HOW TO – DIY Hanging pot rack…
Remember when we asked about cool Home Depot projects? Here’s one that Patrick sent in, he writes – “Want a interesting looking, reasonably priced hanging pot rack? Here is one that I built in about thirty minutes. Everything screws together, so it is fun and easy to assemble, after you have the parts. The hooks are purposely fixed in one direction so that you are not up all night listening to your pans swivel and clang around. You can also slide the hooks into different places on the bar to accomodate the different sizes. It might take longer than thirty minutes to build if you do a better job than I did peeling the stickers off all the parts.” Link.
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 
BusinessWeek has a round up of the best products of 2005, lots of good stuff – “Wow, what a year! In 2005 the business world moved to the music of innovation. There were more revolutionary changes in more markets sparked by more breakthrough ideas than at any time since, well, the golden ’90s. Admit it: Despite being overworked and dog-tired, you had fun.” 
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.”