Manufacturer: Belkin
Price: $79.99US
iPod Compatibility: 1G/2G nano, iPod mini, 4G and 5G iPod
More Information: Wirelessly Control Your iPod with the Belkin SportCommand™ for iPod®

On Monday, Belkin announced a rugged wireless remote for the iPod. The target market is for outdoor sports enthusiasts, regardless of the weather. The idea is that you expose the remote to the elements, while keeping your iPod safe in a bag or in your jacket.

The controls themselves are made out of a durable fabric that attaches with Velcro™ to a flexible armband that you wear on the outside of your winter jacket or outer gear. The basic buttons are there—PLAY/PAUSE, FF/REW, and Volume UP/DOWN. They look chunky and tactile, so you can easily skip to the next track with your gloves on.

Just below the controls is a screw-tight piece where the battery resides. I read from a large image of the SportCommand that there’s an indicator light for battery level, but it wasn’t readily apparent where that indicator is on the front of the device. The remotes wireless bits are probably stored inside that same compartment.

The SportCommand remote velcros to the armband, which looks rugged as well.

The press release doesn’t show the other side of the equation, that is, the part that connects to your iPod. Also, the SportCommand is simply a remote, you’ll still have to run your headphones from wherever you’ve stashed your iPod to your ears.

If you play hard in in-climate weather, and you don’t want to pay to have your iPod built into your jacket, the $79.99US Belkin SportCommand for iPod looks like a great solution.

You can find more information about the SportCommand here.

Apple now has 3 new “Get a Mac” ads up on their web site. These are the ads that, until recently, seemed to only be playing in some Apple retail stores. The ads are titled “Counselor”, “Self Pity” and “Better Results”. The “Better Results” ad is the much anticipated and talked about ad featuring Brazilian super model Gisele Bundchen. I don’t know if these are airing on TV yet, but my guess is if they didn’t start airing last week we will probably see them starting today.
[ View Apple Get a Mac Site ]

While those in the professional Mac community often enjoy industry-standard content creation tools provided by powerful programs like Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, and Logic Pro— there are also many Mac users in the educational arena who have long reaped the benefits of easy to use, intuitive and powerful educational software made by Apple.

Apple has long prided itself in the educational community, offering solutions for both educators and students alike for over 25 years. Because of their continued effort to produce fun yet powerful software like the iLife suite of applications, it’s no surprise that recently a group of 10 year-olds from schools in New South Wales, Australia have been producing some extraordinary material.

Recently The MacCast received a letter by Paul Meldrum, Senior Education Officer of the Catholic Schools Office, in Broken Bay. Paul wanted to write and let us in on the incredible work of the students of New South Wales.
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Recently, we let you know about the availability of a new armband for your iPod nano. I received a set of the Sweats in the mail and wanted to let the MacCast community know how they worked out.
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Podcasters who use the Mac are very familiar with Rogue Amoeba‘s respected Audio Hijack Pro utility, which provides an excellent interface for recording Skype calls, iChat sessions, and similar internet communications applications directly to audio files. Once those streams are stored safely on disk, the next logical step is to edit captured audio to construct a completed program. Rogue Amoeba is positioning its new Fission utility as a lightweight audio editor capable of editing MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless and AIFF audio files. A typical application might include cutting and splicing files, but one very nice feature is the ability to produce a smooth crossfade between regions. Crossfades are used in audio editing to produce a smooth transition between audio events, and help prevent awkward splices and annoying audio pops when making transitions.

Rogue Amoeba notes that Fission can also be used to break up long audio recordings, create ringtones, and remove unwanted portions from audio files. Fission costs USD$32.00 direct from Rogue Amoeba’s online store. Existing users of Audio Hijack Pro can upgrade for USD$18.00 and both programs can be purchased together in a software bundle for USD$50.00. Fission 1.0 is released as a Universal Binary and a trial version is available for download at http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/download.php.

To say I feel honored is an understatement, but when I  took the new 2nd generation iPod Nano out of the shipping box my jaw dropped. The new transparent packaging is fantastic and I  now know why Steve Jobs mentioned it in his keynote. Not thinking my jaw could get any lower I  removed the Nano from it’s packaging and was once again amazed at how much sleeker it felt than the previous generation.

This is the first review where I  just felt that I  wanted to give you two pages (or more) of high resolution photographs. They say “a picture is worth a thousand words” and with the new Nano those words could not be more fitting. The case of the Nano is now all anodized aluminum and is so nice to touch, a real smooth feel, no worries about fingerprints either, which is fantastic news. Colors have been introduced with the 2Gb model being available in silver only, the 4Gb version available in silver, green, blue and pink, and the new higher capacity 8Gb model in a sexy black. All have this wicked metallic look.
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Remember back in the 70s and early 80s when sweatbands were all the rage? Well, the folks over at iMojo have released an armband called the nano Sweats which holds the 1G and 2G iPod nano. It’s made out of that same elastic-like cotton weave that was so popular with runners of yore, that fits around your forearm, instead of your wrists or head.
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What do you do if you are big fan of the Mac and also a big fan of SecondLife? If you are  Dario Darrow (in SecondLife) then you create a  copy of Apple’s new Manhattan store on your land in SecondLife and stream in the video for the latest Apple announcement.

Verizon is spending $20 billion upgrading its network to provide fiber to the home, a new network running fiber optic cable for voice, internet and TV/Entertainment applications. I was one of the first in line to swap out my Comcast services. Why?

Good old-fashioned, raw, American speed, of course. While Comcast Internet provides anywhere from 4-8Mbps downloading and somewhere between 500-768K upload service, performance wavers substantially during typical usage. For the same price, I could get Verizon’s middle tier service, offering 15Mbps downloads and 2Mbps uploading speed. Pricing may vary in some regions, but the basic options are as follows:

5Mbps/2Mbps: $34.95/month
15Mbps/2Mbps: $44.95/month
30Mbps/5Mbps: $179.95/month

All with free installation. And unlike cable, fiber technology promises to be “truer” to its rated speeds. You can run a bandwidth tester such as http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest, and see what you’re getting now with your current provider. So far with FIOS, I’m almost always getting the advertised download speeds, and come very close with the upload speeds as well.
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SendStation is giving away 1,000 of their Firewire PocketDock connectors for iPods for FREE (you just pay shipping). The offer is good for the first 1,000 people to make a request from the companies web site or until September 13th, so hurry. The PoectDock is a tiny connector that works with all Dock Connector iPods and lets you use the iPod’s docking port to connect a standard 6-pin FireWire cable. The PocketDock Firewire can charge and sync all Dock Connector iPods except, of course, the 5th Gen and Nano, which it can only charge. Get yours at SendStation.com.