It seems a bit ironic that last year’s winner of Best of Show at Macworld 2007 wasn’t able to ship until Macworld 2008, but the thing is so cool it was worth the wait.

Axiotron’s Modbook is a Mac you’ve never seen before - the first Mac tablet, and endorsed by Apple at that! It’s that dream combo of the Mac ease of use coupled with a touch sensitive screen (in the Wacom sense at least; a multi-touch screen Mac is yet to come - but I think it’d be the height of cruelty if that one came out this year, and somehow I wouldn’t put it past Apple to pull the stunt).

It’s basically a ruggedized state-of-the-art Macbook as the base, fitted with the touchscreen, and with built-in GPS thrown in for good measure. You can rest your hand on the screen and not mess the interface, unlike a typical touchscreen, because only the pen gets any love. The whole thing looks like they ripped off the Mac’s screen and melded it on top of the keyboard.

It’ll be showcased at Macworld in a couple of weeks, complete with demos and other events, and will ship within the month at about US$2300 to US$2500. Let’s hope Apple won’t ruin it for Axiotron.

More details about the Modbook on the Axiotron site.

There’s apparently a hack to remove the arbitrarily-imposed 1K limit of SMSs that can be stored on an iPhone.  Since I got one I’ve come across this upper limit a few times already and I’ve always wondered why this has to be so.

iPhone Skinning tells us about a hack called “No SMS Limit” (heck of an imaginative title) that removes this block. Whether or not this will result in complications down the road remains to be seen, so hax0r beware.

To get it, just open up NullRiver’s Installer on your iPhone (assuming you’ve jailbroken your unit and are more or less used to adding third-party apps; if not, you need to go to a whole other post), and add http://iphone.totalmatrix.net to your Sources. Reload and look for it under Tweaks (1.1.1).

Be aware you’ll also need SMSD on your system to access the SMS archives (and you need to get this first before getting No SMS Limit), which in turn require Erica Sadun’s UIctl, a UI for launchctl, first. Both SMSD and UIctl are available on Installer already.

No SMS Limit will require you to cold-boot your iPhone, and will patch SMSD before it runs, so be forewarned.

As usual, Mac-A-Doodle just passes on the info; your risk, your call. I’ve installed it myself and will report back if it messes up or hoses my phone.

New retro-style animated ad with Santa out. Here.

For joy! New ad available here, along with the others you might have not seen yet.

Wouldn’t it be great to walk into someone’s house or office and get his Mac to play the songs on your iPhone or iPod Touch remotely on his big speakers?

TUAW reports that it’s possible. All you need do is install an app called Firefly on your iPhone or iPod Touch, let it build your mobile music database and you’re good to go.

Here’s how it’s done:

Navigate to http://home.mike.tl/iphone using Safari on your device. This installs a new app source onto Installer.app. Alternately, run Installer and add the url to the Sources tab.

This makes Firefly appear on your list of installables. Install and run Firefly, and give it anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes to build your database (the length of time depends on how many songs you got).

That’s basically it.

Make sure the iTunes you intend to play from has enabled Library Sharing and has wifi, and that the firewall of the Mac allows communication. Your gadget’s playlist will appear on any iTunes you come within range of, and there you go - if it asks for a password, just say “dottie”, by the way.

You learn something new everyday.