that's janky!

Handcrafted Handhelds

Here's the lowdown on someone who has way too much time on their hands.

"Like any good hacker, Benjamin Heckendorn knows that the best way to pay homage to a beloved piece of gear—say, a classic Atari 2600—is to rip it apart and transform it into something else, preferably something portable, with wood grain. So when the sign shop he was working at got a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling machine—an industrial device that cuts three-dimensional parts from solid blocks of metal or plastic—he used it to craft a custom-designed handheld case from two one-inch-thick slabs of acrylic. Then he stuffed in a 2.5-inch screen from a portable TV and the guts of an Atari 2600, which he’d chopped up and resoldered to make more compact. Powered by three AAs and a nine-volt, that first portable system came complete with a brightness switch, speakers, buttons from an old Nintendo controller, and the signature faux-wood-grain trim."

I can't see that rebuilding an Atari 2600 system would be a good use of anyone's time.

Sunglasses, Wait, iPod, Wait, Sunglasses

The iPod Shuffle is great. I like sunglasses too. But do I want to be forced to wear sunglasses everytime I want to listen to music. What if I'm inside. What if it's just a muggy day. What if I want to wear glasses but don't want something sticking in my ear. Here is a review which is much kinder to Oakley's mp3 sunglasses than myself. But I won't try to convince you this is a bad buy, I'll just tell you to look at the picture below and decide for yourelf.

Lets meet the Jankies!

This isn't an article, and not our normal style, but this is just a bit too funny to pass up. No real news, but there's a couple out there, and they are GARY and SANDY JANKY.

Gotta love the Jankies!

PCMag's Worst 10 Products of the Year

While we are still putting our favorites lists and holiday guides together, Jim Louderback at PC Magazine has picked his least favorite products of the year.

His list:

Concord 5062AF digital camera
iPAQ rz1715 PDA
Samsung D415 cell phone
entry-level eMac desktop PC
VoodooPC Envy m:380 laptop
Dell MFP Laser Printer 1600n printer
TDK Mojo 1 MP3 player
ADS Upconverter HDTV accessory
Fisher FVD-C1 camcorder
Gigafast WF717-APR wireless router

Sounds like we have some good products to avoid this year. Read the reasons why at ABCnews or PC Magazine

Shinco SDP-1560: a portable DVD player that works best at home

While reviewing the Eyetop DVD system, we decided to take a few extra minutes to take a detailed look at the bundled portable DVD player. I wish we hadn't.

As a DVD player, it basically works fine. It's no better or worse than any of the generic $29.99 DVD players that you can buy at Walgreen's. I have no real complaints with the playback, video or audio quality, or anything related to DVD playback.

However, the Shinco SDP-1560 is so poorly designed it's comical. And only for one basic issue, really. In fact, I think I'll explain through the following pictures (click on any to zoom):

The yellow cable is the video output, located on the back of the unit. Since the device does not have its own LCD screen, the portable DVD player is designed to connect to a TV or other display.

Now I've connected the battery pack. The power input is on the left side, as you can see in the photo.

However, I'd like to attach the battery pack to the DVD player for portable use... So I disconnected video, and am ready to mount the battery pack to the back of the unit.

Here is the battery pack, cleanly latched on to the DVD player. So I need to reconnect the video if I want to actually watch it from the road.

But, alas, I cannot. It is not possible to connect video out at the same time as the battery pack. That's right - if you would like to watch the output of the unit WHILE the battery is plugged in, you CANNOT attach the pack to the back of the DVD player!

Ron, a good friend of LIVEdigitally, shows us what he thinks of the Shinco SDP-1560 portable DVD player.

The unit does support MP3 disks, so you can use it as a music-only player if you want. So I guess that's something...

JANKY!!!