Ok, sniping: one thing to be careful about:

In some instances, if you set up your snipe to bid in, say, the last 5-6 seconds of an auction, you MUST make your bid increment high enough that it actually 'goes thru', and by that I mean, the first two times I sniped an item, I didn't get it, even though I sniped at like 2 seconds before the end of the auction at a higher amount, and the winning bid went thru 5 seconds before mine.

I'm not sure how to explain this real well, but maybe you will get what I am saying: there was a $150 item I wanted, I bid $50 as my limit, and with 8 seconds left a guy bid $65, and I previously set my snipe to bid in 4% increments to out-bid anyone else 'automatically' up until my actual top-end limit, which I programmed in at $75, so it went from 50 to 54, not enough, 54 to 58, 58 to 62, not enough, and for some reason my snipe went thru at $66, and my bid was rejected due to 'not enough of an increment', or some BS reason like that, and by then the item had closed.

All I am saying is, when you set up your snipes, BE SURE to increment as high a dollar amount as you can afford, depending on how bad you want the item.