AUCTION SUMMARY. I was curious how the auctions were doing so I reviewed at the last five auctions that I have conducted and this is what I found.
- Auction 13 had 70 Lots provided by 11 sellers with 13 bidders
- Auction 14 had 76 Lots provided by nine sellers with 18 bidders
- Auction 15 had 70 Lots provided by 11 sellers and with 19 bidders
- Auction 16 had 66 Lots provided by 13 sellers and with 19 bidders
- Auction 17 had 51 Lots provided by nine sellers and with 10 bidders

It seems that auction participation is down, but maybe it was just the end of summer blahs and it will pick up with the Christmas auction. I have high hopes. Auction 18 is scheduled to start on December 6 and end on December 13. It could be a great time to pick up that special coin for yourself because no one else understands what you want. And, if you have been thinking of providing an item or two for the auction, the Christmas Auction is the time. I am accepting lot data now and you could help make this to be the best auction yet. Images are great, but not absolutely necessary so don't let that stop you.

IT NEWS. Having difficulties with your email? Well, you're not alone. I'm uncertain if technology isn't keeping up with needs or has passed them by, but one thing's for certain. It's getting harder to do the same things we did a year ago and it's taking a lot longer. Spammers, hackers, worms and viruses, ISP take overs and mergers, power interruptions, sun spots, ISP blacklisting, enhanced HTML email and heaven knows what else is taking it's toll on our ability to perform the simplest of Internet tasks. Sending email across the city or across the nation today can take anywhere from a couple of hours to more than a week.

It's still better than the old pencil, paper, envelop and stamp routine, but you shouldn't expect the quick delivery and fast turn around speeds possible only a year or so ago. It just isn't likely to happen or at least for a while. We have become so accustomed to the Internet delivering right now service, that we feel put upon when it doesn't happen. Patience is a word not usually associated with computers and the Internet, but it may be what we are going to have to learn and exercise more frequently.

If you send a letter through the US Post Office and it never arrives at it's intended destination, do you always know what happened to it and why? Not likely. Well, the Internet has many more things that can go wrong and cause even worse problems than simply loosing an email or two. I've no idea if it's going to get any better, but I hope so. I also have no solutions for you other than to recommend patience. If you send an email and expect a reply, but go days without receiving one, it might be a good idea to send it again or at the very least contact the recipient and ask if it made it to them. The worst thing you could do is get angry and the next worst thing would be to assume it was ignored. It simply may never have arrived.

Got a WINS related IT solution you want to share or a question you want answered. Send them to me and I'll post the question and an answer in the next newsletter.

Thanks for reading,
JD White, WINS#7