GM to Sell New Cars On Ebay

According to the New York Times General Motors will start selling brand new cars on eBay tomorrow, August 11th. As part of a test group of California auto dealers, the beta program will allow eBay users to bid on new GM cars, but customers must choose the “Buy It Now” option.

The eBay motors concept has been running for years but now GM is taking this concept of online auto bidding to the next level, however this time, it’s out of necessity. Will this direct option of purchasing cars and avoiding seeing the stereotypical plaid dressed car salesman save the auto giant? How does this option of directly buying a new car straight from the manufacturer make you feel? I personally would purchase a car direct, however I still would stop into the dealership for a test drive and get consultation.

Would you buy a brand new car off of eBay at the “Buy It Now” price?
http://gm.ebay.com/

Thanks to Mike Kimmel for the info.

Where’s Your Twicsy At?

Have you used Twitpic yet? If not, now you have the opportunity to search through the thousands of images users are uploading to their Twitter accounts by using Twicsy. The best part of the website is the fact that you can now see all the images uploaded in the last hour. Above is an example of just the bizarre cornucopia of images that end up on Twitter via Twitpic. Now Twicsy gathers all those images in once place.

http://twicsy.com/


Thanks to Mike Kimmel for the find.

Monitor Your Sites Up Time

Last year Leading Hands introduced you to a web application where you can manually verify if your site is down; Down For Everyone Or Is It Just Me identifies if the connection is just bad on your end or bad for the rest of the world. Now a service called “Hows The” takes this concept to the next level by monitoring your site and sending you automated emails or text messages when it’s down.

I’ve tried “How’s The” out for a over a week now and the service has alerted me a few times across the multiple websites that I personally manage. This free is a perfect tool for small to large business owners who are curious how often their website is really down. Think about that moment your customer is ready to make a big purchase and your domain is down; you just lost a sale and you didn’t even know it. Why stay in the dark and think everything is just Jim Dandy?

Use “How’s The” and regularly monitor your website’s up time.
http://howsthe.com

Must Text & Drive? Try This.

We here at Leading Hands do not condone texting while driving, however if you must text, try this combination. First purchase a Bluetooth headset and second get Dial2do.

A low end model Bluetooth headset can cost you as little as $40 and high end model can cost as much as $150. Dial2Do is a free service that will translate your voice to text. The program does a rather accurate job translating your voice; it also does a great job reading back your email too.

Before you get pulled over because you’ve got your head down texting, try the alternative and keep your head up and your voice forward by using this combination. This suggestion will keep you hands-free for your steering wheel and looking straight. I think the question we need to answer is, “What constitutes failure to control your vehicle?” Will this headset plus voice translation service still cause an accident while driving? Is anything other than driving your car a distraction?

Learn more about Dial2Do

Save Money By Supporting Your Local Restaurants

I was talking with my brother and his wife the other night about getting out and discovering the city. There are many resources right at your fingertips and with a little bit of cash, you can actually go a long way. How you may ask? Have you discovered your local independent restaurant gift certificate auction?

If you live in Birmingham, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Kansas City, Louisville, Madison, Mt. Washington, Valley, NH, Naples, Nashville, Sarasota, Manatee or Tucson you can take advantage of half-off gift certificates. You can purchase $50 gift certificates for $35 and $25 gift certificates for $15 dollars. The auctions occur at announced times through the year and the best way to stay in the loop is to sign-up for their newsletter.

Note: In Cleveland, the collective of local eateries is called the Cleveland Independents and they use Eat Like A Local network to process the transaction, however I didn’t see it listed on Eat Like A Local’s homepage.

I’ve used this service and love it, have you?

http://www.clevelandindependents.com
http://www.eatlikealocal.com

M-lab: How Fast is your Internet Connection?

How fast is your connection really? According to Website Optimization the average connection in America looks to be 300k, which means a page loads in 7.5 seconds. There are a bunch of tools to see how fast your webpage loads, like Pingdom.

A new website launched the other day called M-lab will determine how fast your Internet connection from your ISP (Internet Source Provider) is going. The hope of M-lab is to transform Internet transparency and sustain a healthy, innovative Internet. Cox Communications, the country’s third-largest cable company, said this week it will test a system that temporarily slows some data to let more time-sensitive traffic through. This means some users will get preferential treatment, which has net neutrality advocates up in arms.

Do you find M-lab useful?
http://www.measurementlab.net

ADD Overload on FX?

The other day I was watching FX during a commercial break and at the bottom of the screen I saw a scroll of information. Growing up as a kid, the only time you saw a scroll of information at the bottom of the screen was either for severe weather or breaking news. This time, the scroll said the name of the movie I was watching, the actors that were in it and the name of the commercial playing.

There are some TV stations like Bloomberg for example that have every section of the screen covered with scrolling boxes of information. Has text messaging, twittering, instant messaging, emailing and just overall multitasking brought us to being hit with info at all times? Is this example of scrolling information during commercial breaks on FX a reason to signify an increase in our acceptance of information overload?

How much information do we need during commercial breaks?

Hope in the Crisis

If you are one of the thousands of Americans suffering from the Mortgage Crisis, then there may be a glimmer of hope for you. HOPE NOW was just launched as an alliance between HUD approved counseling agents, servicers, investors and other mortgage market participants that provides free foreclosure prevention assistance.

Hope Now offers free mortgage help :

• Hotline Service 1-888-995-HOPE
• Housing Counselors
• Homeowner Help
• Local Events
• Help Online Resources

NOTE: The website is being hammered and you’ll be lucky to get through today.

http://www.hopenow.com

Write a Novel in November

National Novel Writing Month is here.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Do you write?

Do you Dream of writing the Great American Novel?

Starting at Midnight tonight you can start a month long race to the end of a Novel.

“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.” From the NaNoWriMo website.

The Prize? Being able to say I wrote a novel this month. (You then have a whole year to edit and revise.)

The site allows you to upload your progress to share and track your progress. Message boards are active and Local groups get together and write through the month as well.

Good Luck

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Save Money on Groceries

As the economy continues to slide, everyone is looking for ways to save a few bucks. I heard about this website called Grocery Game that matches your coupons to store with the lowest price. The reason it’s called a “game” because the system keeps track of the lowest prices in your area and tells you when to make the sale.

There website says, “For example, just because an item is on sale doesn’t mean its time to play your coupon. Our databases track the sales history on nearly every item in the supermarket, waiting to use a coupon on rock-bottom sales. Now, the best possible savings are quickly accessible to busy professionals, overworked moms, single adults or anyone who wants to cut their grocery bill by 50% or even more.”

How much does it cost?
A monthly trial of their services costs $1 and you do have to spend a second registering on their website. After that it’s $10 every eight weeks for one store.

http://www.thegrocerygame.com/