iPod touch

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% [?]

After watching the Macworld 2008 Keynote live blogging I found that Software Update wasn’t bringing up the goods so I downloaded and installed iTunes 7.6. That gave me the 1.1.3 update for my iPod touch, and offered me a paid software upgrade.

After a bit of updating and unplugging I now have fancy new features working nicely on my iPod touch, including Mail, a Weather widget, Stocks (don’t care about this one), and Notes (hooray!), as per Major software upgrade available for iPod touch:

With the installation of this major software upgrade, the best iPod becomes even more: the world’s best Wi-Fi mobile device. The upgrade—available from iTunes for just [US]$19.99—adds five more great mobile applications to iPod touch: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather, and Notes. It also includes such new features as Web Clips, a customizable home screen, and the ability to watch iTunes Movie Rentals on iPod touch.

OK, that thing about movie rentals is just a tease — in New Zealand we don’t have movies or TV shows in the iTunes Store, though rentals are promised for later this year, apparently.

I love the jiggling icons when you customise the home screen, and have moved the apps I most use to the edges of the screen for easy access.

Maps gave me some nice driving directions from my home to the Webstock venue (in case I forget how to get there), but Wellington’s very tricky, being on hills and all. The directions had me making a right turn by the monastery and driving down what is either a footpath with steps or no footpath at all — there’s definitely no road there.

I haven’t yet discovered how to set a Home address. And that picture of our house … still several years out of date. Must read a tutorial or watch a demo: “Your location could not be determined.” What’s that about?

Update:

Get directions and check traffic with Google Maps. Even find yourself, wherever you are. Using some local Wi-Fi networks (if Wi-Fi is turned on), iPod touch finds your approximate location and gives directions from there.

Via: iPod touch Maps.

I’ll be glad to add notes to the Notes app, instead of hijacking an Address Book entry’s Notes field. Weather confirmed that today’s nice and warm and sunny.

Mail gave me a bit of a shock. I’m now so used to using Gmail’s web interface on Mac or iPod that I wondered why I had several separate messages for one ‘conversation’ in my In Box. Writing a test message though was cool: I typed m in the To: field and was able to select an Address Book entry from the list of those containing the letter m.

It was darned easy to set up: it required only name, email address and password, after selecting Gmail as the provider. Mail seems a bit slow though: after selecting an InBox message it swiftly changes to the message content screen, but the content takes a while to show up.

Oh, and I know I may have a small mind — easily amused — but I’ll delete messages all day just to see the animation of the wee trash can tilting, opening its lid and sucking in the message. But then I still love the ‘puff of smoke’ when deleting items from the Dock on the Mac.

Worth NZ$30? Yes.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Nice! I often read emails on my iPod touch, using Gmail via Google Apps. I seldom write any on the iPod though because entering addresses can be a pain, and typing isn’t that friendly either.

But now Google have updated the interface for iPod and iPhone, and it’s very handy indeed: — New Gmail for the iPhone:

We’ve just released a new look and feel for the mobile version of Gmail on your iPhone. Our goal: make Gmail fit nicely as part of the latest Google on your iPhone experience. This means that we had to make Gmail faster and more fluid.

To do that, we decided to use AJAX–a powerful set of web development techniques that make web pages more responsive. We also implemented two of the coolest and most requested features for this release: pre-fetching and auto-complete. Now when you use Google on your iPhone, Gmail will automatically pre-load all your most recent messages for you. So when you decide to read a message it will be on your screen in a snap.

Address auto-complete is my favorite new feature–and one of the most requested. I wanted to be able to type a full email address in under two seconds on the iPhone. With auto-complete you can often get the right email address on your screen within 2-3 key strokes.

[Via Official Gmail Blog: New Gmail for the iPhone.]

Looks good to me.

Popularity: 30% [?]