Plenty of you chimed in on the great Pocket OS debate when I published a story about the Palm Treo 670 running Windows Mobile. The Treo’s move to WinMo would be significant defection from the namesake Palm OS that is installed on previous Treo 600 and 650s.
On Windows Mobile versus Palm, some of you came down squarely on the side of WinMo while others were loathe to have any Microsoft OS on their person. Click through some of your responses…

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The guys over at Engadget have the goods on Numark’s “iDJ” dueling iPod mixer, due to be announced tomorrow as part of their summer 2005 product lineup. They first broke news of it back in April and CreateDigitalMusic.com’s Peter Kirn posted an analysis of the prototype and a great piece called What Could You Do With Numark’s iPod Mixer? Your editor has been dreaming about it ever since.
Engadget describes it as a “two-channel mixer that accepts all iPod models with bottom connectors and breaks out their controls into its dedicated interface. Both channels sport a 3-band EQ and gain control, and the unit?s got dedicated mic and phono/line inputs for bringing in additional signals.” It’s even rumored to include a USB connection “to converse with your portable rig as a music-loading base.” Well, I hope that it turns out to include Firewire.
According to Engadget’s original article in April “Numark aims to put out a consumer model… in the $250-350 range, to be followed with a pro DJ version with pitch control and other goodies required by the pro mobile DJ.”
If true, the pitch control model would be a fully viable mobile DJ rig and mark the first time (that I know of, anyway) that hardware has been able to change the pitch of songs on an iPod. I wonder how they’re going to do it? They’ll probably cache a certain amount of music then pitch control from there…
Muy Interesante!

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Are you furiously working on your Podcast so that you can get it on the air (like the PowerPage is?) Frustrated debugging errors in your RSS 2.0 feed? Well, suffer no more, Feeder is here…
Reinvented Software’s Feeder (US$29.95) is an application for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds. With Feeder you don’t need to understand RSS to create feeds and publish them to the Web.
In case you’re not in the loop, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a technology for distributing news on the Web. Many news sites, organizations and weblogs publish RSS feeds to keep people informed of the latest news, product updates and more. The PowerPage’s RSS 2.0 feed is here:

http://www.powerpage.org/rss.xml

What’s cool about Feeder is that they plan to fully support the iTunes-specific extensions to RSS introduced with iTunes 4.9 allowing you to easily publish your feeds on the iTunes Music Store.

iTunes 4.9 was released on 28th June 2005 to include podcasts as part of iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. On the same day Apple released details of iTunes-specific extensions to RSS.
Feeder 1.1 does not support the creation of these attributes, but Feeder 1.2 will. Feeder 1.2 will be released as soon as this new functionality is ready and will be a free upgrade for registered Feeder users – expect to see this in August 2005.

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Is your iPod’s Firewire cable coming apart at the seams? Several of my iPod cables have started to de-sheath. What about you? Click through for a fix…

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Japan’s two largest mobile communications carriers are touting fuel cell technology that can be used to recharge dead or dying cell phones and could be used to actually power the devices within a few years. ComputerWorld

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Opinion: As the frequency of stolen laptops rises, companies need to do more to protect to data that resides on them, says Robert L. Mitchell. ComputerWorld

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Griffin Technology has announced Chameleon Cases for iPod mini. Chameleon Cases are made of a sturdy and dense polyvinyl material which is much tougher than regular silicone cases, according to Griffin. Inside a Chameleon Case, your iPod is shielded from the elements and even though the click-wheel is covered it remains completely protected and fully functional.
Features include:
- Tough rubber form fitting case
- Easily removable
- Includes easy on/off belt clip
- Included 21″ lanyard
- 16 cool designs
The price for the Griffin Chameleon Case is US$14.99 and it is scheduled to begin shipping in August of 2005. Pre-orders are now being accepted now at the Griffin Technology Web site.

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As of May 2005 notebook computers are outselling desktops for the first time in history – and there’s no sign of the pendulum shifting back (until the venerable smartphone, takes its place, that is). But is this shift to the mobile computer causing more injuries to unsuspecting users? An article at The Guardian by Jack Schofield, When laptops are a pain in the neck, implies that there are many hidden health hazards that come with using a notebook:

Jeremy Clarkson and I seem to have something in common: we’ve both been laid low partly by our laptops. Physically, if not financially, he’s much worse off than me. According to his column in The Sunday Times, he’s visiting an osteopath for a slipped disc, whereas I’m just having physiotherapy for a cricked neck. But in a world where Wi-Fi and notebook computers are replacing wired desktops, this is very likely to become an increasingly common problem for computer users over the next few years.

First we discover that they cause impotence, now this? Does this mean that I can collect hazard pay for publishing the PowerPage? What ails you from your PowerBook?

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