Naquada

Ok so really cool stuff came out of MacWorld 2005 (even if 2005 only just started!!)

The Mac Mini comes in the nice slick anodized-aluminum box we’re so used to now from Apple, and houses a slot-loading drive (DVD/CD-R), DVI/VGA port, Ethernet 10/100, USB 2.0, Firewire, audio out, a v.92 56k modem. Big box, but TINY at only 6 x 6 x 2.5 inches and 1.4kg!

Us prive is about $499 with a 1.25GHz G4 processor and 40GB hard drive, and $599 with a 1.42GHz CPU and an 80GB drive. UK prices are

So heres an idea, although not so sure in our weather here.. The Solio Solar Charger is probably one of the most clever (and easy) charger out there, attach a cable and press the button, that’s it!

Apparently Using cutting edge thinking from the fields of design, technology and environmental science brings you a product that increases the portability of you portable devices, makes you look cool and helps the environment.

Big claim huh?

Well, the Solio is the smallest solar charger with fully integrated internal battery, basically charge up the Solio and charge your device off the internal battery.

Connection wise it will connect to a wide range of PDA’s, Mobile Phones and even iPods, apparently it will charge your device in the same amout of time as it would normally.

Its a great idea (another one of those thinking outside the box ones..) Although not sure if the UK is really the solar capital of the world!! At only

Ok, so more toys.. the question here is MP3 for the car, we already know we have masses of Cd’s encoded at home (remember that 1TB attached storage!) I need to get some (unlikely to get all of it!) into the car..

I’d like cross fade (I hate silences!), playlist support, an easy way to get everything from iTunes or at least from the directory of music we have onto whatever media the in car system will use..

So.. two options that I can see;

The First is the Dension DH100IX head unit a head unit that uses industry-standard hard disks. You slot a Dension DMP3C compact 2.5

Now anyone that knows me, knows I love my toys, and I love my TabletPC.

I’ve currently using one of the original Fujitsu Siemens ST4110, which lets be honest is getting a bit long in the tooth. Its a fantastic machine, dont get me wrong. I take it everywhere. It have all my email on it, all my meeting notes, but its starting to get a bit sluggish, and the screen resolutions is pretty low compared to whats out there now.

I was looking at the Toshiba M200. It has a number of nice features, including the fact that its got a 12.1″ XVGA+ Display running at a resolution of up to 1400×1050. Add to that its 1.8ghz and its sounding better and better!!

Its also got a keyboard, which originally when I got my fujitsu, I went for a slate type tablet (that is one that has no attached keyboard). Now the slates great, light and slim, but its always handy to go ‘full note book’ and have a keyboard.

The tosh also has some gizmo’s that I think are just ‘cool’. Like the sensor that knows how the tablet’s being held (landscape or portrait), pressing one of the buttons on the screen rotates the screen to the correct orientation to how your holding it. You can also assign actions using the same technology. I assume this is the same as the IBM thinkpads that shut down when they sense a sudden movement like being dropped.

And there is still the docking station, so I can still use it like I do my current tablet; I like working in portrait mode, especially for email.

I’ve played with one of these breifly at work and it feels nice.. the screen especially is great, feels expensive and sleek..

So I just need to find the

I was remembering a few days ago about how things used to be in my previous job, not that I dislike what I do now, just some conversation sparked some memories..

I regularly wrote magazine articles, I regularly was asked to lecture and speak at conferences in russia, bulgaria, france, germany, spain, italy, switzerland and of course the Uk.

It’s strange seeing a document in russian with you’re name in it. It’s strange when people you don’t know, know your name. I really facny diggin out some of that stuff and posting it up here, its way out of date and really not of interest to anyone any more but still..

I’m not sure what happened to that, is it Kudos? respect? or something that doesn’t have a name? Do I still have it? or has it just changed?

I was talking with a customer the other day that had just ordered a Mandrake GlobeTrotter, the first Linux distribution that you can take anywhere to transform any desktop into your linux desktop. The GlobeTrotter system consists of the Mandrakelinux distribution pre-installed on a ultra-compact LaCie Mobile Hard Drive. When I say Ultra compact, we’re talking a 3 inch by 5 inch 40 gig drive, and designed by F.A. Porsche.

The system allows you to just basically connect GlobeTrotter into a USB socket on any PC and power up to enjoy a full-featured Mandrakelinux 10.0 desktop.

Any hardware on the host computer is automatically detected, and installed. The best thing though is that GlobeTrotter doesn’t make any changes to the host computer, so you can safely use the GlobeTrotter anywhere without worry!

The GlobeTrotter is $219 from the Mandrake Store

Research in Motion’s new 7100t Blackberry (not thats it black anymore!) is now official

Available from T-Mobile in the US (not sure if the UK have them yet or not), costing $199.99 with service plan. The new 7100t has quad-band GSM/GPRS so you can use it overseas, built-in Bluetooth, a large 260×240 colour LCD screen, 32MB of memory, and is only 4.23 ounces. The Keyboards a bit strange for a blackberry, basically, RIM have ditched the QWERTY style keyboard and replaced it with a narrower one that puts two letters on each key and uses predictive text (ala your mobile phone) to guess which letter you mean..

Most importantly.. its shiney… and colour

Update Reviews have started to trickle out on this little toy; New BlackBerry Combo Takes on Treo and RIM BlackBerry 7100t

Apple has filed for a European design trademark which may provide a tantalising glimpse of the company’s long-awaited tablet computer. The filing, made in May this year but only published this week, covers a “handheld computer” and contains sketches of what look like an iBook screen minus the body of the computer.

In 2003 sources claims that Quanta had been hired buy Apple to build a ‘wireless display’

Jobs has always downplayed any claims that Apple were working on a PDA as well as any sort of ‘video’ iPod.

In 2003 eWeek reported that they had a hunch that Apple had produced prototype table Macs with some of their developers. Its not a well known fact but Apple OSX has somethign called Inkwell, a technology born out of the development done on the Newton OS.

The device eWeek was hinting at was described as ‘..a device that superficially resembles a large iPod with an 8in diagonal screen, lacks a keyboard, packs USB and FireWire ports, and runs Mac OS X along with a variety of multimedia goodies..’.

I love Mac OSX, its just so much better and more flexible than Windows. I currently use a Fujitsu Tablet PC for my office applications, and a normal Dell D600 for my non office tasks (software demo’s etc). If Apple did bring out a Tablet Mac I’d swap like a shot, although the Tablet Mac would have to have some sort of docking system, something like the Compaq TCxxxx range with its detachable screen or the Toshiba twist and close.

The Apple Expo Paris may prove exciting… Time to start saving just in case…

Now the AirPort Express with AirTunes is up and running, I need the ability to remotely control what music is playing without having to run up stairs to the Mac and select something new..

Apple produce an SDK for iTunes allowing developers to interface with it. The iTunesCOMSdk provides access to the underlying component model of iTunes. You can navigate audio sources and playlists, initiate format conversions, add artwork, create playlists and so on

Jeff at ManicWave has shown some teasers for something called ‘eyeTuner’ the current codename for his PocketPC based iTunes remote control. Allowing access to a list of iTunes sources (cd, playlists, ipod, etc), selecting a track or artist, and selecting next, previous, or pause. eyeTuner also will stream back album art to display on the now playing display as well. Now the ideas of this along with AirTunes is something worth dribbling over…

Although hes talking about being able to skin eyeTuner now, the project still seems to be unreleased.. which is a shame..

I’m been looking at the LaCie Bigger Disk and Bigger Disk Extreme 1.6 TeraByte Firewire storage drive.

I saw one of these drive in use on a customer site this week (although it was the smaller half terabyte version ) and was very impressed, windows just saw it, and it formatted so fast!!!

The nice thing about this is that it has firewire 400 and firewire 800 as well as USB 2.0, and more importantly they can be daisy chained to create huge storage systems..

The 1.6TB unit comes in at about