Google Chrome is now available to download.  It is currently Windows only, but Mac and Linux versions are expected in the future.  Full Impressions review to come.

It is a busy day for the Rumor Mill.  Apple has officially announced it is hosting an iPod event September 9th at 10am in San Francisco.  Expect new iPod nanos, probably updated iPod touches, and maybe (hopefully?) more.  It seems that after multiple third-party companies have leaked their case designs, the 4th generation nano will return to the taller, narrower design of the original nanos.  It will also have a much larger screen.  Mockup after the jump.  Stay tuned here, Evan and I will keep you up to date on all the action as soon as we find out.

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Yes, we have falsely predicted two or three times before when Dell was going to announce their netbook.  That however is not stopping us from disseminating this latest rumor that Dell’s littlest Inspiron is being announced this Friday, September 5th.  There is about as much credibility to this rumor as all the previous ones, besides the fact that Dell has to announce this soon if they want to cash in on the holiday shopping season.  Hopefully, this time the rumor will actually be true and our credibility may be recovered from the gutter.

Sony Ericsson W350

Ericsson T28

The Sony Ericsson W350 is AT&T’s latest phone and it features the previously thought to be extinct downward-folding flap.  Last seen on the Ericsson T28, this was a classic design for early cellphones.  Unlike its predecessors though, the W350 cannot answer and end calls just by opening and closing the flap.  In fact, the music controls on the front of the flap actually just press through to the keypad buttons behind it.  There are no electrical connections to the flap itself and it can even be easily removed without harming the phone at all.  Sadly, it seems that this design resurrection only goes skin deep.

Here is a device I wish some company would try to recreate.  In many ways, this device was the zenith for Sony Clie’s and even for Palm devices in general.  As you can tell from the picture, the device was shaped like a miniature tablet PC, with a relatively spacious thumb keyboard and a 3.25″ screen that could flip and fold over it.  Therefore, it could be used in both tablet mode and mini-laptop mode.  The UX50 had both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.  The Wi-Fi alone makes it useful, even today, more than 5 years after it first came out.  A quick look on eBay reveals that used UX50’s still go for well over $100, if not $200.

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So we have already seen how Evan writes and manages this blog.  Let me show you some of the inner workings on my side of this enterprise.  First off, I would like to say that I was really excited when Evan asked to help him write for his blog.  We had semi-jokingly talked about it before, but I was really glad that he had taken the jump and started it.  Follow the jump to see what I use to put together a post.

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By far the cheapest headphones Ultimate Ears makes, these in-ear headphones are designed for kids and have their volume output hardware limited.  Despite the decreased output, these headphones still produce the stellar sound quality you would expect from a pair of Ultmate Ears.  At only $40, the Loud Enough’s make sense for anyone looking for a relatively inexpensive pair of quality earbuds.  They are available in three colors (mint, blueberry, and plum) and come with a variety of silicone ear tips and a carrying case.  The blueberry color is probably the best call for adults who do not want to look too childish wearing their Loud Enough earphones.

CampTune from Paragon Software Group promises to do one thing and one thing only: resize your Boot Camp partitions without erasing the data on either.  Right now, CampTune is in beta so it is free to brave souls out there.  Paragon will start charging for it once the code leaves pre-release.  CampTune is actually a Linux LiveCD, so you must burn the iso file that you download to a CD and boot off it.  When I tried CampTune on my own computer, it failed to resize my partitions and kicked back an error.  Luckily it did not corrupt anything on my hard drive.  For failing to do the one thing it promised, CampTune will be stuck with the shame of being the first product to be given the Just Plain Tech Seal of Disapproval.  Let us hope Paragon makes their product actually work before they start charging for it.

One of Google’s lesser known tools, I have found Google Notebook to be very helpful to me in school.  It installs as an extension on Firefox for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  Additionally, it is available as a plugin for Internet Explorer 6.  Unofortunately, there is no support for Internet Explorer 7, Safari, or other browsers.  The point of Google Notebook is that you can save websites, or highlight selections of text, or select an image to save to a central Google server.  There you can organize your web clipping into notebooks, append notes onto those clips, or write notes down on the whole notebook in general.  Because all this information is stored online, I can access this data from any computer with an internet connection.  Google Notebook has proven to be an invaluable tool for researching school papers and writing articles for this website.  Students would do themselves a favor by trying out Google Notebook this school year.

Last week, I mentioned how there was a beta version of Adium that suported Facebook chat.  Well, that version is beta no more.  In addition to the support for Facebook, there is also a redesigned Contact Inspector (it used to be called Get Info), a Contact List search box is newly available, and there are many performance and compatibility updates.  Current Adium users can just go to “Check for Updates…” and get the newest version directly.  Of course, you can always download it from the Adium website.  This new version is an improvement over the old version with no downsides, therefore I have no reservations giving it our new Seal of Approval.