Posts Tagged ‘console’

How To Sell Your Old Video Games Online

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

What do you do with your games when you’ve beaten them or you upgrade to a different console? In the past, I’ve found myself making my way up to the game shop to get their trade-in value or sometimes have my older games turned away completely. Then there’s eBay, where I’ve been known to take my chances on it selling at all. But now I’ve found a new way to sell old games. Some ex-eBay employees have harnessed their knowledge about online markets and user experience into Glyde, a site made specifically for buying and selling things like your games.

Glyde- Simply buy and sell your games, iPads, iPhones and more

Sell Old Games Online

Glyde’s selling process is a little different from what I’m used to. To sell your old video games, you just have to start typing in the name of a game, select it when Glyde finds it for you, and click the Sell button. Then you tell Glyde the condition of your game and it will auto-set the market price for you. You can raise or lower the price and then list the item. Although you have to fill out some required information for your first listing, the process is a lot faster and easier than most sites.

To review this site, I figured the best thing to do would be to create an account and start selling. In a test scenario where I might sell the Halo 2 XBOX game in Excellent condition gave me a suggested selling price of $2.25. After the $0.27 transaction fee and $1.25 mailer cost, the total money made from the sale comes out to $0.73. My first thought was that this seems like a pretty low price to let go of my game for. Despite it being an older game, I found it to be a bit low compared to other online shopping sources, as well. I next checked out how much I’d get for Halo Reach, which fell a lot more in line with the average selling price on other sites at $11.51 after fees.

The thing that I found most appealing about the selling process is the shipping procedure. Once someone has purchased your game, Glyde sends you a pre-addressed mailing envelope to ship your game in. All you have to do is pop it back in the mail and you’re done. This is a vast convenience over the way I have to ship things I sell elsewhere, which usually includes a lunch hour wasted at the post office.

Buy and Sell Anything Online

While Glyde may be well-suited for selling old games, you can buy, too, and they don’t stop at just games. I found the iPad, iPhone, Nook, Kindle, and even books. The selling process is pretty similar throughout, but the questions displayed on the selling page are geared towards what you’re selling. When selling an iPhone, for example, you’re asked about if it works and the amount of scratches on it. With a game, you’re asked more generally about the condition of the game.

Buying is pretty straight forward, but the feature that stands out is that Glyde shows you the item that is closest and cheapest for your search. This seems like it would be a no-brainer, but sadly, eBay, Amazon, and Google don’t default to such a listing. In addition, I like that the packaging isn’t suspect to the whim of the seller. You can pretty well expect your item to be delivered in what Glyde deems adequate packaging.

Conclusions

Where Glyde may occasionally fall short in seller earnings on a sale, it doubles up on convenience and ease of use over all. The shipping system stands out in a way that promises to quietly eliminate the usual shipping concerns most buyers and sellers face on other platforms. Personally, I will definitely look to Glyde when it comes time to sell games or some of the books I have sitting around here.

Although the preceding was a sponsored review, as always I strive to provide an honest opinion of the product or site reviewed.

I’m in Your DTV, Changin Your Channels

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Once in a while, you just stumble into somewhere you’re not supposed to be… and there’s no security to keep you out. This is one of those times.

dvm-150EI was trying to ssh to a client’s server and was unable. I decided to try the IP address I was given in a web browser and was surprised to find myself staring at the configuration page for a TV station’s DTV Decoder/Receiver. These days, I try to stay out of computers I’m not supposed to have access to, but I just has to poke around a little.

netvxThe first thing I did was look around the surrounding IP addresses to find out what else was lying around, unguarded. I don’t want anyone getting tempted, so I’m only giving you the tail end of each IP. Below is a list of what I found with just a little snooping:

.3 APC Management console
.4 APC Management console secured by htaccess (“Switched Rack PDU”)
.9 DTV-150E
.10 DTV-150E
.11 DTV-150E
.12 DTV-150E
.13 DTV-150E
.14 DTV-150E
.15 DTV-150E
.20 NetVX Control Interface (htaccess)
.23 Unknown and protected by htaccess

As you can see, we’ve got a number of video decoders, a NetVX (which looks like a lot of fun if I could get into it), a couple APC Management Consoles, and something hidden properly behind htaccess. One of the APC consoles was busy, but when I returned later, I was able to confirm that they were both protected properly by htaccess. It’s just too bad they don’t have everything protected.

dtv_settings

There’s a few ways to protect stuff on the web that is only meant for certain eyes. One of the most popular is with a .htaccess file. Essentially, you just throw this file in the directory you would like to protect, put a few lines in the file, and create a password file. Another, more involved, method is to allow only certain IP addresses to access port 80 (the traditional web port). Sometimes, people even skate by, utilizing “security by obscurity”, or just hiding their information in a directory and hoping nobody finds it. None of these methods were used here. Perhaps these are just test hardware, but if they’re not, they are wide open for anyone with a malicious streak.

If you put anything sensitive online, protect it with some form of secure access method. When you do, make sure you use a secure password. Never access anything sensitive from a public computer or on a public network. Above all, don’t leave an array of servers wide open.