Another Dell laptop has undergone spontaneous combustion, prompting the evacuation of the office it was situated in and the urgent intervention of the local fire brigade. Pictures of the incident point to a battery meltdown as the cause of the conflagration.

Dell laptop goes up in smoke | Reg Hardware

technorati tags:Dell, notebook, battery, fire

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It was only a matter of time before those crazy fools over at Colorware took their strange voodoo laptop customization rituals to the next level, which has resulted in what some might consider an unholy abomination against his Steveness: the non-Apple emblazoned MacBook Pro.

Colorware’s limited-edition MacBook Pro Apple logo replacement – Engadget

technorati tags:Colorware, MacBookPro

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One of our readers has sent us an Apple’s internal document providing additional information concerning the MacBook palmrest issue. This information is valid world-wide. To have its MacBook case exchanged, the following points have to be met…

Hardmac.com : Le “Macbidouille” in English

technorati tags:MacBook, Palmrest, Discoloration

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There is a fundamental difference between the record business, the movie industry and book publishing.
When the iTunes Music Store opened, the recording industry was decimated by piracy. Not just file sharing of MP3′s but simple duplication of CDs being passed around between friends. The recording industry was hemorrhaging money when Steve Jobs got his agreement for 99 cent downloads. The distribution of recorded music worked fine when it was just the phonograph and radio.
The 8-track tape was developed for the car, but was short lived. The cassette was used to wholesale copy vinyl music collections by many industrious types and was first and foremost a recording format. The digital CD provided a boost to the industry, but there is no copy protection built in. It is unlikely that manufacturers of CD players will support some sort of revised format and DRM and the industry has tried hacking the CD format to stop copying, by installing spyware on Windows computers and introducing errors that keep CDs from mounting, all to no avail.
Readm More…

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Flip4Mac WMV is a collection of QuickTime™ components that allow you to play, import and export Windows Media® files. Flip4Mac WMV can be used with most of your favorite QuickTime applications including QuickTime Player, iMovie and Final Cut Pro.

The Flip4Mac WMV components are compatible with Mac Intel and PowerPC OS X versions 10.3.9, 10.4 or later and QuickTime versions 6.5, 7.0 or later (recommended). (Thanks EarthSaver)

Download details: Windows Media® Components for QuickTime

technorati tags:Windows, Media, QuickTime, Flip4Mac, Universal, Binary

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While it’s admittedly unscientific I found it very amusing that a 10-year old Newton MessagePad 2000 beat a brand spankin’ new Samsung Q1 UMPC in a head-to-head battle over at CNet UK.
You can read all of the details for yourself, but the main reason why the Newton MP2k kicked the Q1′s butt is battery life. The Newton gets 30 hours of run time from a pair of AA batteries while the Q1 gets a paltry 2.5 hours of run time on a proprietary battery back.
Read the rest of the story on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.

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