Dell first started out as a maker of computers that users could customize with the exact hardware that they desired. Dell made its name on the customization options it offered buyers. More recently, Dell has been letting shoppers customize not only the hardware inside the notebook or desktop, but has been offering custom colors and designs on the exterior of the computer as well.

Dell has announced new Inspiron desktop computers called the Inspiron slim and mini-tower. The new machines can be customized with eight different colors that completely cover the front panel of the computer. Dell says it is the only major computer maker allowing users to color customize a desktop computer.

Office workers who work in certain industries need special computers to get their work done. A standard desktop that is used for checking email and writing word documents in a normal office just won’t cut it in a graphics design or CAD department. For this type of environment, a powerful workstation computer is needed.

HP has announced its new Z series workstations today that use the new Intel Xeon 5500 series processors. The new series includes the Z800, Z600, and Z400 workstations that are aimed at the CAD, engineering, medical imaging, finance and oil/gas industries.

Skype has been around for a while and started out as a PC application that allowed users to call each other for free over the Internet. Later Skype gained the ability to call landline and mobile numbers for a per minute rate. Yesterday we mentioned that Skype was coming to the iPhone today.

Skype officially announced this morning that the application is now on the App Store for download. The app adds all of the features that users of the desktop application know and love including free Skype-to-Skype calls, the ability to call landlines and mobile numbers for a fee, IM, and a personal Skype number.

There are so many things to like about the iPhone and I think many will agree one of the most important features is the App Store. Apple’s App Store has proven to be wildly popular and offers up all sorts of software and games that add fun and functionality to the iPhone.

With the success of the App Store, it’s no surprise that many other phone makers are looking to start their own similar store. Google has done it for its Android smartphones and now Microsoft has announced a new Windows Marketplace for Mobile to do the same thing.

Sony will be releasing two new Blu-ray recorders that offer support for a bunch of Sony gadgets. The 500GB BDZ-A950 and the 320GB BDZ-A750. It means you can export what you record or download to your Walkman devices, your PSP and some cell phones.

There’s also an accompanying Internet-based service called acTVila that allows you to download videos for a fee. Or, you can stream content for a smaller fee, but surprise, you can’t keep the content.

Here’s a cool video camera from Hammacher Schlemmer, specifically designed to create a timelapse video of your garden so that you can keep track of your garden’s progress. Pretty neat. You could make your own Discovery Channel type movie.

It features two different capture modes: as close as 20-inches or a 54-inch wide field of view with the capability to take a picture at one of six preset intervals. Anything from every 5 seconds to every 24 hours and it combines them into a single 1280 x 1024 resolution AVI movie file. Nice.

We’ve featured some pretty badass weapons here at the ‘Brick. This one is maybe the most depressing gun we’ve ever seen. But tough economic times call for a special brand of gun I guess. Great for the Wall street dude or banker who has just lost a vast fortune and is too chicken to take the plunge off a skyscraper. Actually, their victims could probably appreciate this gun too.

It’s a one shot weapon made for one thing only. Suicide. It makes the revolver ring look tame in comparison as well as the almighty Blast Knuckles.

The Asus Eee PC1004DN is the first Eee PC to feature a Super-Multi optical disc drive, which lets users read and write optical discs for convenient data back-ups. A power-efficient Express Card slot provides expansion capabilities, along with plug-and-play compatibility and auto-configuration access.

The Asus Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) technology will give you an extended battery life while on-the-go. The Asus Eee PC1004DN also features the Asus Data Security System (ADSM) which gives users the option of logging-on using their fingerprints. It will recognize multiple fingerprints belonging to the same user and allow you to encrypt a single folder with the same security system.

Takara Tomy wanted them some of that sweet Wii Fit action, so they launched the Minutes Gym Digital Video Trainer which is a pretty simple looking device that plugs into your TV or display with a composite video input. Just give it some basic info and use the integrated body fat sensor to measure your current state of flabbiness.

After that a bunch of animated figures will guide you through your fitness workouts. An incredible 100,000,000. That’s right 100 million 3-minute workouts. You’d have to be Jabba the Hutt to get through all of them and still be rotund.

The Lucky Voice Karaoke Party Box plugs into your computer and turns it into a full featured Karaoke machine. Let the party begin. It’s been far too long since your neighbors banged on your wall and it’s been at least six months since the cops showed up to find you in a feather boa singing “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”.

It comes with a year’s subscription to the LuckyVoice.com Karaoke service which has 6000 songs with lyrics just waiting on you. The box comes with echo and sockets for two microphones.

Nikita Buyanov made a bunch of concept laptops for HP-Intel, custom made specifically for women. The laptops come with a range of interesting features, aimed at the fairer sex. There’s some crazy stuff. Like laptops that double as weighing machines, some that carry makeup, with features like mirror mode and a built-in on-nail printing device. The Chameleon, for instance, changes color to blend with its surroundings.

The one that would likely be most offensive to women is pictured above, HP Makeup. It’s obscenely pink and if you press the big button, the screen will change to mirror mode so they can apply makeup. It also has an on-nail printing device.

Looks like you can now configure Dell’s latest netbook with a 1366×768 screen, which is big enough to handle 720p. It will cost about $35 extra, so it’s a no-brainer. Assuming that wide frame around the screen doesn’t bother you on a 10 incher, at any rate.

And another factor is: How well does it handle 720p? From what we can gather, there’s a built-in TV tuner and a six-cell battery coming at some point, but nothing yet.

This Exploded Atari 2600 shirt is all kinds of awesome. It illustrates disassembly perfectly for any geek who thinks that the Atari 2600 is somehow full of tons of parts and hard to take apart.

We recommend wearing it while doing such mods as the Atari-Hero, or the Multari. You can’t have too many geek shirts after all. Even when you run out of drawer and closet space. That’s what your floor is for, right? It will only cost you $17.

No doubt, this will upset a great many of you, but Netflix is raising the price of Blu-ray rentals again. You might remember, Netflix already implemented a $1 per month fee for Blu-ray customers in October. Now it wants to raise it even higher, by around 20 percent across its pricing structure.

It should hit April 27th and is only applicable to BD customers. According to the company, this is all due to having to buy more titles on BD to “accommodate the increasing number of Netflix members who prefer renting movies on Blu-ray.”

Looks like Motorola’s QA4 is now fully official. The phone comes armed with a decent 2.8-inch WQVGA touchscreen, quad-band CDMA connectivity, a 2 megapixel camera, 256MB of internal memory, a microSD card slot for expansion, aGPS, stereo Bluetooth, and a sliding keypad.

Since Motorola hasn’t listed a price or release date, we’ll just have to wait and see, but the company is promising to make it available sometime in the second quarter of this year.