Trekkies rejoice! Apple is bringing back the original Star Trek series to its online iTunes music store and is available on a season set basis. All the episodes are true to their classic glory and have been digitally remastered to satisfy even those with eyes only for the high-end visual quality of today.

Relive memories in the star ship with Spock, his trusty crew and all those wonderful Klingons.

Let your imagination fly to distant worlds as the heroes explore the far reaches of the galaxy and do everything to preserve interstellar order.

The iTunes favorite was dropped from the marketplace last month for some unexplained reason but is now back for good at the friendly price of US$ 56.88 per set.

Today, we reported that the 2nd generation iPod Shuffle is now shipping for a retail of US$ 79. If that wasn't tempting enough, we've got a gallery of pictures of the 2G iPod from pretty much every single angle and in it's beautiful packaging. Heaven on earth? Almost. The 2nd generation Shuffle comes with a storage capacity of at least 1GB and has a sleek almost clam-shell look. Coming in stunning silver, the 2G iPod could easily sneak itself onto a Star Trek set and not look out of the ordinary.

As we reporter earlier, retailers have adjusted their shipping estimates from November 25 to December 9, so expect yourself to be looking at the same love-filled silver package within this period if you want one. Oh, as the eagle-eyed amongst you would have probably noticed, the packaging that the second generation Shuffle comes in is the same as the nano, with the flaps lifting up to reveal the accessories, which include the dock, ear buds, and manuals. All you have to do now is look at the images and wait for yours to arrive.

A game doesn't just work because it's fun - it has to be fully compatible with the "platform" it's been programmed for. It should also be programmed to exploit the full capabilities of such platform. We're not about to pitch the iPod into the next-gen console wars here, as the iPod, the fifth generation one to be exact, can only play songs, TV shows, movies, podcasts, and games. Yeah, games! But only a handful of 'em including Bejeweled, Tetris, Mahjong, Zuma, Pacman, Texas Hold'em, - in short, games that don't need uber-awesome graphics or complex programming.

So, if you were given the chance to tell Apple what games you'd want to play in the iPod, which ones would you pick? There's one condition, though: it has to be compatible with the click wheel interface. It also has to be a single player game (for the time being).

Michael from AppleGazette thought the following games would be cool for the iPod: Myst, Sim City, Tapper, Vegas Casino, Spy Hunter, Pool, Centipede, Space Invaders, Sudoku, and Star Trek Starship Creator.

We thought Space Invaders, Myst, Sudoku, and Sim City would be excellent for the iPod. Some of these are classics and take advantage of the click wheel. Putting them in the iPod game line-up would far improve their playability and navigability; you won't have to worry about having to play the game using the cellphone's bulky controls.

If these games get included in the line-up of some rather dopy games we see in the iPod today, we'd have to ask Apple for another favor: get them online, too! That won't be stretching too much now, would it?

  

Do some Apple users have too much time on their hands?

The editors of Tech E-Blog got photos of several Apple mods and recently published this selection of their favorites, showing what some folks do to "spruce up" their beloved Mac computers. The nostalgia buff inside me would like to see one designed like that early television model from the late 1940's that had a round screen (anyone ever seen one of those? They never worked very well, but were extremely cool-looking), or maybe a "Tri-V" from the original Star Trek.

#10: MAME

Not your "Auntie Mame" from the Jerry Herman musical, but a retro-80's arcade game-style cabinet, incorporating a flat-panel iMac and a top of the line sound system. Pac-Man or Asteroids, anyone?

#9: VINTAGE SE 30

This was the very first Mac I remember, running System 6 back in 1989. Unlike that particular model (top-of-the-line for its time, but useless for any applications today), this one - created by a user in Japan - has a new Mac Mini inside. The grayscale monitor is connected via the DVI port.

More of the Apple mods after the jump!