eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition

Acknowledgments

I’d like to start by thanking Dale Dougherty and Rael Dornfest for coming up with this terrific series of books, and Tim O’Reilly for talking me into writing this particular volume.

Thanks to Dale Dougherty and Rael Dornfest (again) for their guidance and steadfast ideas of exactly what a “hack” should be. Additional thanks to Ruth Kampmann, Nancy Kotary, and Jim Sumser for their roles in the bizarre series of events that led to the inception of this book. Thanks to Brian Sawyer and Jamie Peppard for their help on this second edition.

Thanks to Adam Trachtenberg, Jeffrey P. McManus, and Jeff Huber of eBay for their help with the eBay API and some other aspects of the marvelous, sometimes mysterious, and always-changing computer system behind the curtains at eBay. I’d also like to thank Todd Larason, who provided code that served as the basis for many of the scripts in Chapter 8.

Thanks to Shannon Sofield, Dave Nielsen, and Dave Burchell (authors of PayPal Hacks), who provided insight, workarounds, and code, some pieces of which have wriggled their way onto the pages of this book.

Thanks to my sister, Deborah Karp, for her help with some of the backdrop advice in Chapter 5 and inspiration for “Sell a Broken VCR on eBay” [Hack #51] .

An extra-special hello to Addie, whose photo can be found somewhere in this book. And thanks to my brother, Jeffrey A. Karp, who not only is responsible for the aforementioned photo, but made a contribution to my last book, Windows XP Annoyances for Geeks, Second Edition, for which he was not properly attributed. He was also bitten by the dog featured in Figure 5-11.

Finally, my everlasting love to my partner, Torey Bookstein. Taffeta darling!