LON Loot cards to buy or trade

If you are looking for Legends of Norrath loot cards, there aren't many available. You can find some here (Lon Loot Cards to Buy or Trade)

Cheapest Mac Mini

The Apple Mac Mini is a great computer for those on a budget. It's also very small and portable. Finally is very quiet compared to most desktop computers. Those are my three biggest pro's for buying a Mac Mini.

Why a Mac? Well, I'm a PC person, but I'm not particularly fond of Windows. I like Linux on my computers. I have, however, become attached to Windows Server 2008 lately. All that aside, a Mac is great for the normal computer user. It's much easier for most computer illiterate people to learn. The Operation System itself is very elegant and is only available on Apple hardware (actually this is false, Mac OS X does run on some generic PC components but legally it is supposed to be used on Apple hardware).

The Mac Mini doesn't take up much room, since it is 6"x6"x2". It has built in bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n wireless, a decent dual core process, and everything else you need. There are optional items like a DVD/CD burner (superdrive) instead of the stock DVD reading, CD burning combo drive. One can also order more RAM and bigger hard drives. All of this comes bundled in a sleek little aluminum package. Read my article at supremetechs.com. It has more information about the Mini and shows you how to find the cheapest mac mini. You can also look at whats-hot-weekly.com for other great deals on Mac Minis.

TV tuner cards must be flooding the market

If you have ever wanted to watch TV or record TV on your computer, there has never been a better time to get a TV tuner card. I'm always looking through whats-hot-weekly.com for the best deals on things, and these are the best prices I've seen on these type of cards.

For example, the number one most watched TV tuner card at the moment is a PCI TV tuner card with remote for only $19.95. This looks like a bulk sale so that price won't be going up. They have already sold over 400 of them. There are many others for sale as well. There is one for $9.99. That could be the current bid price in a real auction though. I didn't look. The point is, these things are CHEAP. I gave $100 for the TV card currently in my computer. It was money well spent though, because it along with dual displays make for a very convenient work/play environment. I can watch/record TV while programming or blogging. Everyone should have a TV Tuner.

Find Niche Markets in Subcategories

One of the best arguments I've heard for looking at the most popular items on eBay was from this website. In it the author sources an expert from AuctionBytes. The expert's name is Ina Steiner. Ina states that knowing the most popular items on eBay is bad for the seller because they are looking that the most competitive items on eBay.

Now this is true for the most popular items on eBay all-around. The general most popular items are going to be the most competitive. However, whats-hot-weekly.com gives one the ability to drill down into subcategories and search by keyword. This is a MAJOR advantage for the seller, buyer, or marketer. Other sites, not to name any names, don't allow one to drill down into subcategories. They only give the top-level categories. Drilling down into the subcategories allows one to find great niche items.

I know this works because my wife uses the tool all the time to find niche markets. I prefer to code so I spend most of my time looking for new coding ideas. She asked me to write whats-hot-weekly.com for her. With it, she can find great niches.

There's another one of my sites that she uses just as often if not more so. I haven't released it for public use yet but it's a bit more focused on niche market research. I had originally planned on selling it but I've decided that when I do release it, it'll be free for all.

So, even though Ina says that looking for the most popular items isn't a great way to find things to sell, I totally disagree. Drilling down into subcategories lets one find items that have roughly 10 watchers but are the most watched items in their particular category. These do not have a lot of competition. They are great markets.

Slow day

There's not much to talk about today. I've been away from my office. No changes have been made to whats-hot-weekly.com. I do need some diggs from everyone who has a digg account. Just go to the main page of the site and click the digg button at the bottom. If you find the app useful, help me spread the word. That's not much to ask for a free app with no ads or such on it.

Official eBay Compatible App

Whats-hot-weekly.com is now a certified eBay Compatible Application.

After some minor changes to the site, it became certified. This allows me to display the certified app logo on the site, and I can also list the application in eBay's solutions directory.

Hopefully, I'll have time to work on more eBay apps.

Vintage 1957 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop

Being the guitar nut that I am, I love to look at vintage guitars. I'm also a Les Paul nut, as long as it's a full-fledged Gibson. Of course, vintage Gibson guitars are extremely expensive. If you are lucky you may catch a good deal on vintage guitars at whats-hot-weekly.com. Recently I saw a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop for around $1600. It hadn't reached its reserve but hey it felt good to see it at that price :)

Tickets Tickets

I'm not sure of the legality behind it all, but eBay is full of tickets. People sell everything on eBay. Apparently scalping has become a lot easier because of it. There are tons of hard-to-find tickets on there and whats-hot-weekly.com makes them easier to locate :)

Zippo Pipe Lighters

I've recently taken up pipe smoking. I quit smoking cigarettes last September. I realized that I still wanted to "smoke" but I don't want to actually inhale. So I just puff on my pipe to relax. Of course, I get a bit of nicotine from it but it really isn't as habit forming.

So I decided I needed a good lighter. Seasoned pipe smokers will tell you that butane lighters burn too hot and aren't good for lighting a pipe. Your best bet is to go with a zippo pipe lighter. These are great for lighting a pipe because they are specially designed with a hole in the side. This allows for easier pipe lighting.

I did a quick search at whats-hot-weekly.com and sure enough, ebay is full of them. I'll probably grab one of the cheap, plain metal zippos. I've lost probably $500 worth of zippos in my life.

What's Hot Weekly Advantages

There are other sites that do close to the same thing that whats-hot-weekly.com does. but those sites are limited. The number one ranked result on google for "most watched on ebay" is ebay pulse. eBay pulse only shows the top ten results. Whats-hot-weekly.com shows the top 100.

Another highly ranked site is watchcount.com. This site doesn't even allow you to drill down into the subcategories. I have a good suspicion why. I worked on the menu system longer than any other part of whats-hot-weekly.com. The menu is XML driven. Categories are updated bi-weekly at present rate. I store the categories in a MySQL database. This allows me to make less calls to the eBay API. It also makes the app a bit faster.

Watchcount.com also only shows the top 20. Again, whats-hot-weekly.com shows the top 100.

I put a lot of effort in creating local web services for the item lookup and category lookup. This allows the app to be fully dynamic. All data is transferred in XML format. I plan to expand on many areas of the app over the next few months.

Great deal number one.

Here is the first great deal I found using my new whats-hot-weekly.com application. I mentioned this on my first post but I thought it would be good to show the actual product I was talking about. This most popular item on ebay is in the Computers and Networking category. The actually eBay category ID is 58058.

These are transparent to the user through the use of the dynamic menu on the left of whats-hot-weekly.com. This menu isn't on the static version of the site yet. However, they can still be used by affixing the category ID to the end of the url.

For instance, to create a static page for the computers and networking category, all one has to do is use this URL:

http://whats-hot-weekly.com/static.php?catID=58058

This is pretty simple. catID is used as a POST variable. The only problem is that the user would have to know the category number. I personally find this by using the firebug extension in Firefox and using it on the main site of whats-hot-weekly.com.

On to the actual subject here, the deal. The deal is a $1 Web Cam. This webcam would be great for Skype and other video conferencing software.

I'll keep an eye out for other great deals, but why wait for me. The tool is free.

What's hot weekly

In case you haven't heard, I just released a great new tool for finding the best deals on eBay. This tool allows you to search by category or keyword. I wrote most of the site in javascript. It is ajax driven, which really just means that the data loads without a page load.

There is also a static version of the site. I wrote this so users could link to specific searches.

There are many uses for this type of site. For instance, you could look for the best deals, which I already stated. You could also look for what everyone is interested in. This could give you a good idea of what items would sell the best on ebay.

I found some great deals using the tool. There is a webcam going for $1 in the computers & networking category. The last I looked it had over 8000 sold.

The app shows the number of watchers, the number of bids, and the current bid price. For "buy it now" auctions, the bid count will be the number of items sold in the auction.

I hope you enjoy, whats-hot-weekly.com. Check back in the future for updates on the development process.