Like every proud new owner of the new iPod nano, I was dissapointed when I recieved my first scratch after only a few hours. It wasn't really a scratch, but more like a "fogging" of the surface from rubbing against my cell phone. Just rubbing aginst it caused the surface to visibly fog or mar. So I went looking and found this screen protector from invisibleSHIELD. I figured it would get me by until I got one of these from SpeckProducts. Or one of these awesome metal nano protectors. Now that my screen is protected by the invisibleSHEILD, I've got no worries. And it's thin enough that my nano should fit into any of them.

I have recieved the protected and applied it to the front of my black iPod nano. I'm picky about my iPod. Looks were a big factor when I made my decision to buy one. I didn't take as long as these guys (great review and pictures btw), but I'm still happy with it.

It's amazing. They use this stuff in the Army to protect helicopter blades. It really is indestructable. Watch the video on the invisibleSHIELD website. I tried it for myself with the leftover bits of material from arround the edge of the sheet it came on. This stuff is amazing. I've ordered some for my RAZR phone and my PSP.

I've also placed an order for their Applesauce polish. This stuff promises to be that missing ingredient. I tried to use professional swirl remover and scratch remover, but they just couldn't completely get rid of the surface "fog" on my iPod. (it certainly helped though) I hope this stuff will be better. The pics look amazing. I'll post again when I get some.
Just so you can have a good laugh, this is what I took with me to the Engadget meetup the other night. It got a few funny looks. Yes, that's my nano safely wrapped in bubble-wrap and packing tape. It even had a home-made "lanyard" made by looping the extra length of headphone cord through a hole in the corner. And I trimed the bottom corner so I could get to the hold switch. Amazingly, I could still read the screen and press the buttons. (but I couldn't change the volume because that required swiping arround the click-wheel)

Last night I had the pleasure of attending an Engadget reader meetup. While there I got to see a whole bunch of awesome palm-sized goodness. The new Palm Treo 700 was truly a glory to behold. Then there was the pimpness that one-up'd even that. OQO was there with some of their new model 01+ devices. I don't have to expound on the ability to run a full copy of Windows XP in the palm of your hand. But just think of the possibilities when it comes to mobile computing.

The debate has gone on for a very long time: Should application developers use Objects (or Business Entities) or DataSets to create their applications. Until a few years ago, the answer was DataSets 98% of the time if a database was involved. MSDN Magazine even spent a whole issue on the debate (August 2005). In DataSets vs Collections by Dino Esposito, the Business Entities won a great victory when sent over a network because of the bloat associated with XML serializing an entire DataSet.

Until recently, the use of business entities in high-performance applications has been limited due to 2 reasons:

• Firstly, databases required large amounts of hand-written, or [error prone] tool-generated code, or an Object-Relational Mapper (like Hibernate or nHibernate) to smooth the road. These solutions took a lot of time and energy to implement, debug, and run. So, naturally, Enterprise application developers have just gotten used to using DataSets to pass data arround a distributed system.

• Secondly, UI and font-end engineers could not make use of automatic field data-binding capabilities in their forms and dialogs. If they used DataSets, wiring a text box to a value took only a few clicks. If they used business entities, it took up to 3 or 4 lines of code per field.

Now there are some solutions. db4o is a next-generation object database: designed for object-oriented environments, and optimized for an object-oriented world. Now the database gives you objects. Put your hands up and rejoice!

But wait! What about the second point? Those lazy UI engineers still don't want to write code! Well, they won't have to. You just need to think ahead, and do a few things to your classes before handing them over to those monkeys. That same MSDN Magazine issue also has an article on getting Design-Time databinding to work with custom collections and business entities instead of DataSets. (Give Your Everyday Custom Collections a Design-Time Makeover by Paul Ballard, August 2005)

After reading just half of the article on databinding, I was able to create a complete application that employed simple data binding to my custom object. A few more lines of code in my business entities, and the objects even managed to keep the database syncronized. Amazingly, I think the code that I wrote totaled about 6 lines to get all the functionality that would normally have taken 40 lines, and most of a day. The entire application took about an hour.

The application and code that I wrote will be published soon on the db4o web site. Look for it coming soon!

I had the opportunity to listen to an audio version of this book. It was truly enlightening. Pointing out things about science and scientific thought. No explanation will truly do it justice. The excerpt on amazon really is the only thing that works:

The Wu Li Master dances with his student. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns. The Wu Li Master always begins at the center, the heart of the matter.... This book deals not with knowledge, which is always past tense anyway, but with imagination, which is physics come alive, which is Wu Li.... Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li Masters know that they are only dancing with it.

This book describes no actual physics, but guides your mind throughout topics which cause you to think about scientific process, physics, discovery, and education. If you pay attention, I guarantee that you will get something out of every chapter in this book.

ISBN: 055326382X
Buy from Amazon.com