How to Sell Your Motorcycle on Craigslist

During my recent journey of looking for a motorcycle, it became evident how many people do not really understand how to sell a motorcycle on Craigslist. I have been searching CycleTrader.com and Craigslist.com for over six months trying to find a motorcycle, during that time I examined thousands of ads and did countless number of searches. Here is a quick list of suggestions for posting a motorcycle ad.

1. Use all identifying information in the title, for example, if your selling a 2009 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic LT, then list that level of detail in the title. Always include year, manufacturer, model, and specifics of the model. Listing just Vulcan doesn’t indicate the difference between a 750 versus a 800, 900, or a 2000.
2. List the details that are important to a potential buyer
a. Are you the original owner
b. How many miles is on the bike
c. Has it been garage kept or stored outside under a cover
d. When was it last serviced
e. Is it inspected? If you're serious of selling the bike you will get it inspected
f. List the extras or accessories, for example a backrest, windshield, lightbar, grips, engine guards, etc.
g. List any problems such as scratches, engine issues, or that it needs new tires, do not surprise the potential buyer
h. Include at least five good quality pictures of the motorcycle, one from each side plus one of the odometer. Do not list your ad until you have pictures ready to post!
i. Specify the title status, is it a clean title in hand or is there a title holder?
j. List why you are selling the bike, be honest, as it will help potential buyers. For example if you bought a bigger bike, then say so that this was a good beginners bike and that you are moving to a bigger bike
k. You can list the major specifications, but listing everything makes the ad unnecessarily long
l. List the price, but expect offers 10-20% less that what your asking

I hope this helps people write ads that lead to a quick sell of their motorcycles.

CITRT Update

The Church IT Roundtable has been awesome. The topics, people and the surprise visit from Rick Warren has made this a great experience! Check out the details at:
http://citrt.pbworks.com/Spring-2010-National-Church-IT-Roundtable

URR and IRB Approvals

I recently have received approvals from the University Research Reviewer and the Institutional Review Board to proceed to conducting research for my dissertation in the area of IT management in churches.

Spring 2010 National Church IT Roundtable

Check out the details for the Spring 2010 National Church IT Roundtable being hosted at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church (1 Saddleback Pkwy Lake Forest, CA 92630) on Thursday and Friday March 11-12. A pre-roundtable day will be optional for those arriving on March 10th. ONLY $75 for event registration AND meals!!

For details, go to: http://citrt.pbworks.com/Spring-2010-National-Church-IT-Roundtable

Avast! Antivirus Software

In setting up the MacBook Pro, I purchased and loaded Avast! Antivirus Mac Edition, which has a really clean user interface and Avast! offers a 50% discount for nonprofits, charities, education, and government customers. The discount is great especially when you are buying multiple 3-year licenses! Check out Avast! at: http://www.avast.com/

MacBook Pro

I recently had the opportunity to purchase and set up an Apple MacBook Pro for one or our church worship leaders. The MacBook Pro and the OSX operating system are sweet! It’s easy to get hooked on the interface and the thin dimensions of the MacBook. We purchased the unit from Consistent Computer Bargains (http://www.ccbnonprofits.com) who gave a good price on both the MacBook Pro and the three-year AppleCare warranty. While I was impressed with the MacBook Pro, I could have purchased at least two nicely equipped Windows laptops for the same price.

Another source for Apple products for churches is the Willowcreek Association (WCA) (http://www.willowcreek.com/), they also offer a discount for Apple products and software for WCA members that appears to be as good as Consistent Computer Bargains or slightly better.

Washington DC IT Roundtable - Wrap Up

First Topic: IT involvement in strategic planning of the church

Regular involvement with the planning, the good-fast-cheap concept is a reality and is used to force requesters to think about what they really need and their requirements. Outsourcing to Fellowship One and the use of Google Applications has reduced the labor requirements. Good way of collaboration is with the use of Google documents, still supporting some MS Office (none in the school), admin uses Office and the church is still all Office. IT volunteer nights (idea by Jason Powell @ Granger). 100% Cisco shop due to two Cisco trained volunteers who support the equipment.

Challenge is to keep up with growth, very much stove piped like, IT is challenged to stay involved, no vetting process of ideas, business processes are very stove-piped focuses, IT happens with and without coordination with the IT group. Using Fellowship One CHMS. Operations Team sits down with each group to understand and determine which needs to address. 10-year plan for IT and AV teams. Challenge is meeting all the demands.

Pastor not focused on long-term plans, tough to schedule/plan

Meet as a leadership team that discusses strategic plans, lots of information sharing across all departments.

Yearly planning efforts around budget time

Discussions with different departments, sold leadership on a SAN based on consistent argument

Second Topic: Extranets:

Use of SHAREPOINT for project management and for Intranet. SHAREPOINT eliminates the for shared folders. Requires lots of time investment for customization. Microsoft did free SHAREPOINT training for nonprofits. SHAREPOINT designer is the replacement for FRONTPAGE. SHAREPOINT hosting provider is mailstreet and tagit. Google sites is a comparable SHAREPOINT product.

Third Topic: Wireless

Examples of manufacturers of wireless access points recommended by IT Roundtable members: Xirrus, Cisco Aironet, Proxim, Aruba, Openmesh (low end), 3Com system relabeled Trapeze Networks

Fourth Topic: Virtualization

Using VM Ware, Jumpbox http://www.jumpbox.com/supported-virtualization-software

Citrix Zen server, ESXi popular with IRC chat members

Fifth Topic: VM backups

Equillogic http://www.equallogic.com

Buffalo terrastation www.buffalotech.com

Proxmox – has lots of backup solutions free http://www.proxmox.com/

Crashplan http://www6.crashplan.com

Sixth Topic: Internal Issues

Blocking of email: AOL blacklists quickly and is tough to get off of, use other sources for bulk email, need to get added to their whitelist. Rob uses Fellowship One or Vertical Response. Make sure the SPF records and Reverse DNS are set up correctly. Vertical Response allows up to 10K emails/month free for churches.

Use of Tweeter for alerts for church closings (Tweeter alerts)

Google Calendar works for room scheduling

AV media stored separately usually without back ups

Seventh Topic: WebPages

All Facebook and Twitter accounts are set up by the church with them as the first administrator and then the user set up as a contributing editor. Need for common themes and logos in all communications products and messages.

Eighth Topic: Email

Forever email storage for achieve purposes; Google lets you have 15G. Video and other multimedia files are the largest storage problem, encourage users to store files as separate attachment.

Are there any legal requirements for churches that state how long email need to be retained?

Ninth Topic:

IT Roundtable at Saddleback Church in spring 2010