It is new, and it is special...animation comes to E-Bay!

[Jon Goodman]

Hi, folks. In a special new auction, Rick Oleson and I have joined efforts to bring you a neat combination product for anybody interested in camera repair & maintenance...Rick's great Tech Notes CD and my Large Camera Light Seal Kit. Here, please take a look at it:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7543638148

You will notice this is an ANIMATED auction. Possibly the first on E-Bay...I don't know. A lot of work has gone into both products and a lot of work went into making the auction page a little more interesting for you.

Questions? Please let me know. Please notice...Buy It Now gets free shipping anywhere.

Maybe a "sticky" for this product?

Best regards,
Jon

 

[Jon Goodman]

I did an animated gif overlay using a trial product called GIF Movie Gear. Each animation is a sequence of 9 separate frames I drew. Each frame was scanned into jpg files. One of the toughest parts was matching the background color so that the animated frames didn't show as little rectangles. Oddly, the program doesn't provide a means by which you can incorporate HTML background colors. I would have done this if I had written the software...seems pretty like a pretty basic need to me. It was actually sort of fun doing this. If I do any more, I'm going to build a light box with a translucent top to make it easier to line everything up. In one version, I got the sequence out of order, and Rick's figure looked like it was moonwalking.
Jon

 

[Hektor]

Hi, I looked at it with an ibook g4 and the animation didn't work, - am I doing something wrong ?

 

[JoeFriday]

it worked fine on my Powerbook with OS 10.3.9 and Safari

I used to do animated GIFs like that with GIFmaker.. a freeware program for Macs.. haven't done any in a while, but it's fun

unfortunately, I have to inform you that it's not the first animated ebay auction.. I've seen several others.. but yours is the best so far

 

[Jon Goodman]

From what I understand it should work with any browser...the program isn't too difficult, and I kept the animations small with very little detail to make sure they'd even work on a dial-up connection. Thanks for the compliment, JoeFriday! Are those other animated auctions hand drawn? I've seen some using "stock" gif animations, but those are kind of lame in my opinion. I didn't find many freeware programs out there that were very good...unfortunately. I've not decided to buy this one. Seems like the $40 could be better spent elsewhere.
Jon

 

[Poptart]

Interesting. It's reminiscent of "B.C." because of the character's faces.
I bought a light seal kit from you years ago, I think. It worked great but I can't find the leftovers now. *sad emoticon*
And speaking of B.C., I have a Jesus pinhole in my eBay listings. Made it myownself.

 

[Jon Goodman]

B.C. has been one of my favorite strips for years, and I have no doubt it influenced the drawings somewhat. I'm disappointed nobody has noticed I'm "running with the bulls," though. I thought for sure there would be some Hemingway readers on this forum. Guess my rendition of a bull missed the target a bit, eh?
Jon

 

[jdos2]

it worked fine on my Powerbook with OS 10.3.9 and Safari

I used to do animated GIFs like that with GIFmaker.. a freeware program for Macs.. haven't done any in a while, but it's fun

unfortunately, I have to inform you that it's not the first animated ebay auction.. I've seen several others.. but yours is the best so far

Didn't work on my Safari- I had to use Mozilla, Firefox, or Camino. It's strange because other animated GIF's work (like the one of the moon precessing in its orbit on APOD). Hmmm. Then again, Safari is simply strange- crashing for no reason on Myspace (or as a Microsoft engineer would defend Apple: It's HARD to write good code!)

 

[Jon Goodman]

Thanks...I'll send the company who wrote the program an e:mail and ask them about that. Certainly important to know before any money is spent on it. You say other animated GIF files work on Safari? I could e:mail you the file and you could try it...the difficulty could originate with AOL (where it is stored). Please let me know if you want to try that.
Jon

 

[jdos2]

Please- I'd give it a try.
My e-mail is "jay-dee-oh-ess-two-at-mindspring-dot-com.

Wink-wink, nudge-nundge, know what I mean?

 

[Doug]

The animation appears to work fine for me with Safari...
Edit: version 1.3.1 (v312.3)

 

[jdos2]

It's not for me with Safari 2.0.1, build 412.5.

And I choose "Open image in new tab" after "right" clicking (ctrl-click- durn laptop with ONE stupid button) I get a new tab:
GIF89aµ–÷

 $ 3 #4$2 ! ! <"$#3$#'$,0.11- 0+3555)$&*$4.0$/221*&2*574'945EDC#D#Y+"B/!\3(D6)S:3C;1Q<0`;A <@)?@E@=A;(A;6A:EC8SE8hDICELQRYQUDD&GD6LQ&KQ8PM*PL8ST)TT8]`2bZ:dnbd)ce8mr:rv9HDEJCSNPCQKFRKUWTGXTTLAeRIfVJvZTd]Ws^`H`\Ga\UbZdd[teeFgeVlqEnqRqmFplZtuHuuViedkerqkdrjtxvfyttj^ˆsfŒwj–{s?{ƒ6{€H

And so forth. It comes up as:
http://www.members.aol.com/jgood21967/walk8


No animation.

 

[Jon Goodman]

If you click on that link it gave you, the animation sequence should work. I have not received a reply from the company...suspect they're having a day off. However other people have responded that it works well with Safari for them. I don't know what the trouble might be. There are actually two walk animation frames, walk8 and walk10.
Jon