* Selling on okay these days is more easythan ever, and programs like Garage Sale 5.0.3for the Mac give you a great opportunity toindividualize your listings and allow you to stand out in a geetitive market!
* Ok, the truth is, I was a Mac user way back in the early 80s. In fact, I bought and used every kind of geputer they made back then. I switched over to the PC only when I got married and decided there were more games for kids on the PC. This is probably still true today. I recently switched most of my posting within the last year to using a Macbook. I own and registered both iSale and GarageSale, and have found uses for them both. Before I bought them, I read all the reviews I could find, and also took into consideration the pros and cons about these programs. I realize that a software program is a work in progress, and since these are the two main ones to use on the Mac, they won't be far behind each other. At this time, both programs will have to upgrade to take advantage of all the changes that okay has made on their platform this year. These changes do not keep the programs from performing. Working with these programs was not gepletely smooth, and there was some learning time and experimentation that has gone into understanding how to use them. Also, in regards to the words "great templates" and the words "easy to use", one must not pay too much attention to this kind of advertising. From my experience, it could take some art ability and layout experience to make such features work well.( 11/8/08 - GarageSale has already updated their program to work with the changes on okay, and the templates also look good in the new future 800 pixel format! GarageSale definitey has my vote for "Easy to Use" and templates that can enhance your listing.)
* Lets look at GarageSale from a practical point of view. The first step in using this program beyond installation, is setting up the preferences. In the first column under GarageSale, is the Preferences. You are asked to input information about your site and location.. There are 16 choices of countries to choose from. Main countries include USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. These were the most important to me, you will have to check their website for a current list of countries supported. This was important for my choice to use this software. The second Preference area is your predefined information for your template, including the name of the template you want to use. If you are selling different items, you may want to change the templates you are using as you work. The next area is what image server you are using. The next area is accounts. This program allows you to list on different accounts. Here you can post information about your account name, paypal address,and Skype ID, then you must authorize this with okay. This software supports having a store, auction listings, and fixed price. At this time you can enter your shipping information, and your paypal information. The next box in Preferences simply asks you how often you want to update. You are allowed to track your auctions, and can enter the refresh rate of this information. The last box is for defining Image Server options. This I never changed from the way it came in the program. It allows you to use your Built-in iSight camera for taking photos or movies of your merchandise. I believe you can also use other imput devices if you want to use this feature. This finishes setting up the preferences, an important 1st step. OK, I am ready to make my first template and try to post an item. Lets see how easy that is. *The second drop down menu in GarageSale is the "File" menu. The first item is New Template. There are a number of other options also of Importing and Exporting templates, Importing from the Delicious Library, from a Turbo Lister file, from eLister, or directly from okay. What I was hoping this program would do for me was to be able to grab my geputer, take a photo, input that photo, then get it into an ad that is running on okay quicky. OK, here we go. I simply choose New template. We are now working in a Mac style window with pictures of the templates across the top and a slider bar, and the template showing on the bottom. There are two choices for viewing the template. The Preview mode, and the Editor mode. I am in the preview mode at the moment, and a great feature for this program is I can edit right in the preview of how it is going to look on okay. OK, just a note here. Depending on the browser and monitor resolution your customer is using, some templates may not look the same once they are posted on okay. This mostly relates to how many photos you are using and how they are arranged in your listing. This is something you need to experiment with when listing with this program. Every template allows you to arrange the text and photos in your listing. They have something called a "hover gallery", where several photos are shown together, and as you run the mouse arrow over the thumbnail, the photo expands.As I use this program more, I am finding the templates quite useful, and am starting to use more of them that I did not consider before. The question in my mind always is, do my listings look good, or, did I use the appropriate template for what I am selling. I think overall, this software offers you a good set of templates. Along with the program they also offer you a GarageSale template utility, allowing you to alter the HTML code of their templates, a valuable resource for such a program. Most of the time, I just edit in the preview mode of my listing. In the editor mode, this is where you can insert your photos, or type in HTML code if you know it. You can also choose the template you want to use by name, and the positioning of your images. Each template offers you a different number of choices, to make sure your photos will look good using that template. When you add images, you can take them from iPhoto, from your camera, from an image file, a URL, or add an iSight image. You can also add text blocks if you need them in this mode. By clicking on the Inspector button, it allows you to choose the category, enhancements, auction or store listing, payment options, your basic hits counter, and payment instructions. With the latest version, you can insert YouTube Videos into your listing,This is a great feature for items that need to be seen in 3-D. In total, there are 140 listing designs, a way to schedule your listings, and the GarageSale site will allow you to store a certain number of photos. This program also offers a image editor,or you can use iPhoto, and those will import directly into this program. As you can see, it is not hard to gepose and post an auction. I think this program is easy to use and a great bargain. Its easy to get a listing up, easy to configure the program, andmy listings look good with little effort. Its well worth the money and takes advantage of the graphic capabilities of the Mac.I have given you the basics of what this program does and how it does it. Current price is $34.99 for a single license, or $59.99 for a family license. It supports Mac OSX 10.4 or 10.5 - * iSale 5.21 - Just a note about this program since its a major gepetitor of GarageSale. I had problems setting up this program, and was able to send support emails back and forth to try to fix what was not working. In the end, they did not know what was not working, and said to email them if I had any more questions. There was no offer of money back. I later was able to get the program working on my own, and overall, its similar but does not give you the variety and value you get with GarageSale. It also will only post one auction at a time. They say they are not for power users, but I would not want to pay money for a program that has less capability then GarageSale. Just say "NO" to this program. It has won awards for its design, but at this time, GarageSale is plainly just better. They now have a scaled down version for only $25, but I think the version I bought if fine for anyboy using a Mac.
If you found my review useful or informative, please leave me a check in the box! I will later review any new versions this software and add to the review here.
Mygemgarden
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