Make your own iPod Shuffle

Apple is selling iPod Shuffles as fast as it can uncrate them, but not everybody is thrilled with the new $99 MP3 player, which skips previous iPod niceties such as a display.

Web wag "Mhusson" has posted a pictorial tutorial for turning your old hard drive iPod into the functional equivalent of the new Shuffle. Make sure you have a PostIt note ready.

As far as we can tell, however, the instructions neglect the critical Step 4 to match the Shuffle's wee bit of storage capacity: Delete the first 2,000 songs on your device.

Also in the not-impressed camp is Sim Wong Hoo, CEO of Singapore's Creative Technologies, whose Zen Micro MP3 player has stolen a little thunder from the iPod Mini in recent months.

Hoo told business publication Channel News Asia that the iPod Shuffle reminds him of the MP3 players Creative was selling four years ago.

"I think the whole industry will just laugh at it," he said. "It's worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM...I think it's a non-starter to begin with."