After searching around for so long for a external battery pack, finally I found Chinese made MiLi at Switch World Expo that held at Gurney Plaza lately. I wanted an external battery pack to charge my phones, the Nexus One and Nokia N95 8GB when they run out of battery. I feel that having an external battery pack is better than swapping battery because swapping battery need to power it off and on again, very troublesome.

But with an external battery pack, it’s different. Just plug it into the phone it will charged like from the power at home.

It’s actually a rechargeable battery which can be charged then output with a USB and then connect it to any of your gadget device. You can charge your iPhone or whatever thing with the USB. It’s very easy to use too. There’s two color, black and white and I picked up the blacked one.

Opening up the box, there’s the little battery pack, it’s very small and very light, come with a pouch, USB cable and a few connectors for your phone and gadget.

It’s a finger print magnet with it sleek glossy surface. A full charged of the MiLi will allow you to charged your iPhone for 2-3 times. I uses it on my Nexus One though. Very easy to use too. Pressing on the center button will indicates how much battery is left. If the blue LED is on, means there’s still power.

Just plug it into your phone, then press the center button, it will start charging your mobile phone or gadget. One thing, the charging is very fast, it’s a lot faster than the power from your computer’s USB.

Good buy and I bought this form RM129 (around US$39).

One of the thing that Apple announced in their Rock and Roll event last week in San Fransisco is the release update of iTunes 9. Well, it’s not very interesting to hear about software update at such event, I would like to see more on gadgets. =)

Since the Internet was so good lately, so downloading the new update just took a while for me. You can actually spot some different if you are on Windows. On my side, it’s faster than before on my machine, I’m not sure whether do you notice it or not, some told me that it’s still the same but it’s really faster on my side.

Home Sharing is a new thing which allow you to share your iTunes Music Store downloads with few computer of the same iTunes account. I don’t really use this because I don’t buy music or anything from iTunes Music Store.

iTunes Music Store redesigned, better looking now. I login just to look for podcast and application, I am still on the no-side for buying music online.

One thing I like is the Applications management for the iPod touch and iPhone. You can now pick which app to sync and which page to place your app. Good one.

There’s still some other update like Genius Mixes and I-don’t-know-what-else because I don’t really bother a lot about it, I only use it for music andsyncing my iPod. But iTunes is the best music software in the world, true.

Download iTunes 9.

Breaking news as Apple just update their iPod line with the new iPod shuffle. Previously, the 2nd generation’s claimed to be the world most smallest mp3 player and now, there’s even a smaller iPod shuffle than the 2nd generation iPod shuffle.

It’s a surprise release as I didn’t know about it until my brother IM me on Live Messenger. I thought he was lying and after checking through Apple’s site, it’s confirmed.

It stores up to 1000 songs in it’s 4GB capacity and will be selling at 79US$. It will also be available in two colours which is black and silver.

“Imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPod and iPhone™ Product Marketing. “The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists.”

Voice Over is the new feature of this new iPod Shuffle which is that a voice will talk to you about the song name and artist, it’s also to guide you to navigate through playlist because it’s screenless. Another new thing that you see on the new iPod shuffle is there’s no button on the iPod itself, everything is controlled via the tiny remote on the earpiece.

For your little information, the 2nd generation iPod shuffle is still available in store.

Check out the guided video:

I just want one of this although I already have a 2nd generation iPod shuffle! Apple rocks! I just can’t imagine about the future 4th generation iPod shuffle.

By the way, beware of misplacing it somewhere, it’s super tiny.

Photo taken by “Scott Beale / Laughing Squid“.

It’s the beginning of a new year and there’s always a few tech events to follow up. 2 events that are happening in this week are the Macworld Conference and Expo and Consumer Electronic Show (widely known as CES 2009) are back with a lot of surprise I believe.

Talking about Macworld, this year will be the last year that Apple hosting this event and from then on, there will not be Macworld anymore. Another is Steve Jobs, Apple Computer’s won’t be delivering the keynote too. Rumor has been spread that this is related the health problem of Uncle Steve. Of course, there’s no official evidence and announcement shows that Steve is not well.

Anyway, geeks like me staying in the South East Asia will be staying up late to catch the live keynote of Macworld at 1am GMT+8 Malaysian Time, which will be happening at 9am PST there at San Francisco.

What I am expecting and hopefully to be announced are:

• new iPhone update (both software and hardware).
• new Mac Mini (powered by Nvidia chipset).
• new iMac (powered by Nvidia too like both the MacBook and Pros).
• Snow Leopard.
• a netbook by Apple.
• a media server or a new version of Apple TV.
• iLife 09 update and iWorks too.

It’s the last year and hopefully there’s some surprise for Apple fan like us.

People from the Makezine is very good at doing DIY things. After checking out the video, I have made myself a DIY iPod stand too, but without that much of paperclips.

Check out the tutorial video. 10 minutes of it speaks a lot and within minutes, you can complete yours too.

My dock :

Here is my very own DIY iPod stand, I uses one big and one small paperclip. In order to stick it still on the desk, I uses some plasticine to stick it. It’s never move, even a bit. I have 2 iPods, unfortunately, I only have one iTouch USB cable, the other one is different.

I have went into the Apple store to check out the new iPods. Unfortunately, the only demo unit available is the new iPod nano. Nevertheless, I quickly got my hands-on on it. It feels better than the fat 3G nano. Seriously, I like a long one than a fat one. The curve design makes it looks thinner and more comfortable. It has a very striking color for the silver iPod nano because the click wheels is in black

Screen is not very big, 2″ size, but when comparing with the 1G and 2G iPod nano, it seems big. It’s a little bit longer than the old Nano.

Navigating through the menu, nothing much amaze me. It’s still and iPod user interface, with thumnails and also cover flow when viewing the iPod nano in a vertical way.

The best new feature I like about the 4G iPod nano is the built in accelerometer. Besides working for cover flow, you can shuffle a song by just shaking your iPod nano. It’s like the Sony Ericsson W910i and W580i with shake control. Don’t you will be shuffling your song when you go on a run or a bumpy ride, you have to shake hard to shuffle to the next song. Isn’t that cool?

The rest feature remains the same. Videos, photos, music, and of couse it’s cheaper now. One thing I forgot to mention is, the new iPod nano is colourful, there’s 9 colours to choose from. I like the green, black and silver. What about you?