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iPod Mini Dies for Science

Greg Koenig over at iPodLounge has disected one of the very first of the mini iPods to roll off the assembly line. The purpose was primarily to see if the unit could be disassembled for re-anodizing the exterior, but Greg also tested it to see if the internal 4Gb CF hard-drive could be extracted and used in another device, like a camera or PDA. Apparently the answer is no…for now.

In related news, the Creative Muvo2 4Gb has made its way to market, but an active aftermarket has developed around selling the units stripped of their internal hard-drives. Ebay lists dozens of the hobbled players, running around $30 or more for just the player without the memory.

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Treo 600 MP3/Ogg Ringtones

If you’ve got the Treo 600 — arguably the best cellphone/pda hybrid around — you may find this latest little program useful or fun: Lightwav is a program that allows you to program any old MP3 or Ogg Vorbis audio file as a ringtone, or as a replacement for any system alarm like emai or SMS notification. No more bleeps and blinks, no more bad Midi sounds — real rock and roll. Cost is just $17, which is a lot cheaper than buying a bunch of different ringtones that you arguably already own the rights to.

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Windows XP In a Paper-Back Sized Package

Vulcan has a cool looking new prototype PC that fits in the palm of your hand, but has all the computing power you’d need for basic computer functions. The FlipStart is a tiny Windows XP machine measuring just 5.8″ x 4″ x 1″, which is about the same as your average pulp novel. It runs a 1GHz Crusoe chip with 256 megs of RAM, which while it’s not enough for video editing or other processor-intensive tasks, is plenty for most computing needs. It has a capacious 30 Gb hard-drive and an integrated 1.3 MP camera, and also has a unique “LID” (low power interactive display) that allows access to certain features of the computer without opening it up or booting the full Windows interface. Price is unknown, but I’d guess around $1500.

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Barbie and Ken call it quits, why you wonder?

NEWS.com.au Article

“The couple’s business manager, Russell Arons, vice president of marketing at Mattel, said that Barbie and Ken “feel it’s time to spend some quality time – apart”.

‘Like other celebrity couples, their Hollywood romance has come to an end,’ said Arons, who quickly added that the duo ‘will remain friends’.”

Why is this a sign of the apocalypse you ask?

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Ctrl-Alt-Delete Goes Into Retirement

Well, unfortunately, if you’re still using Windows, Ctrl-Alt-Delete’s retirement has been deferred because Microsoft gutted its retirement package, but the keyboard combo’s creator, David Bradley, DID retire last week. Our pal Paul McFedries, keeper of the awesome WordSpy site and daily word e-list, paid tribute by making Ctrl-Alt-Delete the term of the day. In the notes to the term, he writes:

Today’s term was inspired by the recent retirement announcement of David Bradley, who, way back in 1980, programmed the original IBM PC to restart (perform a “warm boot,” as the geeks say) when the user pressed the Ctrl-Alt-Delete key combination. Also known as the “three-fingered salute” and the “Vulcan nerve pinch,” this classic key combo has bailed out untold millions of users when their otherwise unresponsive paperweights, oops, I mean *computers* had frozen solid due to a slight shift in the barometric pressure. It’s a tribute to the resistentialist nature of the computing beast that Ctrl-Alt-Delete remains a part of the Windows operating system to this day.

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Firebird is Firefox, Thunderbird is Fantastic!

If you’re still using Internet Explorer, you’re not only more likely to have security issues, you’re missing out on a whole lotta features in the latest release of the free browser Firefox. Formerly called Firebird, the updated web browser from Mozilla offers tabbed browsing,integrated pop-up blocking, improved bookmark management, extension files that can add amazon, google or any number of other search functions to the toolbar, or others that will remove banner ads or spellcheck anything on a page. It is easily the most powerful browser on the planet, and it’s super-speedy, relatively tiny, and very easy to use. Two thumbs up from ST Labs.

Also released in beta 0.5 is a new email client called Thunderbird which offers a great POP/IMAP email interface with tons of features including spam blocking and, get this, the ability to synchronize with Palm handhelds. For everyone who has been chained to Microsoft Outlook or Express as an email client because they need email syncing, Thunderbird now offers a replacement. Free at last! Free at last!

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Tiny 4Gb HD MP3 Player Under $200

Creative has released the new MuVo2 with the 4Gb hard-drive that we mentioned last month — but at a much lower price than it first debuted in Asia. The 4Gb model retails for around $230, but can be pre-ordered from 3rd-party vendors for around $200, which is quite a deal, especially considering the value of the removable 4Gb CF hard-drive. C|Net has a review, but we’ll wait until we get our hands on it to see how it really performs.