cellphone

In the last couple of days I bought goods from two separate TradeMe auctions. In both cases the goods arrived promptly and in excellent condition. It’s been the same for everything I’ve bought on TradeMe and for that matter the few items I’ve bought on eBay.

There are cheats and frauds about though, and many people have told their stories about problems with buying from online auction sites. Now one fraud has been removed from TradeMe:

Jin put up goods on two online auction sites, and people bought them and sent the money. Jin never had the goods to sell. He was easily caught because he had used his real name.

When he was confronted with the offending, he said he did it because it was easy money.

“That concerned me because it suggested a lack of any remorse and lack of any empathy with the victims,” the judge said.

Such offending could cause people to lack confidence and trust, and cost them money.

[Via : Online auction cheat to kicked out of NZ - 16 Jun 2008 - NZ Herald: Technology News, views and comment from New Zealand and the World.]

And in other news: TradeMe has a mobile version suitable for iPod touch, iPhone and presumably other cellphones:

We have launched a mobile-friendly version of Trade Me so you can easily check your listings on the go.

You can view your watchlist, items you’re buying and selling, favourite searches and more.

[Via : TradeMe - New Zealand Online Auctions and Classifieds.]

I had a quick look with my iPod touch, and everything seemed to work well and quickly.

Popularity: 100% [?]

At last: Vodafone to offer apple iphone in ten markets - Vodafone NZ:

Vodafone today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe. Later this year, Vodafone customers in … New Zealand … will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.

[Via : NZMac.com.]

Popularity: 22% [?]

A couple of months ago I bought a new cellphone: the Sony Ericsson K800i. I’m thrilled.

As with my previous K700i, the battery life isn’t really as good as it could be, but it’s fine. I charge it up every couple of days.

The screen’s a decent size, with good colour. Texting is easy, calls sound fine, everything works nicely. It does everything just a bit better than the old K700i.

But one of the features I really wanted it for was its 3.2 megapixel Cyber-shot camera, with autofocus, digital image stabiliser, and Xenon Flash with red-eye reduction. The phone itself has a 2-inch, 262K Colour TFT Screen (details taken from the product specs.)

And it’s a gem. I bought a Nutshell leather case for it and keep it on my belt. That means I can whip it out and grab a quick photo any time. The camera’s active as soon as I open the shutter cover. It has a few scene settings such as twilight, beach, portrait and so on. I’ve found I do get better results if I choose a likely ’scene’ than if I just leave it set on ‘auto’.

The photo in this post is a rather pleasing shot of my 6 year old cat, Ares, asleep on my bed in the sun. Aperture resized the photo and uploaded it to my gallery software for me, courtesy of ApertureToGallery, but I didn’t trouble myself to edit the photo in any way first.

In short, I’m very happy, and taking plenty of quick photos.

Popularity: 13% [?]