oobeleck asks: "With my birthday just around the corner and my 8 mile runs needing music, I am thinking of asking for a portable mp3 player. What is the Slashdot community's experience with MP3 portables. What has the most support, what should I stay away from. I have been eye-balling the Diamond Rio 600/800 model. Any opinions on the Rio? I want something that works good with Linux/OpenBSD. Thanks for your help." Ask Slashdot last ran such an article back in April of 2000, I'm sure bigger and better MP3 players have been made since then. Which of today's players would you all recommend?

micq writes "After the PowerBook was updated with a faster processor at the end of April, the iBook was sure to follow. Apple announced today that the popular iBook line has been updated, upping it to a 700MHz G3. It's good to see they're still keeping the 12.1" models, which are of the few remaining small screen, ultra-portables..." They've also improved the video card to an ATI Mobility Radeon. Prices range from $1500 to $1800 for the 700MHz model (12" and 14"), and there's a 12"/600MHz model for $1200.

David Frascone asks: "A few months ago, I got a bug up my sphincter and decided to convert all of my MP3 files into Ogg-Vorbis files. I've been pretty happy with the conversion, even though it was supposed to be a bit lossy (I can't hear any difference) . Anyway, now I'm looking for a portable music player that plays Ogg-Vorbis files, and I'm coming up empty. I *really* don't want to have to convert the tunes back to MP3 on the fly to put them onto a portable player. Does anyone know of any ogg players out there?" While Ogg compatibility has been slow to catch on, most of the tools necessary to create a player are already available. However no one has yet taken that final step to update existing MP3 players or to introduce new units with the added functionality and bring them to the market, yet. If someone has info on Ogg-enabled players that may be in the pipe, please let us know.

kwerle writes "I have just received my new iPod, and am now faced with the issue of how I should hook it up to every stereo I own. For the car, I could just get one of those cd-to-cassette converters, but that just doesn't...feel right. What experience have you had with mp3/cd player transmitters (like this one from Arkon or the MK-90)? Any suggestions?" Don't forget about the iRock Update: 04/24 07:46 GMT by C : Errors in the URL for the iRock have been fixed. My apologies.

My ongoing quest to find the perfect MP3 playing stereo component continues this week with the Rio Central. This is a $1500 box with a 40 gig hard drive that aims to do everything audio, from feeding reciever units, burning CDs, and populating portables, and of course, providing an interface to manage your tunes and play them on your stereo. And it's built on Linux- a USB keyboard is all you need to get to a command line!

I've been excited about the ZapStation since I first saw it at ALS a few years ago. At the time it was at a good price point, and appeared to be a solid contender for the convergence media box that I crave. It took more then a year for them to release a product and for me to formulate an opinion. Now's your chance to read it. Don't get excited all at once now.

ckd writes: "The PowerBook Zone has a short interview with Bruce Gee talking about the evolution of the PowerBook design since the first PowerBooks. (Bruce was the PowerBook Product Manager back then.) Hearken back to the days when 20MB was a good-sized drive in a portable machine! Yes, the PowerBook 100 was not the first 'portable Mac' -- but it was the first to bear the name PowerBook." And of all the (handful) of portables I've owned, I have to admit that I've had the fewest problems with and most affection for the PowerBooks (and now an iBook).

Lally Singh writes: "Getting bored with the latest distribution? Or getting tired of searching for drivers for your 8 bit soundblaster (in)compatible? Then listen to one BSD user's opinion of Mac OS X. And stop complaining about the hardware. Give a Powermac or one of the portables a chance before knocking on it."

pecka writes "There is an article about a guy who took apart his WonderSwan Color and inserted Gameboy Advance motherboard and screen into the WS case so he can play WS games along with GBA's ones. And yeah, it's in French so you better use Babelfish." I'd call that an impressive hack!

_typo asks: "I was thinking about building a nice MP3/VCD/DVD playing box for my home. Such box would stack along with the rest of the home entertainement equipment. I need suggestions about the case to use, the hardware to put in it and the software to drive it." This is similar to the Ask Slashdot on Home Theater Systems, but this approaches the issue from a different angle, that of building your own device to run the DVD/VCD/MP3 aspect of your mega-stereo system. Off the shelf products can do this decently well, especially with DVDs and VCDs, however about the best player of MP3s in existance, aside from the portables, is your average home computer. DVD/MP3 combos will play some MP3s fairly well, but even the best ones have problems with certain MP3s that will play well enough on a machine with a decent MP3 player.

Porthos writes "There are several HOWTOs about installing Linux on laptops and several more about turning old P75s into Linux-based routers/firewalls, but I haven't heard much about turning old P75 laptops into Linux-based routers." Is there any reason to disrecommend a laptop as a router? I know people with their old portables running as servers, routers, and everything else ...

Spittoon pointed out this ZDNet article claiming that development proceeds apace on G4 portables for Apple's PowerBook line, and that if all goes well, they'll be shown off at Macworld Expo in January. I could live with ads claiming that "The new PowerBook is a supercomputer" in exchange for knocking a couple notes off the price of a G3 PowerBook ;) Slot-loaded CD / DVD drives are long overdue in notebooks, anyhow, so I hope at least that part of the story pans out.

Angus writes "VNUnet have just posted a story that IBM is being cautious about the future of Transmeta's Crusoe in production machines. Suggestion is that Intel is still the player for the future of portables." An interesting comment at the end: 'All Intel has to do is cut prices to squeeze transmeta out of the market'

It may have taken a semi-obscure German professor, the profit motive of the world's CD-ROM drive producers, ingenious hackers and aesthetically gifted interface designers, but the simple fact is that MP3s are out there, and they're everywhere -- every major desktop OS comes with players for your easy listening. Chronic book review madman chromatic points you to a fount of knowledge for anyone who needs more than "click here to play."

ces writes "From Government Computer News Feb. 7: 'NASA will give Linux a nod for upcoming portables buy.' It seems Linux is on the list of 'desired' OS's for an upcoming NASA procurement of up to 4,000 laptops, some of which will be destined for use on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station."

We did the usual Call for Questions thing Monday. We didn't get quite as many as we've had for some other interview subjects here, but sometimes quality is more important than quantity, and we sent Bruce some beauts. His answers are of similar excellence, and are well worth reading even if you have never read any of his work or even if you despise science fiction. So click below, read, and enjoy!

Nils sent a release to the Debian Announce mailing list proclaiming that Linux Laptops Ltd is up and running, and (surprise!) they're whole deal is reselling Laptops with Linux Pre-installed. And they're shipping them with Debian as their distribution of choice. Pre-installed portables are still a hole in the Linux hardware realm, hopefully this will work out.

Bocephus writes "CNET news.com reports in this story that the RIAA, despite its Secure Digital Music Initiative project, will allow MP3 to continue to exist so that portables like the Rio or Nomad may play MP3s. However, MP3s ripped from new CDs will be unusable if downloaded from the Net. " Yeah, essentially the RIAA is saying that current players can still play ones, even the existing illegal ones, once specs from the recording industry has been made. I wonder how long it's going to take them to figure out that they lost.

Mike Rose wrote in to tell us about a revolutionary Photon Chip, which is the first fully integrated optical circuit. Using wave-guides as wires and frequency-dependent quantum tunneling for gate equivalents the chips are 100-1000 times faster and 1000 times smaller than ordinary chips. Power consumption should fall dramatically as well, enabling portables with much longer battery lives. Current waveguides are down to .02 micron (ten times smaller than the wires in current semiconductors). Mike comments "Wonder what their IPO will be like... "

What we have here is a site called Digital Concepts which basically has a bunch of interesting designs for PDAs of the future. A lot of funky Pilot variations, as well as laptops and stuff. Some of them aren't so far off. Others, well, we can hope. Thanks to Luke for sending this one in.