An Apple iPod Touch review, with special attention paid to use with Linux and open formats:
Pros:
Very nice high resolution screen. (480×320 at 163dpi)
User interface is very slick and easy to use after a minimal learning period.
Built in WiFi (802.11b/g) with very good mobile browser (Safari).
Methods to hack (jailbreak) it and install 3rd party software are [...]
If your iPhone or iPod Touch is jailbroken, you can use the Installer.app to load and install many different applications. Below is the list of the applications that I found to be useful, fun or interesting:
Organizing multiple pages of applications:Categories
Downloading/Watching YouTube movies: MxTube
Photos alternative: PhotoBoard
e-Book reader: Books
Information Lookup: weDict , iMoon , iTrac
Networking: Stumbler, [...]
I bought 30 Phillips SPC 900 NC webcams because they claim to support up to 90fps and I have had good luck using linux with the PWC drivers in the past. Plugged into a generic Ubuntu 7.10 install, I found that 640×480 resolution was automatic, with 15fps. 320×240 worked at 30fps. (I tried 160×120 resolution, [...]
General info:
How to put an ipod touch into restore mode: Plug it into your computer, and turn on iTunes, then: hold the power and home buttons down until it resets. Release the power button, but keep the home button held until it enters recovery mode.
How to restore to a specific version of the firmware [...]
I'm running MythTV (Subversion Trunk) on a Ubuntu 7.10 box. After the daylight savings time changeover, my mythtv box had the correct time, but the Program Guide data was still off by an hour. Manually running a mythfilldatabase didn't fix it. After checking to make sure that my timezone xmltv settings were set to Auto, [...]
Fixing a missing bluetooth icon, battery charge indicator, and update notifier in Ubuntu
For the last week my battery indicator and bluetooth icons had been missing from my top panel in Ubuntu. When I did Bluetooth stuff the pop-up "speaker balloons" from the bluetooth applet would still appear at the corner of my screen, but the Bluetooth applet itself was "invisible". I finally figured out [...]