Despite the massive popularity of the player, there are still some little-known tricks that can help you get more mileage out of your music. (Hint: You can replace that battery yourself.)

Apple’s massively popular music player has practically spawned a blogosphere all its own, with sites devoted to uncovering the latest hacks as well as contrary blogs that sing the praises of iPod alternatives.

Meanwhile, Steve Jobs and company aren’t sitting still, continuing to expand the iPod ecosystem with accessories to stoke sales.

However, buried amid all that information are some little-known facts and helpful workarounds that can help you get more mileage out of your music experience. Accordingly, InformationWeek bring you five things you might not know about the iPod.

Google is preparing to open a second research center in Israel. In addition to the first center planned in the northern city of Haifa, Google jobs page now lists new openings for positions in a new research center in Tel Aviv.

Google is looking for Engineering Center Director, Vertical Head Multi-Sector, Vertical Relationship Manager, Multi-Sector, Vertical Account Manager - Multi-Sector, Maximizer Coordinator (Google Copywriter) and several more sales positions in Tel Aviv.

The job description for the for Engineering Center Director states that Google is looking for a person to head their new research and development center in Tel Aviv.

Google decline to comment about the new center

A Russian security company announced Friday that it had found a cross-over virus that can infect PCs running either the open-source Linux or Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Dubbed “Linux.Bi.a” and “Win32.Bi.a,” the split-personality malware doesn’t do any damage. Instead, said Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs in an online briefing, it’s a proof-of-concept to prove that a cross-platform virus is possible.

“However, our experience shows that once proof-of-concept code is released, virus writers are usually quick to take the code, and adapt it for their own use,” wrote a Kaspersky analyst in the briefing.

Source: informationweek

MySql, the upstart database company is developing its own transactional storage engine, which can effectively be used as a replacement for the Oracle-acquired technology, executives said.

MySQL has also renewed the Innobase contract which Oracle inherited. The contract has a term of less than 10 years and calls for Oracle to update Innobase’s InnoDB storage engine–as it had been before the acquisition–on the same terms, said Marten Mickos, MySQL’s CEO.

Source: News.com

The U.S. Federal Trade Comission said it has closed down a spam operation in California that sent millions of unwanted messages to online users across the country and fined the companies involved about $2.4 million. But based on the financial records of the defendants, the judgment will be suspended upon payment of $475,000.

Source: spamdailynews

Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. cellphone service, said on Thursday it plans to sell ringtones from bands that put their music on MySpace.com, the social Web site that is popular among teenagers.

Customers will be able to preview ringtones and buy them on the MySpace Web site, which will then send them to their cellphone. Cingular plans to charge about $2.50 for each 30 second ringtone and will give the bands 25 percent of the proceeds.

Source: Reuters

Starting 7 April 2006 the new top level domain .eu is open for general registration.

Up until now the .eu domain was only available to applicants who proved a prior right which entitles them to claim the corresponding domain name.

Here you can find a list of all accredited .eu registrars.

Microsoft has confirmed it plans to release a fix for a serious security bug in Internet Explorer next Tuesday (11 April). The fix for the “CreateTextRange” vulnerability - which has become the subject of hacker exploits over recent days - will be released as a cumulative update to Internet Explorer along with four other security bulletins

Source: The Register

A rogue anti-spyware application is falsely identifying popular security products and file system tools as spyware. Security firm SurfControl advises users not to touch the application, UnSpyPC, with a barge pole.

False-positive reporting is hardly unknown across many supposed anti-spyware applications, as SurfControl notes, but this case is particularly severe since UnSpyPC could disable critical security and business applications.

Source: The Register

Microsoft Corp. took a big chunk of the Web server market this month at the expense of Apache running on Linux, as a major domain registrar moved to the Windows platform, a research and security firm said Thursday.

The Redmond, Wash., company gained a 4.7 percent share while the open-source alternative fell 5.9 percent, making the shift one of the largest one-month swings on record, U.K.-based Netcraft Ltd. said. Microsoft’s bonanza was driven by domain registrar Go Daddy migrating 3.5 million hostnames from Linux to Windows.

Nevertheless, Apache remains by far the leading Web server with nearly 63 percent of the market as of April, according to Netcraft. Microsoft is a distant second at 25 percent.

Source: TechWeb

The Azureus-BitTorrent Client won the overall most popular open-source software award in SourceForge.net’s first annual Community Choice Awards, the developer collaboration site said Thursday.

Source: TechWeb

Researchers trying to make tiny machines have turned to the power of nature, engineering a virus to attract metals and then using it to build minute wires for microscopic batteries.

The resulting nanowires can be used in minuscule lithium ion battery electrodes, which in turn would be used to power very small machines, the researchers report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

Source: Reuters