Many projects are working on creating custom firmware, but here is the one I have been keeping an eye on.

Recently I seen news related to several netbooks coming out that will utilize the Intel Core 2 Solo ULV processors. I have tried an Acer Aspire One 10″ model and it was great except that it just didn’t quite have the power I was looking for. So after reading this article about a new Acer Aspire 1410 that is coming to the states, I was quite interested.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, I’ve been searching quite hard to find an estimated arrival date and after looking at several online retailers I found one that may have a good estimate. It’s listed on one retailers’ inventory system as being available on September 2nd.

Also it appears to be available as a pre-order from JR.com for $449.

If your not familiar with this upcoming netbook/laptop and want to be here are the specs below. There is also a video review here.

Specs:

UPDATE:
I have the blue version of the Acer Aspire 1410 on order from Amazon. I should receive it tomorrow. If I get a chance I’ll take some more pics and give some more details.

I have to say for the most part, I completely agree with this guy. Just recently I switched to Ubuntu for quite some time and then to a Mac. I had pretty much the same realization, almost everything I do is online now and the OS really doesn’t matter much. All three have their highlights and their low points. Windows does have one glaring problem, it is the most popular which means almost every virus and spyware program is aimed firmly at it. So I would say, why hold the bullseye when you can get out of the line of fire altogether?

Drives tested:

CORSAIR Flash Voyager 16GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)

Kingston HyperX Hi-Speed DataTraveler HyperX 16GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)

OCZ Diesel 16GB Single Channel Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)

Transcend JetFlash V30 16GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)

Short excerpt:

“If I had to give an ordering for the top three drives, taking everything here into account ,including my preferences, it would have to be the OCZ Throttle coming in first with the Kingston HyperX in second, the Patriot Xporter in third. Those are the ones that I would buy personally.”

Check out the whole review

Here’s a few pics of Skype for iPhone in action:

UPDATE: Apparently as is being reported here, the developers build of the iPhone 3.0 OS will allow the Skype application to make and receive calls over a 3G or EDGE connection. This seems to be in contradiction with agreements made between AT&T and Apple. Of course who knows if this will stay the case as the OS reaches it’s final stages.

Background info:

What is Woot and who’s behind it?
Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. It started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor, but it’s taken on a life of its own. We anticipate profitability by 2043 – by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices. Until then, we’re still the lovable scamps we’ve always been. But don’t take our word for it: see what the online community has to say at this Wikipedia article.

What is a Woot Off?
In Woot-Off mode, a new product is launched immediately after the sellout of the previous deal. There is a half-Woot-life of 12 hours maximum on any product within a Woot-Off that does not sell out. The number of Woot-Off items, sequence, and quantity will not be announced. When Woot-Off mode is over, the orange lights will disappear and our normal schedule will resume. Depending on its success, this may be a mode we would go into once or twice a month for a relatively short duration of time (24-72 hours generally.)

New features:
- Comprehensive New Disc Burning
- Simpler File Sharing
- Evolution Evolves its Migration from Windows
- Media Player Improvements
- Volume Control Integrated with PulseAudio
- Support for multiple monitors and projectors
- Almost Telepathic Communication
- Location Epiphany
- Fingerprint Reader Integration
- And more

Read about the details from the source.

What you will find is a surprising stable and lightning fast browser window for basic surfing. If the current speed is maintained throughout development, the final release of Chrome for Mac will be something to really keep a close eye on.

I may try building a version of Chrome for Mac in the next few days. The instructions for that are here. If so I’ll update this post and let you know how it goes. Give TestShell a try and see what you think of it’s speed. Be aware, I haven’t had any problems from running it, but it IS developmental code so don’t complain if something goes crazy!

Here is a screenshot of the homepage within TestShell (Chrome for Mac alpha):

Homepage within TestShell

This is a page listing the detailed status of the Chrome test builds on Mac.

UPDATE: I was able to follow the instructions from here and build a relatively full version Chrome using the source code and Xcode 3.1 on the Mac. The result is very interesting. Here is a screenshot:

Catch the screenshots below all courtesy of Synapse IM: