Hey Morgan,
I think I run my mouth enough without having to get into Twitter. I probably should though. Because there are some things really worth saying. But how many things I’ve won might only prove how much of an addiction this has become. I don’t need a “smoking gun” every time I buy something. But thanks for the compliment for the idea I raised. Your little piece of software has become addictive too. Even when I not bidding on something, I use it to track the prices of what things sell for that I might be interested in. So your tool is indispensable for my daily obsession.

Something along the same line as my original idea, might be to consolidate the prices/pricing of each unit into a single field. Just like the description/seller/location would be. That way, the depth of both columns would match each other in height. It’s much easier to scroll up or down than to have things going out of the bounds of your screen horizontally.

Xavian-Anderson Macpherson
ShingoshiDao

Hi -

The URL for eBay’s “200 at a time” page appears to have changed, at least on its UK site:

http://my.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyEbayBeta&CurrentPage=MyeBayNextWatching&SubmitAction.ItemsPerPageSave=x&CustomizedContainer=240&ItemsPerPage=200&ViewMYEBAY_NEXT_CONTAINER_CUSTOMIZE&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:COUNT:200&View=WatchingNext#GoTo240

Any chance of a new pre-release, or a source download for 2.1pre4?

Cheers,
Alex

Greetings,
@cowbutt – The source is available at http://github.com/cyberfox/jbidwatcher via git.

I’m working on too many things at once, but I’ve made a LOT of JBidwatcher changes. I’m experimenting with a 2.1pre5 at http://enhanced.jbidwatcher.com but I’m not sure how good it is yet. (I haven’t had the chance to test it on all platforms.) ‘Enhanced’ is actually a re-implementation of the static JBidwatcher site as a dynamic Rails site, so not everything will work just yet.

I’d love to hear if that version is any better for your issues. It’s not an official release, or anything close, but it’s got a LOT of changes, so it might help. PLEASE, if you download it, LET ME KNOW how it goes!

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Morgan my man!
I’m about to test putting JBidWatcher on a USB stick. The idea here is to be completely mobile and NOT restricted to my personal home computer. I can easily see situations where I may be away from home and need to bid when I’m out of town. The one thing I want clarification on, is whether or not all of the files essential for the running of JB will remain on the USB stick? Is there anything written to the registry that will defeat this ability?

I also intend to put Firefox, Thunderbird and ClamAV on the stick as well. That way, I can check my accounts independent of the programs running on the machine that I’m using. I guess I will also need to install Java on the stick as well. If you have any ideas as to what else may be needed for a completely mobile setup, please post it here. I don’t think I will be the only one interested in this capability.

Xavian-Anderson Macpherson
ShingoshiDao

Ok, I’VE SCREWED UP!!
I tried to update JAVA to the latest version. But I’ve been getting nothing but errors ever since. Now I keep getting the message that JBidwatcher needs jre-.1.5.0, but I can’t seem to get it to install. I’m in trouble here and don’t know how to fix this. Since I’m running JBidwatcher in Wine, my control panel may not be functioning properly. I tried to remove Java from the control panel, but the files are still on disk. Every time I try to reinstall Java, it tells me it’s already installed. I suspect there’s a problem now with my registry. But I don’t know where to manually delete the Java files in the registry.

I’m still trying to work out the solution here. But any help would be appreciated. I will continue to update this post with new edits as to what I experience here.

Xavian-Anderson Macpherson
ShingoshiDao

Ok, here’s the stupid newbie question…
I’ve managed to follow the instructions for installing and running JBidwatcher on Linux natively. When I run the command you gave (here: java -cp main/main.jar com.jbidwatcher.app.JBTool “Bid Number”) for adding bids, it works correctly. But now I have to figure out how to get the GUI open and running.

I created a small script called jbid_run. It simply does the following:
java ~/jbidder/main/main.jar com.jbidwatcher.app.JBTool

But this is the error I get instead:
bash-4.0$ ./jbid_run
Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: /home/shingoshi/jbidder/main/main/jar
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: .home.shingoshi.jbidder.main.main.jar
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)
Could not find the main class: /home/shingoshi/jbidder/main/main.jar. Program will exit.
Press any key to continue…

It seems like I’m using the wrong portion of JB to open it up. Can you please explain how to do this. I’m running out of time to fix this problem.

Xavian-Anderson Macpherson
ShingoshiDao

I fixed it with RADICAL surgery!
I deleted/renamed my entire Wine directory and reinstalled it. Everything is now working as it should. My registry was so badly corrupted that I had no other choice.

I was so panicked about this, that it taught me an invaluable lesson. Nothing is more important to me right now on my computer than JBidwatcher. Well, maybe it’s not the most important. But because of the role I expect it to play in major decisions I make about spending my money, it’s certainly one of the highest. I don’t think I’m going to install anything else in Wine that’s not critical to, or won’t compromise my operations on eBay. Now how’s that for praise…

Xavian-Anderson Macpherson
ShingoshiDao

Ooh, shiny reply box – not used beast before.

Just tried the 2.1pre5 on Windows 7 (via installer) from http://enhanced.jbidwatcher.com that Morgan mentions above. Successfully bid and very successfully sniped on two separate auctions. Multisnipe not tested as I’m only after odd items at the moment.

I’m an ebay.co.uk user, and all the odd behaviour when getting My Ebay Items seems to be cured, and everything works swimmingly in the very simple use case I’ve tried (fresh install, configure, get items, bid and snipe).

Hi,

i’m running ubuntu and i’m getting “jbidwatcher can’t access the database…”. Normally this means that there is another instance running. This is not the case. When i’m running it in a console with “java -jar Jbidwatcher…” everything seems normal and he doesn’t give an error message.

anysuggestions?

Thanks,

nenduvel

Greetings,
@nenduvel – The ‘java -jar’ command is how I recommend it be run; what are you using to run it without that? Also, make sure you’re using Sun’s Java, not the default which is unfortunately usually one of the not-really-complete Java versions.

@bigalex – Glad to hear 2.1pre5 is working well for you! Especially under Windows 7, a platform I sadly have no way to test.

@Xavian – Why run JBidwatcher in Wine when it usually runs fine on Linux using Sun’s Java? Don’t use the JBTool method; that’s solely for debugging, and doesn’t run a full instance of JBidwatcher. Use the command line:

java -Xmx512m -jar JBidwatcher-2.1pre5.jar

JBidwatcher generally works okay on a USB stick, although I’ve had some trouble on some platforms. What you want to do, though, is pass the ‘—usb’ parameter when launching it, even the first time. What that does is use the user’s current directory (whatever that may be) as the ‘home’ directory, aka where JBidwatcher stores all its files.

This also means that if you run it with two different ‘current’ directories, it won’t know anything about the other one. This is a cheap way to fake multiple user accounts, as well as being useful for USB sticks.

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

I am using jBidwatcher 2.1pre4 on Puppy Linux 4.2.1. When I select “Get My Ebay items”, jBidwatcher retrieves all items on my Ebay summary page (including completed auctions) and puts them in the “Current” tab. I would like to have only items that I am currently Watching/Bidding on the “Current” tab. What can I do to correct this?

Correction: It puts everything in the “My Ebay” tab, not the “Current” tab.

Morgan – installed pre5 on Mac running 10.6.2 and it appears that is fixed the issues I was having with pre4 (had to manually log in and the color shading was lost until config save, and unknown sellers and feedback values). THANKS. Happy Holidays to you and your family!

Thanks (I think!) for jBidwatcher 2.1pre4.“I think” because it has worked wonderfully in spite of a few odd items.Today appears as Jnuary 30th,but with correct time in top rh corner.Aution server time appears correct when checked and synchronize time has no effect.Computer time agrees perfectly with everything except date!Never noticed this before and log looks normal with usual sign ins etc.(running Windows XP pro with latest updates, gongs, bells and whistles plus latest Sun Java)Next snipe set for January 1st, so I’ll see what happens.Some items still show as buy it now when hey’re not, but easily ignored.All I need is a lottery win o pay for bids that work!
Happy New Year to everyone.

I have installed successfully JBW2.1Pre5 on my MBP 15 OS X 10.5.8 today, where I was not able to do so on my iMac OS X 10.5.8 at home. Both are Intel Core2Duo level with 2.6 or 2.8Ghz CPU.

I get an error message when I tried to launch 2.1Pre5:

Cannot Launch Java application
Uncaught exception in main method:
java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinError:/Applications/JBidwatcher/JBidwatcher-2.1pre5.app/contents/Resources/Java/libsparkle_init.dylib: no suitable image found. Did fine: /Applications/JBidwatcher/JBidwatcher-2.1pre5.app/Contents/Resources/Java/libsparkle_init.dylib: unknown required load command 0×80000022 (QUIT).

Actually the laptop is a clone of my desktop and I dont’ know why it did not work. I am still running and using 2.1Pre4 and snipe and won auction as of today, so I was not going to wipe out folders, and try to test this and that on my iMac (yet) and I wll have fun with 2.1pre5 with my laptop, seems like very pretty GUI and much easier to read default fonts, totally like getting a new car….

Now what do I do with all the good stuff I won? This sniping thing is so additive … man, I swear ….

Would someone please post a direct link to the latest version of JBidwatcher. I’d love to download it, but didn’t find it. Ok, so I may be dense. Just post the link, and I can get out of the fog.

ps. Why not just post a link to the latest version at the top of each forum page. That way, no one will have to ask again.

Xavian-Anderson Macpherson
ShingoshiDao

Xavian-Anderson – this is the alpha Morgan posted. Link is http://enhanced.jbidwatcher.com. Notice the site I a little different. I’ve installed on my Mac mini under 10.6.2 and everything works okay with tweeks that I know Morgan will work on. I appears that feedback percents are rounded up (scores above 95% are 100%) so check the website if you’re a finicky bidders. I think I just installed with the pre4 files so that may be a holdover. I just watched things also, so I’ve not bid on anything yet, but pre4 work fine so… Hope that helps.

Greetings,
Thanks @mhackney; I’ve been away for a little bit. I’d love to know what tweaks you’d like to see in JBidwatcher 2.1 from 2.1pre5!

Actually, that goes for everybody; I wish I’d put a message in, asking for feedback on 2.1pre5.

As for enhanced.jbidwatcher.com I’m working on switching that over to be the ‘main site’ shortly. Among other things it allows me to manage the site from the web, instead of having to log on to my shell account and manually edit the HTML each time I’m making a release, which is one of the BIG pieces of friction when making new releases.

Step by step, I’m trying to automate or make easy as many of the pieces of making a release as possible. A long time ago I made build-for-all-platforms-and-upload a one-line affair. Now it’s time to make ‘update the site content’ really easy…

I’ve also bought an SSL certificate for jbidwatcher.com allowing users of JBidwatcher running on OS X 10.5 or above to use the very common Sparkle auto-update framework.

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Greetings,
@zappram – I’m going to guess that you’re running in 64 bit mode on the iMac? If so, try setting 2.1pre5 to be 32 bit mode (Get Info on the .app) and see if that works. I’m adding a PList setting to direct it to use 32 bit mode for future versions until I can rebuild some of the native libraries to work successfully in 64 bit mode as well.

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Thanks for the reply. I tried to (get info) to set 32 or 64 bits, but no clue on how to do that from OS X end. So…. I downloaded the Pre5 again, and it runs now without that issue. I can run it now on both from home when I am home, at at the office when I go to work. I don’t know why the previous download did not work, perhaps a corrupted download, but somehow the image mounted and I copied to Applications folder.. but now it works, so I am happy.

Now… watch out, I am going to snipe something on eBay …. to fill my 2010 shopping cart… :)

Thanks Morgan, I’d just sent in my contribution for all your hard work to start off 2010 for you… guys, let’s send it to Morgan. Thanks.

Morgan,
I think there needs to be a way to independently set the width of the columns. The current behavior is tedious to work with. Any time you move the dimensions of one column, the others are affected. If there were a minimum width alloted to each column according to the size of the label above them, that would do much to eliminate this problem.

However, I would much prefer right-clicking on any columns tab to set and lock the width (maybe from a menu) at a certain size. That would always give you exactly what you without any other column changing the setting.

Xavian-Anderson Macpherson
ShingoshiDao

Sorry I was not clear Morgan. The tweeks I meant were really the little clean ups that you do: the feedback percent and number issues, but you’ve fixed in the latest pre5 version.

Morgan,
Another thing I would like to see is a separate tab for those items which have completed their auction cycle without having been sold. In other words, we would have two separate categories for completed auctions. The ones which have been sold would no longer require any attention. Since they are no longer available, they would only provide an indication of what similar items like them might sell for. However if you were tracking either auctions or “Buy it Now” items, you could still keep your attention on those items without being distracted by other items which have already sold. For me anyway, that would be nice. Since I often track items which don’t ultimately sell.

The tabs would look like this:
Current | Still Available | Sold Items | Selling

Come to think of it, “Selling” could be divided in the same way. As those who sell need to quickly identify which items have sold from those which have not at the end of their auction cycle.
That would give us something like:
Current | Still Available | Others Sold | My Auctions | Mine Available | Mine Sold

Thank you,
Xavian-Anderson Macpherson
ShingoshiDao