Herald Express free ads section is also a good option if you’re looking to advertise locally.

- A fantastic idea would be to give your technology to charity; it does involve a little bit of effort on your behalf but might be worth it for the feel good factor. Phone around a couple of local charities to see if they have any use for your old equipment and if not try listing it on Donate A PC (www.donateapc.org.uk) who offer a free matchmaking service, where individuals list the items they have to sell and charities then offer to collect. Alternatively check out Computer Aid (www.computeraid.org) who will take practically any equipment for charity however you will have to sort out the postage to London yourself.

- Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) is a very popular site which allows users to list absolutely anything that they want to get rid of online whether it’s computer equipment or otherwise. It’s akin to eBay with the exception that you’re not selling the goods but rather giving them away; whilst not financially beneficial it is certainly good for the environment.

- You may find that a local computer company will take the computer off of your hands however it is unlikely that they will give you any money for it, and in some instances may refuse to take the equipment off your hands at all unless it is relatively modern. This is because of new guidelines, companies have to pay to get rid of this kind of waste and so, unsurprisingly, they will be unwilling to take something off your hands free of charge. If purchasing new equipment then, under the WEEE initiative, the retailer should take your old goods back for recycling free of charge.

- If you are unable to get rid of your equipment in any of the above fashions then taking it to the recycling centre on Yalberton Road may be the only option. Since no information on what actually happens to equipment disposed in this fashion appears to be available I will try to get a response from the council regarding this by next week.

Whilst most companies that you could donate a computer to say that they will securely wipe your data for you, I would still urge on the side of caution so before sending your computer off completely wipe the hard drive with a free utility such as dBan (http://dban.sourceforge.net). Please note that simply deleting files or formatting your hard drive isn’t sufficient as data can often be retrieved from drives wiped in this fashion; those that are particularly concerned about their data may even consider removing the hard drive and physically destroying it.

[...]]]> In the news this week I read that freeview television has just overtaken Sky when it comes to the number of subscribers in the UK. This isn’t exactly shocking news considering many new TV’s now come with freeview boxes installed, but it did get me thinking about where things were heading.

Personally, I’m pleased to have a reminder that the masses are finally moving away from the traditional four or five channel analogue system by investing in freeview boxes. I am still shocked,however, by the number of people actively complaining about the analogue switch off that will be occurring gradually across the UK from next year until 2012.

The argument pretty much comes down to a price point as these people argue that they just can’t afford to invest in a freeview box so the government should keep analogue TV online switched on. This,in my mind, is pretty short-sighted especially when you consider the relatively large allocation of frequency bandwidth analogue TV consumes which could be used for better things. In my opinion their argument with regards to the cost of upgrading is fairly weak when you consider that freeview boxes regularly go for around a tenner on eBay. If you haven’t yet upgraded remember that the switch off down here won’t happen for several years so set aside five pence a week and when the system is shut down you’ll be ready!

I don’t like to see people hold up the pace of technology just because they are frightened of change and more than anything else the additional channels broadcast completely free of charge on freeview, making the change from analogue all the more worthwhile.

Anyway, now that rant is out the way I think it’s time to look towards the future of TV broadcasting by looking at another technology known as HDTV which is likely to rapidly gain in popularity over the coming years.

High Definition Television (HDTV) offers the consumer a fantastic improvement in the picture quality as HD ready TVs have much higher resolutions than their older counterparts. A High Definition television can typically display up to four times the number of pixels than a regular TV which results in a much finer picture being produced. The greater resolution coupled with better colour reproduction and a completely different way of drawing the pictures on to the screen results in a much better picture quality which eliminates the flicker present on many older CRT televisions.

Fortunately, like the switch from analogue to digital, the switch from regular to HD transmissions is unlikely to be costly in the future. The majority of new LCD and Plasma screens sold in the last few years are HD ready which means that those who have recently purchased a new TV won’t have change again when HD becomes big in the UK.

A distinct advantage that I found of purchasing a HD ready TV is that in many instances you can plug your computer straight in to the back of the TV and use it as a large monitor. Before HD I used to try using my laptop with my old CRT television and the picture quality was absolutely terrible, so bad that I found it impossible to make out any of the text due to the poor resolution. Using a computer or laptop with a High Definition TV however is a completely different story due to them having comparable resolutions to many monitors on the market.

Owning a HD television isn’t enough to start benefiting from improved transmission clarity as a HD decoder of some description is required. At present these can be costly due to there being no Freeview HD option which leaves you with a choice of either Virgin Media or Sky. These services are a fair bit costlier than their lower resolution equivalents and the amount of high definition programming presently available is limited. Unfortunately those who adopt early usually get a poor deal but the cost will come down and the programming will increase over the coming months making HDTV a technology to watch for the future.

Having recently been dragged around several car boot sales it’s come to my [...]]]> There is a great deal of talk at the moment about buying on eBay but in my experience I’ve found there is substantially less information related to the actual subject of selling online.

Having recently been dragged around several car boot sales it’s come to my attention that there are people literally giving away potentially valuable items at these sales which they could shift faster, easier and for a greater price online. There is no greater way of highlighting this fact than when you consider there are now people starting businesses literally buying items from car boot sales and selling them online. This week I’m going to explain how to cut out the middle man to obtain the most money for your unwanted items.

I’ve found the best way to get in to eBay is to start of slowly; due to a ratings system you’ll find people unwilling to deal with you if you haven’t been signed up as a seller for long or have little positive feedback. Whilst new users may find that their items still sell it may be at a much lower value than similar items listed by more trusted sellers so start by listing just one or two items a week to build up the trust between you and the eBay community. Of course, feedback also works in your favour as you can easily identify less reliable buyers – many sellers even specify that you can’t bid on an auction unless your feedback is above a certain level.

Listing your site is easy, just sign up for a free eBay account and then simply click on the ‘sell item’ link, enter the details of your listing including postage details, a reserve price (if appropriate) then upload a picture and click submit. Your item will then instantly become live on eBay for any one of the millions of active members will be able to find it.

The cost of listing an item is relatively cheap; you simply pay a basic listing fee (typically 15p or so) plus any fees for upgrading your listing and a percentage of the items final sale price. The usual time for an auction to last is 7 days but this can be adjusted at the sellers discretion and additionally you can choose to allow a buyer to instantly end the auction if he agrees to meet a ‘buy it now’ price that you set initially.

As a seller you will probably want to set up a PayPal account as this allows your buyers to immediately pay you by credit/debit card rather than having to worry about writing out cheques, sending cash or doing a bank transfer. PayPal takes a small percentage of the transaction value and you are then free to withdraw the money straight in to your nominated bank account.

Another tip is not to limit your online sales to low priced items; eBay can be used as a viable method for selling many mid and high priced items which would usually be sold at an auction house as well as luxuries such as your car which would usually have to be advertised by a more expensive, conventional method.

You’d be surprised how much more you can get for items once you start selling them on eBay – due to the worldwide appeal of the site you have a much higher audience than simply selling your items at the local car boot.

So check out www.ebay.co.uk and get yourself signed up but just don’t get distracted and start looking up items that you recently gave away or sold for pennies – I made this mistake some years back and found an old computer similar to one I’d simply thrown out which went on to sell for several hundred pounds online!

One of my favourite sites on the Internet has to be the online auction page eBay. Over the past year I have seen not only myself but also my friends and family save hundreds of pounds by buying discounted new or used products online and then in turn selling bits [...]]]>

One of my favourite sites on the Internet has to be the online auction page eBay. Over the past year I have seen not only myself but also my friends and family save hundreds of pounds by buying discounted new or used products online and then in turn selling bits and pieces that are no longer need for a reasonable price.

After my article last week on DAB radio I went out and bought a brand new Blaupunkt car stereo off of eBay and saved about £90 or so when compared with the best high street price that I found in Torbay. To my delight the guy had actually accidentally oversold the model that I ordered and as he had ran out of stock he upgraded me to a superior free of charge. This resulted in me obtaining a boxed stereo that would have cost clear of £300 on the high street for £169.99; brilliant!

It was this that got me thinking that it is such a shame there are so many people in Torbay who are terrified to buy off of eBay because of some horror stories that they have read. I do believe that almost everybody could benefit from giving the site a try, whether is it to buy or to sell and fortunately this article just happens to coincide with the fact that eBay are currently offering free sale listings for new users this weekend. Your job for today is to have a think about any items that you want to clear out and once I’ve convinced you to give it a go you should go online and get rid of them!

As far as I am concerned the most important feature of eBay to understand is the feedback system as although anyone should find it easy enough to locate what they are looking for there are unfortunately there are people who will try to rip you off and you need to learn to avoid them.

To take a look at the feedback of a potential supplier simply do a search for a product you are interested in buying and then click on one of the matches to see more information about the item in question. Once you are happy that this is what you were looking for take a look towards the right hand side of this page and you will see the name of the seller and then their feedback rating which is in the form of a numerical value. This value always begins at zero for new users but when two members complete a transaction they have the chance to affect this value; if the other party is happy then they will increase your feedback by one but if they are dissatisfied with the transaction it can be decreased by one and you also return the favour towards them.

As a new user, if you were to go online and agree to buy several products but then didn’t pay for them you are likely to receive several negative feedback reviews which will then deter others from doing business with you or even you being kicked from the system. When you agree to buy something off eBay in an online auction you really should pay! As a seller you can see the feedback of people bidding on your items and you can specify in the item description that you don’t want anybody below a certain feedback rating bidding at all therefore decreasing the chances that they won’t pay.

As stated at the beginning of this article new users are entitled to sell anything on eBay for this weekend and their listings fees will be reimbursed. You may find that as a new user that people may be wary of you so it would be best off starting by advertising several low priced items so that you can build your feedback up a little before you try any bigger sales.

Additional tools such as PayPal will allow auction winners to be able to pay you by Credit or Debit card and of course it will also allow you to pay for goods using your card if you decide to start buying online although you shouldn’t worry as users don’t get to see your card number and they can only take the amount of money that you instruct PayPal to give them.

Plenty of companies have tried to steal their crown but have all ultimately failed since eBay has established itself as the definitive auction site. To be honest there is far too much to cover in this single article but they have a good help section that should teach you everything you need to know to get started – simply visit www.ebay.co.uk and then clicking on the ‘help’ link.