It’s amazing how such a little device can allow such amazing creativity. I’m all for gadgets that allow still camera or camcorder shooting from different angles, without having to contort the human body into all sorts of nooks, crannies, up trees, in ditches and other positions that a centipede would shy from. My physiotherapist’s annual bill is testimony to been there, done that.

But car mounts and the like used in shows like Top Gear are not cheap. I know as I have two of them I bought from the UK. Yes, they work, and work brilliantly, but good gear costs serious money.

These sorts of mounts however are dedicated to specific jobs – windscreen internal, windscreen external, fixed on fender and so on. Therefore, to cover the gamut of all things needed, you need a variety of differing mounts. You can build your own for a reasonable price, and AusCam sells a book for around $80 that has a bundle of these with step-by-step instructions and even a parts list you can take to a hardware store (see www.australasiancamcorder.info and click on the shop option to look for Killer Camera Rigs You Can Build).

For an absolute universal mount though, that can be used for anything from guitar neck mounted to in-car shots that mount to - well, anything mostly you can think really, for less than forty bucks, the GorillaPod is hard to beat.

www.maxwell.com.au will flog you one. And yes, they do come in different colours, but why escapes me.

I’ve just spent the past couple of days with executives from Nokia, listening to them wax lyrical about their latest handset offering and associated music service. The handset was interesting, but it was the music element that really caught my attention.

Not content with its position as the world’s dominant provider of mobile handsets, the Finnish phone giant is determined to become a player in the associated areas of content and services. It’s figured out that these areas provide the prospect of stronger future revenues than hardware alone.

When its released later this year, Nokia’s music offer (dubbed ‘Comes With Music’) will be pretty compelling for many people. Buy a Nokia handset for around $400 and with it you’ll get access to a massive online music store containing tracks from the four major publishing companies as well as a growing list of indy labels. For a period of 12 months you can download as many of the tracks as you want to your PC or mobile phone.

That’s pretty good, but the deal gets even better. After your 12-month download period ends, you’ll be free to keep all your tracks forever – no questions asked. This is something no other company has ever offered.

There’s no doubt the Nokia offer will be massively popular and provide serious competition for Apple’s established iTunes online store. In fact, it may well change the recorded music business forever.

Faced with massive piracy problems, established music labels have been desperate to find a way to claw back their revenues. In an era when many internet users believe content should be free, this hasn’t been easy to do.

Now, at least they’ll be able to get some return on their massive music libraries. As they say in the classics, something is always better than nothing.

The launch of Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ initiative is a big day for the music industry. It will be very interesting to see how its effect plays out in the days to come.

Sorry for the late post, a DSL expert has just spent five hours wrangling with the dodgy wiring in my new house so I can get decent and reliable broadband speeds in my lounge room.

While he managed to sort of the shonky telephone wiring within the house, he also detected faults on the copper line running from my house back to the exchange. He's going to email me a report that I can take to my ISP, who in turn will take it up with Telstra. Thankfully I'm with Internode, an ISP known for its customer service.

I've never had to fight with DSL before, as I've been on Optus cable for the last five years. Cable either works or it doesn't, whereas the last few weeks on DSL I've had to fight with fluctuating speeds and regular dropouts. I've been breaking in Internode's VoIP service at the same time, which seems to be good although it's hard to be sure until I get my other issues sorted.

I'm a fair way from the exchange, but even so I was disappointed with the measly 2 Mbps I managed to squeeze out of the copper when I first moved in. After some tweaking I managed to boost it to 4 Mbps, but with today's rewire and the installation of a central filter I'm now getting 5 Mbps. I reckon that could jump to 6 or 7 if the line back to the exchange is improved. If Internode eventually upgrades my exchange to ADSL2+ it could jump again.

You really have to wonder how many other DSL users are at the mercy of dodgy copper, both in their homes and in the street. Your average punter wouldn't bother to get in an expert to investigate, they'd probably just speak to their ISP - who would fob them off.

As more Australians embrace the digital lounge room, they'll need to take a good hard look at their copper to see if they're actually getting what they paid for.

Apple's stock price has been hit fairly badly by the turmoil in the financial markets.

The stock dropped from $US128.24 on Friday afternoon to a low of $US103.52 on Monday, the lowest price since May 2007. Over $US20 billion was lopped from the company's market capitalisation.

CEO Steve Jobs holds over 5.5 million shares according to company filings. Hmmm, that drop meant about $US135 million came off his net worth. Ouch! And that was just Apple - Disney shares fell too, but by a smaller percentage.

Still, I'd be pleased to own 5.5 million shares that were only worth one cent each, so I suppose it's all relative. And as I keep telling myself, you don't actually lose money until you sell an investment.

Things started moving in the right direction on Tuesday with a recovery of almost 8 percent followed by a small additional rise in after hours trading.

Apple was one of the worst hit tech stocks, presumably because of its relatively high exposure to the consumer market. I'm doubtful of that reasoning - my experience in previous downturns suggests companies clamp down on spending on IT as vigourously as people who fear they might be out of a job tomorrow.

According to MarketWatch analysts were variously concerned with Apple's absence from the low-end (under $US1000) consumer PC market and a RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) survey that showed the number of people planning to buy a Mac in the next 90 days fell from 34 percent in August to 29 percent in September.

I'm not sure what to make of that, because the idea that anything like one-third of the population is planning to buy a Mac in the next 90 days seems incredible to me. Assume that intentions turn into action and extrapolate that over a year for the entire population, and wouldn't it mean that everyone would buy one and a bit Macs?

Far more believable is the finding that 41 percent of respondents said they were planning to spend less on electronics over the next three months. If times are tough, it's relatively easy to put off buying a new computer, TV or other entertainment gear. Mind you, the way such products have been pouring out of the shops over the last year or two, it wouldn't have surprised me if sales fell simply because the market was sated.

Regardless of Mac sales, I'm still expecting the latest iPods to sell well for Christmas. The nano in particular is relatively cheap, and sufficiently different to previous models to tempt anyone with a battered nano or mini to put it on their wish list.

So, what do you reckon? Are Apple shares bargain priced at the moment, or do you think they have further to fall? Leave your opinion in a comment, and we'll see who gets it right.

Me? I think we've just seen a 'dead cat bounce' and that the price will fall again unless the 'bailout bill' in some form or another gets approval pretty quickly. Am I putting my money where my mouth is? No chance!

[Sitting in for Anthony Caruana]

I had such a great Hydrapinion for you today. It was going to blow your collective minds, dear readers. By the end of it, you’d think that perhaps the fill-in should become the main man. It was so good, in fact, that perhaps the whole Hydrapinion concept was in peril. After reading it, you may all have decided that just plain old ‘Pinion would be enough.

That’s how good it was.

But sadly, I can’t offer it to you this week.

You see, I was writing it on my teensy-weensy eeePC. It’s a marvel, the eee. So light I forget I’m carrying it – even when I’m on my bicycle. So convenient, I sneak work in all over the place. It’s so small I can fit it into a half-way stylish manbag, instead the usual nylon-and-foam monstrosities generally designated for laptop-toting duties.
So … there I was, writing this killer opinion on the eee. I was a few hundred words in, scrolling furiously up and down as I polished it to perfection. Time flew by … and that’s when I felt it … some kind of strange twinge in my shoulder muscles. I literally shrugged it off, but the hunching motion required to get my big, fat fingers onto the eee’s little keyboard for more than 15 minutes meant the ache soon came back. And stayed. And got worse.

At this point I really must spare you the details of just how the musculoskeletal system refers problems around the body, so that it does not break down under stress. But suffice to say that one of the less sensible things you can do to your own musculoskeletal system, dear readers, is to crane your neck downwards and stare at a nine-inch screen that sits at navel-height, while typing quickly on a keyboard designed for a child’s hands.

That’s what my physio has been telling me for the last three visits, as he attempts to un-knot my neck and restore some equilibrium to my spine.

And that’s also why you’re not reading the killer column. I’m not even touching the eeePC until I figure out a way to use it without contortions. And seeing as the physio bill has now reached half the price of the eeePC, I suspect I won’t be the only one who has a serious think about just how to make sure that tiny PCs don’t do big damage to the body.