Hamster has gone and writ his-self a book.

JULY 11: JesusPhone hits the shelves (and waiting lists) in Australia

Are you on the list yet?

Never in my life have I “camped out” for a tech-release. This just may be the one that breaks me.

3G iPhone almost ready to go. Brace yourself Australia.

Apple’s 24-hour flagship 5th Avenue retail store in Manhattan is in the process of shutting down for the night. An unusual move for the 24-hour store. Apple’s retail page reflects the temporary shutdown:

Please note we will be temporarily closed Thursday, May 29 at 3:00 p.m. and will reopen Friday, May 30 at 9:00 a.m. During this time, please visit one of our other two Manhattan locations.

Employees are telling passersby that a commercial is being shot at the 5th Avenue Apple store. We’ve been told that Apple’s 5th Avenue store has only been entirely closed twice in its history: the iPhone launch and the Leopard launch.

According to MacRumors sources, Apple is actually filming a commercial for the upcoming 3G-capable iPhone with filming to occur inside and around the 5th Avenue store.

Updated x 5:

TheiLife posts photos of lights are being set up for filming. The site appears to be down, all photos are mirrored here.

Logical explanation for ‘Anonymous 5+4′ boxes (also confirmed by another report that these simply represent walkie talkies). Alternative (humorous) explanation.

shirtmkr posts these new photos in the forums (taken at 9:30pm): For the record, I have actually been inside the 5th Ave NY store and it remains one of the highlights of my retail life.. It’s THAT cool.. josh.

Hot off the Press. Trading Post to take on Ebay in Australia.

eBay aren’t the most popular online auction site in Australia at the moment. They’ve been publicly flogged by every man and his Reserve Bank for their plans to restrict payments to PayPal only in the near future, not to mention disgruntled sellers unhappy with new feedback options.

So it’s probably a very smart time for Sensis to take the Trading Post into the world of online auctions.

Today the Telstra subsidiary announced that they’d be launching auctions on the Trading Post website. And they’ve clearly structured their pricing model at disgruntled ebay sellers: it’s free to list your item, you get the first photo free with every auction, and you only pay when you make a sale. On top of that, sales under $10 will only cost you 50 cents, while the most you’ll pay for an auction is $24.95 on any item over $500.

Not only that, but they support a wide range of payment options including Paymate, bank transfers and credit cards.

I’m no Trading Post fan, to be sure.. but they just might finally be on to something here..

j.

Pepsi Raw: Can Pepsi Actually Make Something Natural?

Pepsi recently introduced Pepsi Raw to the UK market, their first new Pepsi drink in ten years. Currently only available in select bars and clubs, Pepsi Raw is promising to be all natural, slightly less carbonated, and less fattening. Why select bars and clubs only? Must be the health conscious customers.

The new drink claims to have 90 calories and have the following ingredients:

Apple extract
Plain caramel colouring
Coffee leaf
Tantaric acid from grapes
Gum arabic from acacia trees
Cane sugar
Sparkling water

J.I.T.C home base revealed!

I’m so gay

I’m picking up my pre-ordered copy of Halo 3 tonight at midnight.
I am obviously not the adult I thought I was..
I am so ashamed.
(and a little bit excited)
j.

New NetAlert logo

Leave Britney alone !

Savvy eBay trader makes US $500,000 in two easy steps

2 September, 2007 It’s a brave new world out there, and one can easily underestimate the skills required to make full use of the internet. Here’s one example that’s sure to illustrate the importance of basic internet trading savvy, and tickle your sense of schadenfreude - an eBay trader who leveraged the mistake of another to make himself a tidy US $500,000 profit, for a small amount of work.

The item in question is a bottle of Allsopp’s Arctic Ale - brewed in 1852 for an expedition to the Arctic led by Sir Edward Belcher. The ale had the special qualities of a freezing point well below zero degrees, and antiscorbutic properties vital for the period.
The initial seller made a vital error - he misspelt the name of the brewery as Allsop’s, rather than the correct Allsopp’s. This meant that an eBay user executing a search for Allsopp’s would not find the auction. One eBayer who recognized the value of the item managed to locate the auction - either by luck, or more likely, a tool such as Auction Intelligence which searches for common or obvious misspellings of words.
With the greatly diminished competition resulting from the inability for normal searches to find the item, his bid was only the second to be placed, and he subsequently won the auction for US $304. He then re-listed the item on eBay, this time with the correct spelling. The auction received 157 bids, and the winning bid was a whopping US $503,300.
The moral of the story is, if you have something of undisputed value such as a museum quality bottle of beer from 1852, you’d best quadruple-check your spelling before listing it on an auction site where you have no legal grounds to deny the sale to the winning bidder.
That’s gotta hurt.
j.