Filed under: Text, Productivity, Google, web 2.0

As Google Docs slowly begins to take form as a legitimate office replacement, there are still a few glaring feature absences. One of those is the inability to add custom-formatted page numbers or dates to your documents.

If you don’t mind rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands a tiny dirty, Google Operating System tells us how to add page numbers and other information to your document’s header or footer. This involves a tiny HTML editing, so consider yourself warned.

Note: If you simply want page numbers added to your Google Doc, and you don’t need to customize them by adding color, size, or scheme, then you’re better off exporting the document as a PDF and selecting the bullet that adds page numbers to your document. In other words, the following method is useful only if you want more customization than Google Docs by default provides.

In order to add a header that displays, for example, “Page (current page number) of (total number of pages)”, open your Google Doc, click on “Edit HTML” (right next to the Revisions tab), and add this code at the very beginning of the code:

To add the same information to the footer, add this code to the bottom of the document:

Now that the code is in, you can customize it any way you desire.

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Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Consumer experience, World wide web, Competitive strategy, eBay (EBAY), Marketing and advertising

If nothing else… eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) users are a feisty bunch. After just coming off a multi-week sellers strike, they’re already planning their next revolt, tentatively set to launch Might 1.

The most recent strike was orchestrated in reaction to current changes made on the site and lasted from the week of Feb. 18 through last night. While eBay is steadfast that the recent site boycott had no effect on its business, not everyone is buying that, and are anticipating hitting the site again come Might.

Some statistics have shown that eBay witnessed a 13% drop in its online listings, but eBay denies any impact. The site claims that the statistics out there are not taking into account a 20-cent listings promotion that it had launched just prior to the boycott that temporarily inflated its auction listings.

We’ve looked a lot at the eBay boycott over the past couple of weeks, and we have repeatedly pointed to a couple key factors that are infuriating eBay users. These include increased final listing fees, removal of seller feedback, and changes that could result in some PayPal payments being held up to 21 days.

While all of the above were enough to ruffle some feathers, I’ve to believe that the ultimate “slap in the face” to sellers was the removal of the option for sellers to leave negative feedback on the site. Rate increases are nothing new to the site, which had to raise its rates as recently as 2005 and 2006. While sellers didn’t like seeing the rate hike, they ultimately accepted it as a cost of business. The feedback system however, seems to be a little too much for some to bear.

While it is still debatable what effect the most recent boycott had, organizers of this next boycott are hoping to accomplish more massive and better results from their actions. By taking around six weeks to get mobilized they expect a greater effect, and they are going so far as setting up “state leaders” and looking to form a superior organized approach to this upcoming boycott.

So far, the sellers that are joining up have claimed to be 1,000 strong and looking to attract a much broader base of users.

For all you eBay users out there… did you participate in your the most current boycott? Will you join the next sellers strike? As for the impact on the site, do you feel the strike had any impact what-so-ever on eBay? And one final topic of interest… which change made the site upsets you the most? Fee increase, feedback change, or PayPal change? Let us hear from you!

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Consumer experience, World wide web, Competitive strategy, eBay (EBAY), Marketing and advertising

If nothing else… eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) users are a feisty bunch. After just coming off a multi-week sellers strike, they’re already planning their next revolt, tentatively set to launch Might 1.

The most current strike was orchestrated in reaction to current changes made on the site and lasted from the week of Feb. 18 through last night. While eBay is steadfast that the recent site boycott had no effect on its business, not everyone is buying that, and are anticipating hitting the site again come Might.

Some statistics have shown that eBay witnessed a 13% drop in its on the internet listings, but eBay denies any impact. The site claims that the statistics out there are not taking into account a 20-cent listings promotion that it had launched just prior to the boycott that temporarily inflated its auction listings.

We have looked a lot at the eBay boycott over the past couple of weeks, and we’ve repeatedly pointed to a couple key factors that are infuriating eBay users. These include increased final listing fees, removal of seller feedback, and changes that could result in some PayPal payments being held up to 21 days.

While all of the above were enough to ruffle some feathers, I’ve to believe that the ultimate “slap in the face” to sellers was the removal of the option for sellers to leave negative feedback on the site. Rate increases are nothing new to the site, which had to raise its rates as recently as 2005 and 2006. While sellers didn’t like seeing the rate hike, they ultimately accepted it as a cost of business. The feedback system however, seems to be a tiny too much for some to bear.

While it is still debatable what effect the most recent boycott had, organizers of this next boycott are hoping to accomplish larger and superior results from their actions. By taking around six weeks to get mobilized they expect a greater effect, and they are going so far as setting up “state leaders” and looking to form a superior organized approach to this upcoming boycott.

So far, the sellers that are joining up have claimed to be 1,000 strong and looking to attract a much broader base of users.

For all you eBay users out there… did you participate in your the most recent boycott? Will you join the next sellers strike? As for the impact on the site, do you feel the strike had any impact what-so-ever on eBay? And one final topic of interest… which change made the site upsets you the most? Fee increase, feedback change, or PayPal change? Let us hear from you!

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the on the web investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Ford Motor (F), Marketing and advertising

The story of the guy in Australia arrested for going on a six-day, 1,988-mile test drive of a new Honda Accord brought back many memories of my own car-buying experiences — none of them pleasant.

First was the salesman at a nameless Hyundai dealership who in the middle of a test drive asked my wife and I to stop at a convenience store so he could purchase a pack of cigarettes. Thank goodness, he didn’t smoke the Marlboros while we were driving the SUV he supposedly was trying to sell us, but this idiot soured my family on Hyundais forever. Heck, driving near the Korean-made automobiles makes me nervous.

During a test-drive of a Nissan, my wife and I heard a rattle. The smooth-talking salesman — whose twin brother also sells automobiles — told us not to worry because “we will get you one without the rattle.” My wife and I weren’t impressed and NIssan is now also on my family’s do-not-drive list. Whenever I see a Nissan on the road, I try to change lanes.

Amazing, isn’t it, how one obnoxious salesman can ruin a brand in a customer’s mind forever. I’m sure that tons of people love their Hyundais and Nissans. Hyundai, which offers what it calls “America’s Ideal Warranty”, has some pretty sweet deals on some of its cars in its “Dollars & Sense” promotion: $3,000 cash back on the 2008 Sonata and $2,000 back on the 2008 Santa Fe. Nissan has plenty of deals for its 50th anniversary sales event.

None of these deals would impress me if I was in the market for a automobile because I am a happy owner of a 2003 Honda Element. Whenever this car rusts into oblivion, I’m going to purchase another Honda and another one after that because the vehicles made by Honda Motor Corp. (NYSE: HMC) are that good. My wife is as loyal to Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F).

Even so, as an automotive novice, I’ve difficulty understanding how the Honda dealership in Australia was snookered.

First of all, the 30-year-old unnamed perpetrator wanted to test drive a Honda Accord. Anyone who even knows the tiniest bit about vehicles knows that the Accord is as reliable as a faithful dog. Consumer Reports named it as 2008’s “Top Family Sedan.” To be fair, the Hyundai Elantra SE was named “Top Small Sedan” and the Santa Fe was named “Best Midsized Sedan.” No Nissans were given similar accolades. None of these cars, though, is in the same league as the Accord, which has been around since 1976.

The car should sell itself, which makes me wonder why the Australian dealership let some drive it without a sales representative present. Tracking it down through the desolate outback must have been tough given the large terrain. The Northern Territory alone is twice the size of California. Then, of course, is the Accord itself which has been redesigned for 2008 and gets mileage of about 22 miles in the city and 31 on the highway. No wonder it was tough to find.

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Software can save
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At least they’re creative about wasting money
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Tokyo shares end at lowest since September 2005 on US fears, weak
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New Docs Detail Colombian Rebel Ties
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Job skills for those with developmental disabilities
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Philanthropist working to cease Miami stadium
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Banff prize will award playwright money, time
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AP Top News at 4:21 a.m. EDT
Newsday - The flow of blood might be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the “burn” rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize

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