The Rigged-Up Net

Customers whose older iPods had poor battery life will get $50 coupons and extended service warranties under a tentative settlement in a class-action lawsuit.

Apple Offers $50 Credit for IPod Batteries

In Make 02 we covered getting Linux on your iPod to do things like play new games, image viewing, recording high quality audio- and now it looks like we’re getting video playback using a modd’ed Podzilla build. I just tried it out the new kernel, but I can’t seem to get the sample video to play- I’ll try more soon, let me know if you get it going

Play Videos on iPods with iPod Linux

Most American consumers don’t realize Internet merchants and even traditional retailers sometimes charge different prices to different customers for the same products, according to a new survey.

Study: Shoppers Naive About Retail Prices Online

Smoking cessation programmes that use text messaging can double the quit rate in young smokers, according to a clinical trial in New Zealand.

Text messages double young smokers’ quit rates

As you may know, you can order an iPod from the Apple Store with a custom, laser-engraved message. Apple has been rejecting some messages for editorial reasons. Think all these messages would make it past Apple’s screening process?

Rejected iPod Engravings

The departure of Scott Sassa as CEO of Friendster highlights the difficulties that social networking companies, only recently touted as the next big thing, are having building commercially viable businesses.

Social networking companies feel pressure

Until recently, most teenagers coveted sneakers and jeans. But to keep their place in the modern social hierarchy, they are pestering their parents for must-haves that are expensive, high-tech and constantly in need of upgrade

Parents footing the bill for teenagers’ high-tech desires

Drawing an impressive 1400Watts of power, Zalman include a full instruction booklet on how to daisy chain 5 300W PSU’s together to power the fan, and you get 50 starter cartridges free to get it spinning in the first place. Of course, you’ll need a serious case upgrade too, and we would recommend the CoolerMaster 821 Garage, which comes with a tasteful variety of electronic doors and leaves enough room for even the largest GFX cards in SLI and a Nissan Micra too.

Zalman get extreme with Pentium 4 cooling

How to overclock your new Athlon64… its pretty detailed and exhaustive…

AMD Athlon 64 General Overclocking Guide

The idea that animals live longer if they eat less has been shown to be not entirely correct – at least in fruit flies. For these insects, it is the type of food and not just the quantity that controls their longevity.

Low fat, low protein diet boosts longevity

More companies are taking action against employees who smoke off-duty, and, in an extreme trend that some call troubling, some are now firing or banning the hiring of workers who light up even on their own time.

Trend: You smoke? You’re fired!

Everything you ever wanted to know about batteries… how to charge them, how to use them, etc.

Battery University

You’ve no doubt seen Neil Clark Warren on TV commercials: He’s the affable, silver-haired gentleman touting eHarmony, the rapidly growing online dating site he founded five years ago. Or maybe you caught Saturday Night Live or Jay Leno spoofing his earnest manner and “29 dimensions of compatibility.”

eHarmony: Heart and soul

Competitive athletes are always seeking ways to improve their performance. The results of a new study indicate that they need only look in their closets. A paper published today in Nature suggests that athletes wearing red uniforms experience a slight advantage over those decked out in other colors.

Scarlet Uniforms Linked to Success in Sports

According to Mark Nuckols Tu’06, humans do not taste anything like chicken. The founder and CEO of Hufu, LLC — the company that produces hufu, a type of tofu that simulates the texture and flavor of human flesh — claims that his company’s product “tastes like beef but a little softer in texture and a little sweeter in taste.”

Tuck student markets flesh-flavored tofu on website

I had been looking for a case for my 60gb Photo iPod for some time now… Its been diffcult to find one that I wanted becuase I wanted the following features:

Anti-Shock – First off, I wanted a drop-proof design… since there’s a hard drive inside, I feel like the moment my iPod hits the pavement its going to die on me.

Screen protection – I often shove my iPod into my backpack or laptop bag. Usually this means it goes into a pocket in either bag that has other stuff in it – like pens, other cables, sometimes even food. I mean, how depressing would it be to whip out your iPod to find a huge scratch on the display caused by my pocketknife or my cell phone charger?

Click-wheel protection – for the same reasons I want to protect my screen, I believe the wheel needs some protection as well.

Removable belt-clip – sometimes, I want my iPod on my belt… sometimes I don’t. (insert mounds bar vs. almond joy bar joke here)

Alas, I found the case that works for me – the ToughSkin. There are lots of pictures of it on their site, including detailed shots of all the features and how all the different colors look.

I almost ordered one on their website, but found out that the local CompUSA carries it in their brick-and-mortar stores.

One last thing that makes this particular case interesting is that most skin-tight cases similar to the ToughSkin requires you to order the correct size for your iPod. So you’ll need a specific SKU for a 15gb unit, versus as 60gb unit since the 60 is thicker than the 15. Speck Products did a pretty good job with the ToughSkin and it will fit any and all 4G iPods – check it out.

I love it – highly recommended.

The state has evicted a Maui woman from a lava tube she has lived in for the last three years.

Maui woman is evicted from furnished lava tube

Home buyers who use lower-cost Internet sites could view as many home listings as those who use traditional brokers’ Web sites, under a deal the National Association of Realtors says it’s drafting to head off a federal antitrust lawsuit.

Realtors to change rule on Web listings

The Austin area ranked No. 3 in Forbes magazine’s 2005 ranking of the best places for businesses and careers among metropolitan areas.

Austin ranks No. 3 on Forbes “Best Places” list

The Houston area fares well in Forbes magazine’s 2005 ranking of the best places for businesses and careers among metropolitan areas.

Houston ranks in top 20 on Forbes metros list

The new study showed that both white and black people had increased activity in an area of the brain called the amygdala – which responds to fearful or threatening situations – when completing a matching task with images of black faces.

Brain scans reveal racial biases

When San Antonio-based Web hosting company ServerBeach started expanding, founder Richard Yoo looked to outsourcing to reduce costs and to quickly staff his growing firm.

Study points out outsourcing’s flaws

In a stunning victory for hardware makers and television buffs, a federal appeals court has tossed out government rules that would have outlawed many digital TV receivers and tuner cards starting July 1.

Court yanks down FCC’s broadcast flag

Low levels of social connectedness can adversely affect the body – lowering immune response and affecting heart health – highlight two new studies.

Being a loner reduces immunity and heart health

For many Silicon Valley employees, there’s a pecking order to valley companies. And it has nothing to do with sales or size.

Corporate cuisine: a tour

Make fire from a Coke can and chocolate… Really – I’m not shitting you.

Coke Can Fire

Allendale Pharmaceuticals president Gene Detroyer, left, and chief scientific officer Robert J. Staab pose with the Today Sponge boxes in the packaging area of Norwich Pharmaceuticals in Norwich, N.Y., in this July 11, 2002, file photo. Allendale Pharmaceuticals of Allendale, N.J., said Friday, April 22, 2005, that the Food and Drug Administration approved U.S. sales of the sponge, which was the favorite nonprescription birth control product of women when it was withdrawn from the market in1995. (AP Photo/Jim McKnight, File)

The Sponge

Fascinating:

Bug Tricks

San Antonio is home to four of the highest paid executives in the country, according to an article released Friday by Forbes.com.

Four San Antonio CEOs rank among the highest paid in America

Well that explains it!

The city’s score makes it the worst major city in Texas for allergies. Austin ranked 26th in the country, Dallas-Fort Worth ranked 36th, Houston ranked 50th, El Paso ranked 72nd and McAllen ranked 76th.

San Antonio ranks as worst city in Texas for allergies, study shows

Austin is the 10th healthiest city among the country’s 50 largest cities, according to a new study.

Study: Austin among healthiest U.S. cities

People love photoshop… and there are tons of tutorials for it. But its very expensive.

Gimpshop is a mod on the free and open Gimp image editor – and the UI emulates Photoshop… so if you love photoshop, but don’t want to pay for it… Gimpshop is for you.

GIMPshop for Windows

The GIMPshop homepage

We went to Disneyworld today and it’s supposedly the happiest place on eartth, it looked more like people were in hell.

Our Orlando Vacation: Day 3 “The Happiest Place on Earth”

A researcher at the University of Alberta has shown that parents are more likely to give better care and pay closer attention to good-looking children compared to unattractive ones. Dr. Andrew Harrell presented his findings recently at the Warren E. Kalbach Population Conference in Edmonton, Alberta.

Researchers show parents give unattractive children less attention

Rackspace, is once again ranked as the most reliable hosting company site this month

Rackspace Most Reliable Hosting Company Site during March

Designated the HP iPaq hw6500 series, the GSM/GPRS/EDGE devices are aimed at exploiting opportunity represented by the remaining sentiment towards pocket PC/exchange devices as well as the desire amongst corporate and SME users to have instant, always-on email in the same fashion as the popular BlackBerry from Research in Motion.

HP to deploy smart phones next month

So at about 2am, the building fire alarm decided to go off…. repeatedly…. over and over again until about 2:30am.

As far as anyone can tell, its a false alarm.

[grumble]

The way the ads appear now, it almost looks like your TiVo has been hacked by an outsider

“Icon” ads over commercials at TiVo

Seeing as the new iPods don’t come with docks, and no-one wants to spend $30+ on a bit of plastic or metal to stand their iPods on, I’ve drawn up a template for a simple, functional and attractive iPod stand you can download as a pdf, print out, stick on some card and assemble. It’s also released under a Creative Commons licence so anyone can distribute it or make improvements to the design and re-distribute it.

CC-licensed papercraft iPod stand