LabVIEW as a Synthesizer?
Peter is looking for some Makers out there, he writes “Basically, the folks at National Instruments have added DSP (digital signal processing, useful for lots of audio applications — both industrial and musical), to LabVIEW, their high-end development platform for creating test / measurement / control applications. Here’s the cool part: they designed a free synth (as in musical synth) to run on the platform. Somewhere out there, there’s a scientist or engineer who’s going to love fiddling with this thing. It’s electronic music for Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. Know anyone in those communities (blogosphere or printosphere) who might be interested in this?” Link.
Run a Mac, on a stick. “Running Linux, Windows or applications like Firefox, Thunderbird and AbiWord from a USB flash memory device is old hat. How about a Mac 128K or Plus on a USB key? Using a ‘portable’ Mac system you can: play with old system software and applications without dusting off your old Mac, impress your friends, or show others what the older Mac system looked like, use Mac on Windows and Linux.” Thanks Jim! 
Chris writes in about his his progress on hacking away with 
More repairing goodness, Radiorental writes in describing tips for scoring super cheap iPods – “There’s usually half a dozen 10GB or 15GB broken ipods on ebay at any point in time. Usually either the battery or HD is stuffed. Most go for under $35, new battery is ~$10, HDs are around $100 for a 40G. $140 total for a 40G 3rd gen Ipod thank you very muchness.” 
If 
Wow, Intel smacks what they call “gadgets” a bit – they think the $100 laptop effort is more of a gadget than a “grown up PC…not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power.” It will be a fascinating to see what happens in the next couple years. I think it’s not just one solution, but many…The $100 laptop 
Richard writes “You asked to hear about things that can easily be repaired. HP now ‘Agilent Technologies’ has a DMM (Digital MultiMeter) that is built like a rock yet it can easily be repaired. As well is very accurate. That’s the 34401A. The service manual is easily found on Ebay and these meters ‘used’ hold there value very well, unlike some items that drop in value as time goes on. With these meters you almost ask your self why buy new when used is just as good. Check them out on eBay and the internet and they sell for roughly the same amount, $700 vs new at $1,100.” 