Turns out that the Dell Mini 9 can be modded into a sexy looking internet tablet. Who is responsible for this? A dude named Rob, who is a MyDellMini forum member. He turned his Del Vostro A9, which is a business version of the Mini 9, into a Windows 7 touchscreen.

This bad boy holds a 16GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 1GB of RAM and an Intel Atom N270 processor. Rob has further plans for it, like adding an accelerometer to automatically adjust the screen orientation and a small USB fan for temperature control.

I am not a big fan of alternative OS’; I prefer to use what I know and what my software works with in the form of one flavor or another of Windows. I do admit that Android has my interest piqued and I would like to play with the OS a bit. If you feel the same way, the Acer Aspire One with Android and Windows XP is available for pre-order now.

Amazon.com is offering the netbook for pre-order at $349.99 with free shipping. That is a great price considering the machines has both Android and Windows. Other specs include a 10.1-inch screen, Intel Atom N280 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB HDD.

Netbooks have been very popular since they launched and the economy went bad. Many consumers are finding the low price point of the typical netbook to be hard to pass up. As sales of netbooks soar, overall revenues in the notebook category are slipping.

Research firm DisplaySearch has released its latest numbers for the notebook and netbook category and the value of the notebook PC market as a whole was $26.4 billion, up 10% quarter over quarter, but down 5% year over year. The netbook segment was the biggest growth category with an increase from last quarter of 37% and a year over year increase of 264%.

Iomega has a full line of network attached storage products that it offers. The company has recently added a new version to its line called the StorCenter ix2-200 with dual removable drive bays. The device is aimed at the home office and small office user.

Iomega offers the device in 2TB capacity right now for $369.99. A 4TB version is coming soon at $699.99 and a 1TB edition is available now for $269.99. All versions have the same compact form factor designed to sit on your desk without taking up much space.

Asus seems to always be adding new netbook models to its lineup. The machines are available with all manner of configurations and screen sizes. Two more Eee netbooks were leaked today called the Eee 1201N and the Eee 1201HA.

The two machines are very similar and both have 12.1-inch 1366 x 768 resolution screens, Windows 7 Home Premium, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth, and Ethernet connectivity built-in. The 1201N also sports a Intel Atom N330 dual-core CPU, 3GB of RAM and graphics via NVIDIA Ion. Storage is to a 320GB HDD.

Sharp has been busy showing off the NetWalker at this year’s Ceatec.The NetWalker is a smaller-than-usual notebook sporting a 5 inch touchscreen, Ubuntu OS, USB, Wi-fi, 4 GB memory, microSD expansion and a battery that will last you up to 10 hours.

The Sharp NetWalker is set to be priced at about 44,800 Yen (or $500) and is expected in Japan by the end of October. We can only hope that it shows up elsewhere too, for those who love small.

So where’s all that USB 3.0 gear at? Well, at least Buffalo has something to offer. The HD-HU3 series of USB 3.0 hard disks will be the “world’s first” to ship. Buffalo will make NEC’s roughly $60 IFC-PCIE2U3 2-port PCI Expressx1 host controller available with its hard drives when they ship this month in Japan.

The 1TB and 1.5TB drives will cost about $225 and about $284. A 2TB disk is on the way later for about $523. Awesome. Now you have something to use those 3.0 cables with.

Looks like Gateway is getting in on the multitouch action like everyone else. Why not? Windows 7 makes it easy. The company has unveiled the One ZX lineup, which will consist of the ZX6800 series and ZX4800 series. Both will ship with Windows 7.

Some specs: The higher end ZX6810-01 will include a 23-inch multitouch LCD (1,920 x 1,080), 2.33GHz Core 2 Quad Q8200S CPU, 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4670 GPU, 8GB of DDR3 memory, an 8x slot-loading DVD burner, a 1TB HDD (or 64GB SSD), WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, six USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA socket, bundled wireless keyboard and mouse, integrated HD webcam, hybrid TV tuner and built-in speakers.

ioSafe, a technology producer of disaster proof storage hardware, launched the ioSafe Solo in January and this week we took the opportunity to test one out to see how well it would hold up. The ioSafe Solo is a rugged external drive designed to keep your stuff safe in the event of a disaster such as a fire, flood or the building literally falling around it.

The ioSafe is not shockproof however and is not designed to be dropped from great distances or thrown around. It is however built to withstand intense heat (up to 1550 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes), complete submersion (up to 10 feet for 3 days!) and is encased in a rugged enclosure making it like the Sherman tank of external drives.

External storage solutions have lots of uses in today’s home. With the huge amounts of digital content the average consumer uses today, we need a place to back that data up. Western Digital has announced a new My Book Studio external hard drive that has an e-label display built-in.

The cool part about the display is that it can show the volume label and how much space is left on the drive even when the drive is not plugged in. The device is designed for Mac users and has FireWire 800 interface and 256-bit hardware encryption.

Best Buy has been selling lots of mobile phones via its Best Buy Mobile in store kiosk. The coolest part is that they often give you the mail-in rebates on handsets as instant rebates. Best Buy Mobile announced today that it was launching a new service called mIQ on October 12.

The mIQ service is a cloud-based offering that allows the user to back up their contacts, data, photos, video, and text messages, as well as their calendar online. Data is uploaded to the free service and is seamlessly.

Check out this totally funkadelic PC case mod that glows like a toxic night-lite. This one comes from modder JJ-Sky5000 and was created for a Coolermaster contest. The Project ‘Cool’ Boombox PC Case Mod. Cool doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Obviously the mod uses an old boombox from 1990s to great effect. I see some groovin’ dude carrying this thing on his shoulder, moving to the music as he strolls down post-apocalyptic streets in search of nothing more than good times.

It took them awhile, but drive makers are finally getting hip to the fact that we would like to see how much disk space is left without having to plug it in. About time. Western Digital’s My Book Elite and My Book Studio drives now feature labels on the outside displaying that always-on info.

That means even when it isn’t plugged in, you’ll get a 12 character label, and a second line that displays how much space is left on the disc. In both gigabytes and a graph no less. Simple solution huh? The USB 2TB My Book Elite is $280, and the 2TB My Book Studio with FireWire 800 and USB connectivity is $300.

The new LaCie Starck drives are super sexy and look like melting chrome. Has storage ever been this sensuous? They were designed by Philippe Starck. The pair come in the form of the LaCie Starck Mobile Hard Drive and Desktop Hard Drive.

Some features include an LED indicator in the shape of Starck’s sign that is projected onto the table, and the fact that the surface is touch sensitive, so you can assign actions to different kinds of touch. For instance, a tap will trigger the launch of an application, while a caress can start an automatic backup.

Dual-screen notebooks are still popping up and the latest is Kohjinsha’s dual 10.1-inch screen netbook prototype, which was spotted at the CEATEC show in Japan. Just like the Lenovo W700, which started it all, one screen slides behind the other so you can use one or both.

Of course this makes it just a bit thicker than your average netbook. Under the hood you’ll find Windows 7, a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 processor, maximum 4GB RAM, and a 160GB hard disk.