I have a confession to make: I am a iPod owner who dislikes his iPod. I don’t hate the iPod; quite the contrary, I really like it but am frustrated by it’s caretaker, Apple. For everything Apple has done right, there’s lots of things that it has done wrong. For example, if you look at the files on the iPod itself you’ll see undecipherable file names for each of your music files. Plus there’s Apple’s Love/Hate relationship with DRM. Then there’s codec limitations. You can listen to MP3, AAC,Protected AAC, Apple Lossless, Audible, WAV and AIFF, but what about open codecs like Ogg Vorbis?? To Apple, there’s no such thing.

So I went in search of something more and thought I found it with the Insignia Pilot, and it’s mostly true. Come along with me as we explore Best Buy’s Insignia Pilot 8GB MP3 Player…

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This summer there will be a new cut-down and ultra portable laptop and this one is perceived as an Eee killer: the Wind NoteBook. With the availability of chips by VIA and Intel for low cost and less hungry devices and the ambitious work of OLPC with the XO and Asus’ Eee; low priced and lightweight devices have stormed the computing world and are sounding the drums of change. Indeed, it is expected that by next year, laptop sales will overtake desktops and mark the real shift (no pun intended to HTC). Cut-down devices are like a sprouting branch of the laptop market and with excited consumers, manufacturers are on fire. Asus success with the Eee has inspired other manufacturers to offer their own devices to compete in the growing market. Dell has recently announced that they will also launch a “netbook” of their own.

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Now that Mitchell has shared his views, I will share my views on the Eee.

The 8 GB drive on my Eee is fine for almost any OS.  Once you start using the machine, it becomes clear that the 2, 4 and 8GB drives available are simply not enough.  Plus Asus, in their infinite wisdom, has used the Union FS so that you can quickly restore the Eee back to the factory OS.  You can do this without needing to have a External Optical drive or a USB thumb drive.  It’s very convenient, but it takes up a tremendous amount of space on the 8 GB drive.  One of these days I need to follow the instructions on eeeuser.com to remove the partition.  This will make the full 8 GB of flash available.  I have already bought a external USB drive from Best Buy, which goes with me when I need the extra storage.  I have most of my music on that drive with a subset of music on an SD card.  I also have some video and a backup of all documents on the Eee stored on this drive.  Because it’s a portable drive, it’s completely powered by the Eee’s USB ports.  It takes up two of the three ports.  It runs just fine when it’s on battery but it does suck the battery down faster.  Soon I am going to be purchasing a 16 GB SDHC so I can leave the USB drive behind occasionally.

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This is definitely a moment in OLPC’s history of big changes as views are conflicting on what the mission should really be about. This week, we have two important announcements: Microsoft is officially pushing Windows XP into the XO and Sugar Labs is no longer dedicated to the XO but will now offer the possibilities of building a “learning ecosystem” on all platforms.

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When I first saw these speakers I thought that they looked great, and the fact that they came with a remote was a bonus.  Let’s see if they stand up to my standards in regards to audio quality and compatibility with my favorite OS, Linux.

In the package was a sub woofer with two satellite speakers, as well as a Windows Media Center compatible IR remote control.

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Have you ever been sitting at brink of buying a new device and been totally perplexed as to what device to buy?  I am sitting at this point.

The ultra low cost machines are the ones that really excite me at this point.  You can buy so much power for less than what I paid for many Pocket PC’s and Palms.  Never have there been so many choices.

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