Had an iBook G4 with a failed hard drive come my way recently. If you’ve ever looked into DIY hard drive replacement for a Mac laptop, you probably know there are few easier ways to brick a machine than by tearing it apart. iFixit has some very good disassembly guides on their site, and they saved my bacon in a couple of spots. I’d also recommend having a good set of very small screwdrivers, the critical #8 Torx driver, a large, thin guitar pick (for separating the outer shell of the iBook) and a pair of “chip puller” tweezers (like those pictured at the right) to unplug various cables from the motherboard. The ones I have are the 4 inch “EX-1″ model from OK Industries of Taiwan, and in hindsight they were the secret weapon of this project.

Would I attempt this again? Well, it depends. If the laptop’s already broken and out of warranty, absolutely. But for a working machine with a warranty you’re going to void, it isn’t something to be undertaken lightly. Either way, these teardown guides are an interesting read if you’re into hardware pr0n.

Canon’s latest consumer DSLR, the EOS 400D, is about to hit the market. It’s the successor to the Digital Rebel XT. has 10 Megapixels, uses your old CF cards, and can be had for $799 (body only) to $899 (with 18-55mm lens). Read the full preview at Digital Photography Review, and try to contain your drool. And if you want to know more, Cameralabs.com has a hands-on review, including some small sample pictures they shot with it.

Found this on Gizmodo: an LCD monitor framed entirely in bamboo! At £323 for a 19″ model, it’s not too bad a deal if the glass is decent.

Short version for ADD readers: the Belkin Wireless G Plus Router rocks!

Wireless connectivity has become one of those essentials I can’t do without. Nothing’s better than sitting on the couch with a laptop and no wires. Although with the battery down to a nub in my G3 iBook, a power cord is pretty essential these days. Nevertheless, I don’t care to compound that indignity with a cat5 cable in the other side. I’d been running a D-Link DI-514 802.11b wireless router, but it seemed to be growing progressively more crochety in its old age, and had gotten to the point where renewing its DHCP config every 10-15 minutes was essential to staying online. I had a history with D-Link going back to 1998 and my first home network, built on a D-Link kit with 2 NICs and a 10MbT hub used to share a dial-up connection. That network was rock solid, and led me to choose D-Link when I first switched over to wi-fi. Got a good three years out of my first D-Link wireless router, and when it died a sudden death I was still happy enough with them to purchase the DI-514. Unfortunately, this unit was a pain to configure in a mixed PC/Mac environment, and required attention far too frequently. When it finally gave up the ghost, my elation at not having to nurse this monster along any further almost outweighed my unhappiness with the replacement expense. Until I looked at my options…

I needed something available locally, as I’m too cheap to blow the money I’d save ordering from Amazon on overnight shipping. Given the preponderance of Macs on my network, Apple’s AirPort Extreme was a logical choice, but I balked at paying $200 for a unit with only one LAN port. Linksys was somewhat appealing, but they’ve done away with the Linux firmware patching on almost all of their wireless routers, and the model that does still support Linux didn’t seem to be available locally. I’d had a Netgear wirless unit before, and returned it within 24 hours as unfit for human consumption. SMC sounded somewhat promising, but I wasn’t sold on them either. Fortunately, a friend heard about my plight and suggested a Belkin Pre-N Router. Since our current iBooks max out at 802.11g and lack pcmcia slots, Pre-N wasn’t especially compelling. But Belkin is pretty Mac-friendly stuff in general, and seemed like a pretty good way to go. $60 dollars later at the local Circuit City, I was the proud new owner of a Belkin Wireless G Plus Router.

The Belkin unit comes with the standard wall wart power supply, a CD, and a manual. Reading the fine print on the box confirms the unit as using the same Broadcom chipset found in Apple’s AirPort devices. Although the CD includes a quick start wizard, I decided to go the manual configuration route as a testament to my oversized computer geek manhood. I released the DHCP address from my old D-Link one last time, spit in the dirt, and replace it with the Belkin, following the manual setup instructions. Once I bring it up, it presents me with a very easy to navigate web interface, and syncs right in with the cable modem. By default, it uses a subnet of 192.168.2.0/24 instead of the standard 192.168.0.0/24. Since the old D-Link never did DHCP very well, I changed all the systems on the network from static IPs to DHCP, and they all came right up on the new IP range. The whole conversion and installation process only took 10-15 minutes. I’ve had it up and running for a couple of weeks now with no problems whatsoever. As with any hardware that runs around the clock, there’s a potential for problems down the road. But for ease of setup and initial reliability, the Belkin is easily the best wireless unit I’ve ever had. And that’s from a man without Amazon referral links to shill!

As if Nikon’s retreat from the film market wasn’t shocking enough, Konica Minolta has announced their own withdrawl from the photography market. Sony is purchasing what’s left of their camera business, and the company will stop manufacturing film and paper by March 2007.

I don’t think too many people will miss Konica Minolta’s film and paper offerings, but no more Minolta cameras is kind of shocking. Too bad Sony didn’t get the Minolta name along with the camera hardware. The Sony brand probably does carry more weight with consumers, but there was a time when Minolta was at least worthy of consideration for pros and serious amateurs. With all the shocking photography announcements this month, I’m expecting announcements of Kodak-Nikon and Fuji-Canon merger announcements within the next month.

The first Intel iMacs have made their way from Apple Store shelves into the hands of early adopters, and some of those users have submitted Xbench benchmarks. There are also some anecdotal benchmarks available in the MacAddict Forums. Comparing the iMac Intel to the Powermac G5 (both at 2.0Ghz) yields a very mixed bag of results. In a few categories, the Intel CPU is twice as fast as the G5. In most others, the G5 is a bit faster. Obviously we’ll need more than a few submissions to make a real judgement, but if the MacBook performance is pretty close to the iMac at similar clock speeds it’ll be pretty close to having a Dual 2.0 G5 sitting on your legs. Close enough to replace that G5 tower with a MacBook? I’ll let you know when I figure that out for myself.

Nikon UK has issued a press release stating that they’re discontinuing all their large format and enlarger lenses, and most of their camera bodies and manual focus lenses. Nikon anticipates the existing product stock will be gone by mid-summer 2006. Although the press release is UK specific, it certainly implies that this will be a worldwide shift.

So what’s left? The F6 body in the UK, the FM10 worldwide, and a moderate assortment of manual prime lenses to fit. If Nikon’s abandoning film to the competition, we can expect the rest of the top camera makers following suit over the next year or so. Film is officially a boutique hobbyist niche now kids, and those zany Soviet cameras that are all over Ebay are going to start looking pretty good.

I’ve been hearing about the Optimus keyboard for a few months now, and the inventor has just announced a February 1st release date. The keyboard has an OLED display embedded in each keycap. Although there’s some utility to this, I think the wow factor is the main appeal. No definite price yet, but most predictions are in the $100-300 range.

The Egotar is an interesting instrument, if you don’t mind the Frankenstein nature of a 4×4 bolted onto a cheap 4-string. It ain’t pretty, but the one-handed slide setup is ingenious, and looks like it might be more fun than a standard pedal steel. Great for amputees, or anyone who wants a hand free to smoke and drink while they play. Might have to build one myself…

I really really need one of these. Well, maybe not need, more want. A cellphone jammer with a 30 foot range. Can you hear me now? NO! Costs about $400 with all the accessories, so it might be hard to justify. I’d happily settle for a bluetooth jammer that kills those retarded borg looking earpieces. Guess I’m just nostalgic for the days when only crazy people carried on conversations with themselves.