Perhaps the world has moved on to the new iPod Nano. Still, there's an entire legacy of iPod minis out there to deal with (heck, the mini gave the new-gen Nano its scratch-proof metal skin. How's that for legacy?).

So, aside from turning minis into flashlight stereos, aircraft black boxes - or, for some weird and psychotic reason, flushing them down the toilet, why not recycle them, and/or turn them into the subject of a mod experiment, as one from the Geek Technique blog has done?

Because the microdrive in a mini is a storage device with moving parts, sooner or later (likely later), that drive will run down and conk out. What this geek did was to swap the 4GB microdrive for a Compact Flash card. He used a 4GB card, but as he pointed out, maybe even bigger "since the CF-standard is able to support capacities up to 137 GB." Hmm... maybe Apple SHOULD go flash for the next generation of video iPods.

Full how-to of modding an iPod mini's memory in ways Steve Jobs hasn't thought of, until perhaps just recently, at the Read link below. And, once recycled and sporting a muy-streamlined flash card, please don't suddenly flush this into the toilet as well. The only iPod that could probably fit with zero damage to the pipes is the Shuffle, anyway. Maybe even survive, too.

AirPort is a local area wireless networking system from Apple based on Wi-Fi and is certified as compatible with other 802.11b devices. Now of course, products from a major company would be costly. There is just no way around it. An AirPort Express Base Station would cost you $129.00, while it would be $70 more for the AirPort Extreme, add to that tab the AirPort Extreme card coming in at $79.00. You don't have to say it. A hefty price tag, I know.

Thankfully, there are daredevils like Mark Hoekstra from Geek Technique, that is willing to go the extra mile to look for cheaper alternatives. In this tutorial that he made, all that you need is a Lucent WaveLAN Orinoco Silver card and a lot of patience.

Those that want to try this how-to, just make a note that Mark's iBook is a dual-USB with 600MHz G3 and 384MB with a modified keyboard. Now that you have the bulk of what you need, let's get to it.

This would be the first of the things to go in your card. Remove the black plastic from the card. According to Mark, he wanted to do it with care but unfortunately, the only way to remove it is to pry it open.

Check out the rest of the steps after the jump!