New and Noteworthy: Top gadget of all time: The PowerBook 100; A Look Inside the iPod Shuffle; more

Top gadget of all time: The PowerBook 100 Mobile PC Magazine has picked the "top 100 gadgets of all time. On the list are several Apple innovations including the Newton MessagePad 120 at #39, the PowerBook 500 at #22, and the iPod at #12. The #1 spot, however, goes to the notebook computer that turned the industry on its ear: The PowerBook 100. The editors of Mobile PC Magazine write "Never mind the Apple versus PC debate: Until Apple unveiled this 5.1-pound machine, most "portable" computers were curiosities for technophiles with superior upper-body strength. But the PowerBook 100's greatest and most lasting innovation was to move the keyboard toward the screen, leaving natural wrist rests up front, as well as providing an obvious place for a trackball. It seems like the natural layout now, but that's because the entire industry aped Apple within months. The first PowerBooks captured an astounding 40 percent of the market, but more important, they turned notebook computers into mainstream products and ushered in the era of mobile computing that we're still living in today." More.

A Look Inside the iPod Shuffle C.K. Sample has posted a look inside the iPod Shuffle's file structure. More.

Creative Zen Micro vs iPod Omar Shahine has posted a comparative review of the Rio Carbon and the Apple iPod, noting: "For the past few months I used the Rio Carbon. While it fared well, there were a couple of things I didn't like about the device. There was no hardware hold button, and the audio menu was not sticky and always dropped you back to the audio list, rather than your last selection. So, I decided to give the Creative Zen Micro a shot. I happen to love the device, and in many ways I find it's feature set to be better than the iPod. The build quality and fit and finish aren't as good as the iPod, but this device comes closer to anything else I've tried. I suspect that it will be a matter of months, or a year before Creative and iRiver have matched Apple in every way while providing some features the iPod still doesn't have." More.

Apple's memory price premiums AnandTech has posted an article detailing Apple's price premium for RAM when compared to other vendors. "The prices [...] shouldn't be any surprise, as all manufacturers charge an arm and a leg for their direct memory upgrades, yet some users are often afraid to install memory purchased from someone other than Apple." More. [For more information about "bad RAM" and Mac OS X, see this report]

Previously on MacFixIt

• iMac G5 power supply problems: Burning smell, more
• 2005 PowerBook G4s: Solutions for oversensitive ambient light sensor
• Verizon FTTP/Fios service and Macs (#3)
• Microsoft releases Office 2004 11.1.1

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