Now I'm all up for modding and weird changes that can be made to PC's and Macs, however they have to be practical. In this sense I feel this person failed. I was trawling through the blog section down at Yahoo Technology News which pointed to a projects piece based on the Mac website.

Now it seems that certain individual has attempted to make himself a fully fledged Media Centre, Mac Style. He's done this by using some very random bits of equipment and material including 8 Apple speakers and a Subwoofer, a toilet roll, an iSight and an IR port. This has all been cocooned in a wooden box covered in varnished ply, all of which wont do wonders for his cooling. He's succeeded at making something at which we should take note of, however I do wonder why this guy turned a perfectly portable unit into something, where the furthest its going to travel is in the back of the removal van when he moves home.

Either way take a look at it, and make sure that check out the rest of the projects based on the site:

Apple's Powerbook G4 is a step up with crisp, clear displays that expand your view, this laptop is great for multimedia use. With over 1.7 million pixels, this 1680 x 1050 pixel display is much more spacious and brighter than its predecessor. With this much display you can view your applications and multimedia with ease and rivals many desktop models. On the go? Take the PowerBook with you it has an extended battery life of 5.5 hours. It comes packed with SuperDrive DVD burner that includes double layer burning, and clear and noise free sound system and is very lightweight at only 4.6 pounds.

Specifications include:

-1.67 GHZ Processing Speed

-512 MB DDR2 SDRAM

-12.1 inch or 17.1 inch wide screen

-NVidia or ATI Graphics

-up to 120GB Hard Drive

- 8x SuperDrive

-Bluetooth Wireless Technology

Dual Processors were long the drool-inducing thing of nerds.  But anymore they're pretty common to come by.  The latest move has been to go the route of Dual Cores.  Is there a real difference?  Does one setup perform better than the other?  What exactly does all this mean, and does it apply to the everyday Joe?

A terrific article at Puget Systems discusses just this topic.  It explains things for the average consumer, while providing benchmarks and other tidbits that will be of interest to the bit-heads out there.

Quickly: DualCore means putting two processors on a single chip.  It's cheaper since it only requires 1 slot on the motherboard, one chip, etc.  The flip side is to have 2 processors, each taking their own space on a more expensive motherboard.  The outcome?  (Look away or click the link if you don't want to spoil the surprise.)  The dual core systems that are becoming a standard in the computer industry are not only cheaper, they're also slightly faster.  So it's a win-win for everyone!

The Invisible Shield was originally designed to protect helicopter rotor blades from the hard elements. Or so the story goes. Now they're making this amazing coating available to consumers for protecting anything and everything you can imagine that could be scratched or gouged.

I've got one on my iPod, and it's amazing. Anyone who's seen an iPod under regular use knows that they scratch if you look at them wrong. I'm super careful with mine, and it still ended up with small scratches. After applying the Invisible Shield, I toss it around without a care in the world. It really is THAT good.

I came across recently, that they also sell protective skins for camera LCD screens. I've got one on order for my Rebel 350D already. If you're interested, they also offer many cell phones' protection, as well as gaming systems, such as the PSP, and Nintendo DS.

In case the last one didn't extend the battery life on your 15" PowerBook, maybe this one will.  The update should be in your Software Update, but if you want to check manually to see if you're a lucky winner, Apple's provided a page to help. 

Basically, Go to the Apple Menu, and click, "About This Mac". 
Then choose "More Info".

I'm a bag fiend.  I am always on the prowl for a better bag to carry my PowerBook/iPod/whatever and have a graveyard of perfectly good bags to prove it.  Then one day I happened upon bags by Spire USA.  I honestly don't recall how I found them, but I'm eternally glad that I did (as is my wife who doesn't have to listen to any more excuses for new bags laying around the house). 

At the time, I was sporting a 17" PowerBook, and finding a bag to handle my Apple-goodness wasn't easy.  Enter Spire.  Their Endo XL was built for 17" notebooks (of which, the PowerBook was the only one at the time), so I took a closer look.  The materials and build quality were superb, and it could carry my computer with plenty of room to spare for programming books, iPods, cables, and pretty much anything a self-respecting geek could need to lug around.  The icing on the cake was how comfortable it was, even when loaded down with all the crap I deem necessary on a daily basis.  Oh - and the bags even come with hard, padded, removeable sleeves for the notebooks to live in while inside the bag!

I've had the bag for a couple years, and that's a real record for me.  For one, because I haven't found something I've liked better, and two, because it hasn't worn out!  I did have one stitching issue, but under its lifetime warranty, I sent it to the [local] Boulder, CO based headquarters and had it fixed in no time at all. 

Whether you're into messenger-style bags or backpacks, they've got you covered.  So what's your favorite bag?

Over at Arstechnica, Jacqui Cheng has done a nice job of reviewing the MacBook Pro against the PowerBook G4, a Dell Inspiron 9100 running OS X 10.4.4, and a iMac Core Duo in the benchmarks.

It performs amiably against the rest and, there are some surprising results that show up from the Dell. Of course the MacBook Pro wins overall, but never the less it's always interesting to see what comes out of some of the runs.

Add the built in iSight camera, which is great for those that travel, or are abroad. The down side to it is for those in the government that might not be able to take a camera in a secure area. D'oh

Also one of the newest additions is the MagSafe. Basically it's a power cord that connects to the laptop via magnets instead of the your normal plug. Pretty sweet, so say good bye to having your laptop yanked right out of your hands, or off your desk.

Conclusions:

Pros:

Significant speed bump for Apple's pro notebooks
Beautiful, bright display
Built-in iSight
Thinner than G4 predecessor
Dual-link DVI
Cons:
MagSafe comes out way too easily under imperfect conditions
Wider than G4 predecessor
No Firewire 800, only 400
Built-in iSight