Actually, I usually just bid my maximum, and not 
necessarily near the end of the auction.  I 
sometimes get sniped (almost always by the same 
person, by the way).  It used to annoy me but 
obviously they are willing to pay more than I 
am.  I've already bid my maximum, so even if the 
sniper had outbid me hours or even days before 
the end, I wouldn't put in another bid.  There 
have been a few times where I waited until close 
to the end of the auction, but with my slow 
connection, I never push it to within the last 60 
seconds.

One thing I do, though I don't know if this 
matters or not, is to never bid a round number.  
For example, if I wanted to bid $50, I would 
actually bid some random number in that range, 
like $52.  I don't know how many people do this, 
but I can imagine someone guessing my bid is $50, 
so bidding $51 and winning it.  I wouldn't want 
to miss out just because of that $1.  They're 
less likely to guess the $52 and bid $53, so 
they'd have to go much higher (or use the same 
technique as me and happen to pick a higher 
number than I did).