When looking at acoustic-electric guitar item listings, weigh good looks with the features you need.

Match your skills
On eBay, you’ll find a large selection of guitar brands perfect for beginners, intermediate guitar players, and pros, including Fender, Epiphone, Takamine, Washburn, Ovation, Taylor, and Yamaha. You’ll also find popular brands such as Jay Turser, Fender, Takamine, Gibson, and Washburn offering guitars manufactured with more advanced players in mind.

Choose a body
Acoustic-electric guitars with a larger body usually produce a fuller tone. A small-body acoustic-electric guitar usually has a pickup and is intended for amplification through a speaker system. Sellers sometime describe body shapes and sizes in item listings.

Archtop guitars: Archtop guitars have a curved top and hollow body that creates a sound perfect for country music and jazz.
Flat-top guitars: Flat-top guitars have a similar shape to a classical guitar. If you play rock, folk, or blues, buy a flat-top.
Make tuning easy
Tune your instrument accurately with die-cast machine heads (also called tuning gears) with high-precision gears (14:1 or 15:1 ratio). Sealed and lubricated to prevent dust particles from entering the machine heads, these die-cast tuning gears perform well for the life of your guitar.

Decide on strings
Acoustic-electric guitars use either nylon strings or steel strings. Nylon strings, used on classical guitars, produce a mellow tone perfect for classical, flamenco, and some folk music. Rock, country, blues, and jazz musicians prefer the loud, clear sound of steel-string acoustic-electric guitars.

Most acoustic-electric guitars use six strings, but others use 12 strings. If you’re just starting out, you’ll probably want to stick to six strings.

Acoustic-electric guitars pack the features of two types of guitars into one instrument. Like an acoustic guitar, an acoustic-electric guitar’s tonal characteristics develop in its top.

Laminate-top guitars: Composed of several pieces of wood glued together, acoustic-electric guitars with a laminated top produce a basic tone.
Solid-top guitars: Usually built from two matched pieces of solid, high-quality wood glued together side by side; solid-top guitars offer rich sound and sturdy construction.
As with an electric guitar, you’ll need to determine which type of electronics you need in an acoustic-electric guitar.

Active electronics: Guitars equipped with active electronics usually have a piezo transducer—a pickup that detects vibrations in a guitar’s body or bridge. A piezo transducer prevents signal loss under the saddle and often comes with a battery-powered preamp with three bands of equalization (EQ).
Piezo saddle transducers: Piezo saddle transducers are lightweight pickups, often used with a preamp (an amplifier that boosts weak signals so they can be used by other equipment) that’s built into the endpin jack. They allow you to connect to an amp. You will need to adjust tone and volume with your amplifier or preamp.
Dual source systems: Dual source systems have a piezo transducer and mike inside the body, providing lots of amplification, which is perfect for people who pluck strings rather than strum.
Guitars have no moving parts, so what you see is what you get. Examine the pictures sellers provide in item listings and verify that the neck and soundboard have no warps, cracks, or breaks. Also ask if anyone has modified the guitar. Unless you’re experienced in guitar maintenance, you’ll probably want an unmodified acoustic-electric guitar you can break in yourself.

To ensure the best fit for women and girls, you’ll need to measure the bust, waist, and hips.

• Bust: With your arms at your side, place the tape measure around the fullest part of your chest, under your arms. Make sure that the tape measure remains parallel to the floor.     
• Waist: While standing, wrap the tape measure around your natural waistline. Keep the tape comfortably loose.   
• Hips: While standing with your feet together, wrap the tape measure around the fullest part of your body between your waist and your knees. This is approximately 8 inches below your waist. Make sure that the tape measure remains parallel to the floor.

To ensure the best fit for men and boys, you’ll need to measure the neck, arm/sleeve, chest, waist, and inseam.

Neck: Measure the circumference of your neck just above the base and around your Adam’s apple. Place two fingers between your neck and the tape measure.     
Arm/Sleeve: With your arm bent slightly, put your hand on your hip. Start the tape measure at the center of the back of your neck. Run the tape measure across the top of your shoulder, down to the elbow, and then to your wrist.    
Chest: Standing with your arms at your side, place the tape measure around the fullest part of your chest, under your arms. Ensure that the tape measure remains parallel to the ground. Place two fingers between the tape measure and your body.    
Waist: While standing, wrap the tape measure around your natural waistline. Keep the tape comfortably loose.    
Inseam: Lay out flat a pair of pants that fit you well. Using a measuring tape, measure from the crotch seam to the bottom of the pant along the seam.

If you are looking at the Havahart trap #1025 for squirrel, may I suggest spending a little bit more for either the #1030 or the #1040.  All three models are good double door traps that are easy to use but, here is the difference:

The #1025 measures 18″ x 5″ x 5″ with a door on each end. (Bottom trap in photo)
The #1030 measures 24″ x 7″ x 7″ with a door on each end. (no photo)
The #1040 measures 30″ x 7″ x 7″ with a door on each end. (Top trap in photo)
 
18″ is just too short when you consider that when the squirrel has its nose at the bait tray, his whole tail is sticking out of the trap.  This doesn’t allow the door to close, letting him escape. After that, he’ll never go near it again.  The other two work beautifully. Of the three, I recommend the #1040.

Happy hunting!

10/21/06 Added the following:
10/11/06 Bought 1040 trap
10/15/06 caught 2 squirrels with it.
10/17/06 caught opossum      ”
10/18/06 caught cat                ”
10/18/06 caught squirrel         ”
10/19/06 caught blue jay        ”

10/15/06 Bought 1030 trap for friend (he says 1040 is too big to use in the location he wants it for)
I guess size does matter.

Oh yes, if this was any help, check the yes box below.

I have been looking to buy a motorcycle and a atv on ebay.  I bid on a Yamaha TTR125 that I saw go for a couple hundred more than my highest bid. A couple of days later I was contacted in My messages by a different sellers email address of the bike I was interested in claiming that the winning bidder failed to purchase. I was told that I had a second chance to purchase the bike at my final bid but I had to contact the seller directly with a new email address. At first I thought this was legitimate but I got suspicious when I realized that there were other bids higher than mine. I then received a warning from ebay about second chance offers. Apparently this is a common practice and ebay routinely notifies its members when this situation occurs. Thank you ebay. I just wish you could prevent this from occurring. I was one of the fortunate ones. Rick P.S. I just saw the Polaris Ranger for $2900 again  after being removed by ebay a few days ago. These people are relentless!!

What are Match Ups?
Fairly simple — You take two subjects, and compare them.  Then the subjects are voted on.
For example:  Your two subjects are Coke and Pepsi.
Find some photos and an image/video host, such as Photobucket dot com, and save.
Open a seperate browser and go to eBay MatchUps dot Com and click “Create Your Own MatchUp”
Name Your Subjects in MatchUp#1 and MatchUp#2
Copy and paste the appropriate URL of the pictures under the appropriate subjects.
Add a description:  “Which is your Cola of choice?”  or “Who wins the war hands down?”
And finally, submit your MatchUp
All members are scored based on number of match ups created,  votes received, and votes placed.
*Warning:  could be as addictive as the eBay blogs!
 

Someone on this site was giving advice on how to spot fake clothing; Dolce & Gabbana clothing in particular however, the information was only partially correct.  I myself am a self proclaimed D&G FANATIC!  For instance, i have a “D&G” grey hoody that says D&G Fanatic.  However, right under the D&G logo are the words “Dolce and Gabbana”.  Now I’m not trying to rain on anyones parade but that persons info is wrong.  I have a few pieces of D&G which i acquired fromt the “D&G” store in downtown Soho N.Y.C.  fully priced and VERY EXPENSIVE and some of the articles of clothing indeed say Dolce & Gabbana.  (the hoody was almost 800 dollars).

Now the real deal is this:

When buying “D&G” the cheaper brand, it can and might say Dolce and Gabbana on it . . . however when Buying “Dolce and Gabbana” it will never and SHOULD NEVER SAY, D&G.  “Dolce & Gabbana” is indeed the more upscale brand of the entire clothing line.   If you’re buying dress pants, expensive fabric blazers and such, chances are your buying “Dolce & Gabbana”.  If you’re buying hoody’s, jeans, sneakers, caps, sport jackets and other urban or sport apparell, chances are its “D&G”.

By the way and most importantly . . . the bottomline IS!  Keep your eyes open very KEENLY, and make sharp judgement calls when it comes to buying designer clothes because at the end of the day nothing i just told you will keep you from getting duped.  Look at the craftmanship of the clothes, not the name sprawled all over it.  Examine the look of the fabric . . it usually just looks cheap if you pay attention closely.

These dudes are making harder and harder to spot fakes.  (even though i never get caught)

In todays world there are items constantly being recalled and its hard to really keep track of all of them. So, weather you are a buyer or seller there you always want to make sure one of the items you are listing or buying have not been recalled. Ebay has taken steps to help all of us become aware of these produsts by listing information about the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) here also you can find more information on the uscpsc ME page which will give you direct links to the CPSC’s recall page.

So , weather you are a buyer or a seller please take the time to look over the information it could prevent someone being hurt and none of want that to happen.

Steps

1. Invite six guests tops, and even numbers whenever possible so there’s never an odd boy or girl out. Skip sleepovers for kids under age six to increase the odds that you’ll be snoozing at midnight instead of placing a phone call for a homesick child.
2. Ask guests to arrive with a sleeping bag and pillow in time for a no-fuss dinner (pizza, pasta). Designate a pickup time, such as 10 a.m., after a hearty breakfast.
3. Prepare activities suitable for a group of excited kids. Rent plenty of movies, pull out group games, or plan a simple craft project the kids can take home.
4. Ask a birthday child if he or she is OK with a sibling joining the party. If not, set up an alternate activity for the left-out sibling, such as a play date or sleepover. Or, plan an evening’s activity (games, a family movie), that will keep him or her with you–and out of the way of the other kids.
5. Give your child the good-host talk before guests arrive. If TV’s OK, discuss how long and what they can watch, and set an appropriate lights-out time. Remind him or her that solitary pursuits, such as computer games, prevent interaction instead of encouraging it. Suggest board games or outdoor play instead.
6. Tell your guests what your house rules are and let them know that you expect everyone to follow them. This should include explaining what rooms (such as yours) are out of bounds, as well as any limits on phone, stereo and computer use.