“Would you like the extended warranty on that, sir?”

“No”, I say breaking a wry smile. What is so darn funny about that question? She seems to be thinking.

Anyways, long story short, I have a Zune. I have it apart. I can’t really say why right now, but I thought it was neat enough to share a few shots of its guts.

You can click the above for a much higher resolution version. The images below are just screen-res photos to save on bandwidth:

[edit: by request, a macro shot of the Wi-Fi module; note there is normally a metal shield over it, I have removed it to see what is underneath, and simultaneously marred part of a component in the upper right hand corner, although it still seems to work. Info on it here and here]

Back up regularly!

Note that it uses the Freescale iMX31L processor at its core…

…I’m just sayin’ ;-).

The ware for October, 2006 is shown below. Click on the image for a much larger version.

I’m running late on the competition, again…Chumby has been keeping me very busy with trips to Japan, Taiwan and China. I’m glad I know a little Japanese and Mandarin, enough to get around…and I suppose if Chumby doesn’t make it, I’ll at least have some pretty fantastic stories to tell my friends when it’s all over. Anyways, I decided this time to pick a ware that may be very easy to guess, but was very pretty. I was poking around at some of the stuff I had laying around my home office and looking at it under my optical microscope, and I thought this was quite visually appealing, and very different from anything else I had put up for the contest previously.

Since I liked the eyecandy so much, I thought I’d also throw in a couple more images that I thought were particularly interesting (some of the images had the color balanced retouched to enhance details):

This last image of the test area of this ware is quite interesting…it has some test devices with very informative labels.

The winner of last month’s name that ware is Karl. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to pick a winner, because everyone is giving such amazingly good descriptions. Julian gave a great analysis, but he already won April 2006’s Name that Ware, so I figure I would give someone else a chance. Karl nailed it quickly, although approximately, with it being a laser barcode scanner. Drop me an email to claim your prize!
This is in fact a Telxon model PTC-960 barcode scanner with integrated 900 MHz radio. I also picked this up at Halted Specialties, while wandering around…figuring that something involving more than just electronics would be an interesting Name that Ware. Thanks for playing, everyone!

The ware for September, 2006 is shown below:

Click on the image for a much larger version. This blog posting is again late (and I was doing so well for the past couple of months). I’ve been out of town for most of September, however, and pretty much away from email access–I finally got a chance to take a vacation (fluffy has a blog about it; follow the Adventure-o-rama and Monguyver links) after the big Chumby launch. I’m back in the fold again, but I probably have a lot more travel coming up as we have a lot of bizdev work to do now, and that means meetings all over the world. It’s exciting though–definitely a different experience from my previous occupations.

I thought this ware was particularly interesting because it’s not just electronic. There is an important piece that is mechanical as well, which I am showing in detail below.

Have I gotten back to all the winners who claimed prizes on the last round? Since I ran off on vacation there’s a chance I might have missed your email. Do drop me a line if you haven’t gotten your prizes yet!

I also think I’m going to try more “microposting” on the blog for the next month, to see how it flows. I’ve traditionally tried to stick with larger, weightier posts, but this month I will mix it up a bit and create a little more content that is still technical, but meant to be more informational or interactive. If this format doesn’t appeal to you, let me know!