Too big, and too small
Possibly the two most annoying things in the nerdy universe are at either end of the scale. At one end, are the stupid Mac Mini “competitors” which turn up on Engadget/Digg/Gizmodo, each one smaller than the other, each more useless than the other. Few of them have optical drives, which is useless, few have a processor faster than 1.5ghz a sort of speed reached 4 years ago and more. Some even lack a harddrive. Honestly, what is the point.
At the other end of the scale are the holographic optical drives, supposed to compete with blu-ray and HD-DVD and supposed to hold 1tb or so. Once again they are pointless, they will cost the earth, be slower than harddrives and not be as succesful as blu-ray and HD-DVD anyway. Come developers, stop trying to make the biggest/ smallest and do something useful.
Don’t buy these…
iSkin
I bought this so that I could protect my beautiful iPod from getting scratched and looking minging. Once I put it on, I soon realised that it certainly made it minging and bulky, not to mention the pocket fluff that became stuck to it like a magnet. Over all, this is a pointless product onless you have either an iPod nano (which is small enough for this to work) or have cavernous pockets, that are free of fluff. Oh, and if you must buy something, buy a metal one off the internet, it costs about the same as the overpriced iSkin.
HP Home Photoprinter
I’m not exactly sure what model mine is, only I’m sure that it doesn’t work. My family already have a B&W laserjet 4L from HP and it has been brilliant, about nine years old, and I haven’t had a single problem with it, fast, reliable and economic I would recommend this to anyone. So, when my crappy Canon S200 bubblejet broke about a year ago, I was happy to choose an HP photo printer, it should have all the good bits of the Laser, but with colour. Not so, it worked not to bad at first, good quality, the only slight problem being that it neede lots of photo paper loaded to acknowledge its existence. This problem soon got worse however, as it decided not to acknowledge any paper loaded whatsoever, then today only about a year after purchase, it finally decided not to turn on, and that was that. Major suckage.
Gunz!
Ever wondered what would happen if you emptied a pistol into a wall, or maybe a lock, or a door even. This website is brilliant, chances are it will answer any of your schoolboy fantasies of shooting things and it is well illustrated, with conclusions at the end of each “test”. The guy who runs it seems to be some crazed bored pensioner in the USA, who has a fixation for shooting things, but hey! It’s great fun.
PodPod
This nifty little contraption is called the PodPod, and it’s a small portable speaker system for all iPods. It needs no batteries (it’s powered from the iPod battery), and costs only £14.99 from ipodworld.co.uk. That website is a legend, they have everything you need for your iPod. It’s great!
Fake Apple Products
Saw this on Digg. Kinda amusing to see all the faked Apple products, although obviously none of them are as cool as the real thing, especially iMac G5 fakes!
Damn Small Linux
Damn Small Linux, (DSL) is brilliant. Until today, I was a Linux n00b, but not any longer. Basically, it is a 50mb operating system, that can be used from a bootable CD, or can be installed on your hardrive (although I would recommend the former). It has a few programs in it, like Firefox, Dillo (linux webrowser), Beaver (text editor), some random spreadsheet program, image viewers, Xpaint and many more.
It is also very easy to get, merely download the iso and burn it to a disk (selecting “burn image”). Once burned, boot your computer, enter the BIOS, and enable booting from CD. Reeboot your PC with the disk in the drive, and your ready to go. The entire process took me only about 5minutes (not including downloading it) and I was astounded at how functional and neat it was for a 50mb free OS. Although I would never use it as a proper OS, it could be useful for losing yours, and your friends linux phobia, before you download a proper linux build.
Retrobrick
The name says it all, you can buy the worlds first proper mobile phone on here, except that instead of costing $4000, it will cost you £59! Best of all, they all work, and some of them are digital, so you could use them in the real world. The website is also a UK site which is nice.
-via Digg
Custom iPod Earphones
Sure, it may look a bit like blu-tac, and sure they won’t actually sound much better, but then you will be sure not to get mugged with these sticking out of your ears. These, are DIY mouldable silicon bits, to make your iPod earphones fit better. Apparantely they also cut out background noise, but they aren’t exactly cool though.
iPods in Lots of Colours
This site will soon be selling iPods in 460 different colour combos. They’re also scratch resistant, very very nice.
via Digg
Light Bulbs Could Be Dead
I’m not really a fan of light bulbs, they hurt your eyes, they break and they aren’t very efficient. Of course, they are necessary though. Not any more! This report shows that a new discovery could turn you wall or table into a very efficient, bright LED. Wow! Very nice indeed. Oh, and they last longer than a bulb.
New iPod Unpacked
One of the biggest problems with new iPods, is that they never look as nice on the website as they do in real life. Scale can also be a problem. Engadget has helpfully done a post on iPod unpacked, with size comparisons to older models. It also shows off the packaging and the UI. Very nice.
-via Engadget (well, duh).
Finally…
I promised Henwood I’d give him the scoop on the stories of the new iPod but I must inform you with a happy heart the the U2 iPod has disappeared. I have tears of joy streaming down my face.
New iPod
Could this be it? I don’t know, but we will find out pretty soon. iLounge promises regular updates, but I’m not sure if it will hold up. It looks like it has a wider screen though, so maybe we will get video! Yeah, and there doesn’t seem to be a wheel. I will update you when more details become available. Oh, and check out iLounge’s Flickr for more pics. I can’t wait to find out more!!!
-via Engadget
Update: The Apple Store has gone offline for the time being! I can’t take any more tension.
Update 2: It’s out, no pictures yet, but I can tell you that it can play video, in Quicktime h.264 compression. It is called iPod (like wow man) and is thinner than the current iPod and has a screen 30% wider. Ships next week for £219 for 30GB and £299 for 60GB. There will also be iTunes 6 to cope with it, gosh, it seems like no time since iTunes 5. iTunes 6 will have DRMed a Music video store, for £1.89 apeice. It will also allow you to buy some TV shows and a few short Pixar films. Gifting music to other people has also been added. You can download iTunes 6 today.
Update 3: All pics and everything are here. It looks gorgeous, like a fat iPod Nano, ooooh and 20hours of battery life to boot.
Finally, do we expect a black shuffle? It would look good on the site.
iPod Nano
I went to my local Apple Dealer (Farpoint Developments) and asked to see one of the new iPod Nanos. And sure enough someone pulled it out of his pocket. And it is so small!! Even though I had seen the size in numbers on the internet, and even twizzled it about with a 3D thing too, I had just not realised how small it actually is when it is in front of you. It is tiny. And so thin. You must go to an Apple Dealer or Store and try out a Nano. The click wheel handles the same as all the other iPods, and the screen is a bit smaller than the Mini’s. Go. Try. Nano. (As you can see I am in shock over how small and nice they are).
