I just picked up a neat little handheld device on eBay, a ZipIt wireless messenger. Originally intended to be used as a portable, wi-fi enabled chatting device for teens, it can also be reflashed to run a tiny distribution of Linux (actually, it already runs Linux, but the reflashed version is considerably more hacker-friendly). I’ve only had it for a few hours now, and I’ve already got Linux flashed, booting, ready, but it looks like it will take extra modification to run something more useful like an SSH client. Telnet works out-of-the-box, but I prefer my connections to be securely encrypted.

I’m not quite sure what I intend to do with it just yet — perhaps a portable email client or SSH server-controller is in store. For $25, though, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hack around with such a cool little device.

Some resources I’ve found helpful:

• AiboHack’s ZipIt Linux Reflashing tutorial
• OpenZipit Linux Distribution
• Karosium’s ZipIt hacks

For the longest time, gravatar.com was having troubles serving up the thousands of icon requests from blogs around the world, but it appears that — for now at least — they’re back up and running at full speed. I’ve just re-enabled display of the icons on Command-Tab, and it doesn’t appear to incur much of a performance hit. I’m glad to see some other images around the place instead of the default Mac “shadowy figure” you get stuck with if you haven’t yet signed up for this great little service.

In an earlier post, I put together a package of several spinner images for your Web 2.0 apps, however it was a bit lacking as far as scripting and programming goes. To make full use of the PNG “filmstrip” style spinners, you’ll need a bit of JavaScript to make them go.

If you use the exceptional jQuery JavaScript library to make your software shine, you’ll be able to easily load and run the PNG spinners with this little jquery.spinner.js plugin I put together. Included in the package is a simple HTML file detailing how to use the plugin, but the basics are as follows:

After including jquery.js (or jquery.pack.js) and jquery.spinner.js in your HTML head, set up an empty div and call the .spinner function with some simple parameters:

$(”#spinme”).spinner({ height: 48, width: 48, speed: 50, image: ’spotlight_spinner_big.png’ });

You can pass width, height, frame speed, and an image URL to set up the spinner, as well as call $.spinnerStop(); to halt the spinner.

While I’ve worked on a few jQuery plugins before, I’m not entirely sure all the programming conventions I’ve used are “correct” (like the global $.spinnerStop). That in mind, if you find any bugs or notice an issue, please let me know, and I’ll update the plugin as soon as possible. Get the plugin here.

Special thanks to the talented Rogie King for some last-minute fixes!