Posted Monday, November 07, 2005

More PowerBook Prattle, and Podner for Your 5G iPod

And now, your Monday mélange.

Does your PowerBook, you know, vibrate? Regarding the 7200-rpm drive in my new PowerBook, a reader asks, "Have you noticed a little vibration through the hand rests of your new 15" PowerBook? It should be perceptible if you place the PowerBook on a hard surface."

Answer: Yes, I can feel a very subtle vibration. It almost feels like the computer contains a small metal platter that's spinning around in circles 120 times every second.

I don't mean to be snide—heck, yes I do—but I'm just not seeing (or feeling) the "defects" that others have reported. "Stippling" on the screen? Don't see it. Noisy 7200-rpm hard drive? Not particularly, and I so despise computer noise that my G5 lives in a cabinet 25 feet away from my desk.

I'm not saying folks aren't seeing, feeling, or hearing problems. I'm just weighing in to say that I haven't. I'm picky about technology that I pay in excess of two grand for, and so far, I'm a happy spender.

A Podner for your iPod video Splasm Software's $9.95 Podner looks like a fine tool for converting video for playback on a fifth-generation iPod.

According to MacCentral, the new 1.0.1 version preserves the audio in MPEG-format movies. That's a big deal if you, like me, have a Sony digital camera that records video clips in MPEG format. Many MPEG-to-movie conversion tools strip out the audio from such movies (more details).

(And incidentally, my Macworld colleague Jon Seff has written up a nice little summary of iPod 5G video tidbits.)

Courage!