Tag Archives: buying

BeZilch Marketplace for Unwanted Tech

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beZilch LogoFreshly-launched beZilch is a marketplace for the trade of unwanted tech in the space between the auction houses and the fixed price trade-in centres. Jared Hansen, Founder and CEO, sells it to Todd and Todd.

If you want the most money for unwanted gadgetry, generally an online auction is the way to go, but the auction takes time to run and the fees can be expensive. At the other end of the spectrum, fixed price trade-in centres give you the cash quickly but the price can often be quite low. beZilch proposes a middle ground where both buyers and sellers can post ads.

Say you want a phone for your careless kids; first you can check to see if anyone is selling a phone in the price range you are thinking about. If not, post that you want a Samsung S3 and you’ll pay $100 for it.

Sellers can then check out the ads and consider if they’re willing to sell at that price for a quick sale. If they’re not happy with the prices on offer, they can post an ad with the price they’re looking for. Both sides can see what’s on offer and beZilch lets people choose between convenience and money.

Transactions are secured by PayPal so both sides are covered and for sellers the auctions fees are a flat 4% – there’s no complicated fee structure.

It’s a neat idea and offers an alternative channel to the big sites that we’re all familiar with. Let’s hope it gets some traction.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Todd Aune of The Elder Divide for the TechPodcast Network.

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A Review of Glyde

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This is the time of year that you maybe getting some new gadgets. The question is what do you do with the old gadget you already have. You could try to sell it on EBay but if you are like me you don’t want to deal with the hassle. If you have an Apple product or a few Android products to sell then Gazelle is a great option. With Gazelle you indicate what item you want to sell and its condition. Gazelle then tells you how much they are willing to pay for it. The price they give is good for 30 days. They send you a shipping label and often a box to ship it in. You can get paid by Amazon gift card, through Paypal or by check.

This works fine if you are selling an Apple product but what about a tablet, eReader or phone that is not made by Apple. For example I decided I wanted to sell my second generation Amazon Kindle, Gazelle wasn’t an option and as I said before I don’t like dealing with EBay. So I started to look for another option and I found Glyde. Like Gazelle, you indicate the item you want to sell and its condition, Glyde then tells you what it is worth. This is where Glyde starts to differ from Gazelle. Unlike Gazelle with Glyde you are selling to an individual, Glyde is simply acting as the middle man. Once you put the item up for sale you then have to wait until someone agrees to buy it. Once there is a buyer Glyde then sends a box and shipping label out to you. As soon as you have the box you then have 24 hours to ship it out.  When the buyer receives the package, they have 48 hours to accept or reject the item. If they accept the item the money is then deposited into your Glyde account. You can then with drawl the money and get a check or have it electronically transferred to your bank account. I put my Kindle up for sell on October 29. It was purchased on the November 6 for $29.00 and I had the money in my bank account by the 23rd. As a seller I was very happy with how Glyde worked.

I have not brought anything from Glyde at this time, however most reviews by buyers that I read were positive. If you have a tablet, phone, dvd or game to sell I would definitely check out what it is worth on Glyde.

Buying a new Mac Mini

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After the holiday season I decided it was time to replace my Macbook. It is a 2.1 ghz, maxed out at 4GB of memory. It was running Lion but barely. The keyboard was broken, some keys were sticking and two were missing. The battery had also gone bad. I was using the Macbook connected to a 24 inch monitor with usb keyboard and a magic track pad as a desk top computer. I have to admit it was pretty Rueb Goldberg or ghetto, but it worked. I use my iPad as my computer when I travel or go to the local coffee shop, so I decided against another laptop. My choice was than down to the iMac or the Mac Mini. I did look at the iMac, but since I already had two 24 inch monitors, buying the 21 inch iMac didn’t make sense and I couldn’t afford the 27 inch version. I then took a look at the new Mac Mini. I have a working core-duo Mac Mini and I love the form factor, but its even older than the Macbook and is no longer upgradable.

After going back and forth between the various options I decided to go with the 2.5 ghz Mac Mini with the 500 GB hard drive. The Mac Mini comes with 4 GB of memory, but per the suggestions of most reviews, I brought 8 gb of memory from OWC, the same time I ordered the computer. The memory installation is extremely easy if you follow the instructions. I ordered through Amazon, under my prime membership with next day delivery. Before the computer came I went through my Macbook and got rid of all unnecessary files and applications and then did a full back up to Time Machine. Once I received the Mac Mini I connected to the network and then connected the new Mac Mini to the Macbook by Ethernet. I then started the Migration Assistant application. The one thing I would recommend is to start up migration on the from computer and fill in all the information on that first. I only have one “working” keyboard so I had to switch the keyboard back and forth between the two computers. Besides that glitch the migration went fine, although it did take a lot longer then I thought it would. If I remember correctly it took a little over 5 hours. Obviously this isn’t something you want to do at the last-minute.

A hdmi to dvi adapter comes with the Mac Mini, which I used to attach to my LG monitor. It was at that point I realized the only adapter I didn’t have was a mini-display to DVI adapter, so I had to order that. The other thing I had to order was 400 to 800 firewire adapter so that I could connect my Comcast Box to my computer and watch TV using AVC Browser through VLC. So my second recommendation would be to check to make sure you have all the adapter you need. Another recommendation is if you store your password on Dropbox or another secure drive make sure you have your password for that written down. I went to start-up 1password and realized I needed the password for Dropbox so I could import all the passwords. fortunately I had it on my phone. Finally make sure you know where all your licenses are for all your applications. If you have been thinking about buying a Mac and are looking for a desktop I would recommend looking at the Mac Mini. Especially if you are a switcher and already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse.