While we liked the shiny unibody MacBooks, their new miniDisplay Port requires the use of a dual link DVI adaptor to drive the 30" CinemaDisplay. Not only is the adaptor $US100; it's a custom cord that can't exactly be spotted between the batteries and singing cards at the drug store. Now Apple has informed preorderers to expect their shipments no sooner than December 23rd—which just goes to show that in a fight between Steve Jobs and Santa Claus, Steve Jobs would win...or something like that. [9to5mac]

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I've seen a lot of disassembled MacBooks already, but this is the first time I've seen one under x-rays. The image was taken by Jason De Villa because he wondered how it would it look like. I like his curiosity: Like other gadget x-rays we have featured in the past, there's something about radiographed technology that satisfies my most intimate geek peeping tom and Dr. House-wannabe desires at the same time. And no, I'm not talking about the cellphones-up-your-buttocks x-rays. [The AfterMac via Cult of Mac]

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A Macforums member who bought an "as-is" Macbook Air from Ebay has ended up with some pretty strange fruit: It's actually an early Air prototype, bearing marks indicating it was built in May 2007, six months before the Air was introduced. It's got a few giveaways: the microphone positioning near the webcam is off, there's no keyboard lighting, no "MacBook Air" legend, it runs an interim build of OS X 10.5 and the bottom is black-coloured aluminium, versus the usual shiny silver. Lord knows how this baby escaped Cupertino's clutches, but escape it did. Does this make it valuable like a prototype stamp to a philatelist? Only another Ebay sale will tell. [Macrumors]

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High Definition Content Protection—the annoying DRM-y thing that's supposed to stop people from copying hi-def stuff as it travels over a card-display connector— has apparently, and unfortunately, come to Apple's MacBooks. HDCP is now included on new MacBooks to protect iTunes Store media, though it seems that only some of the content is actually HDCP-aware. A high school teacher was unable to play Hellboy 2 on his classroom's projector with his new aluminium MacBook, but other purchased media (such as Stargate: Continuum and Heroes episodes) worked just fine. Perfect. Because copyright protection is all about inconveniencing those who actually bought their stuff legally? [Ars Technica]

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An intrepid modder was given a sad, water-damaged MacBook and turned it into his own little Mac Pro Mini with a little know-how and a $US40 Mac Pro case knockoff. His MacBook's motherboard worked, but LCD, HDD, battery, memory, keyboard, and DVD drive were all busted. After replacing the HDD and memory, he set out to stuff his cheap-o case with the corpse of his MacBook.

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I don't know if these MacBook Nanos are a custom hack or if they come from some kind of shady outlet selling retrofitted MSI U100 laptops made to look like shiny--and fictional--Apple notebooks with Mac OS X installed. I do know one thing, though: I wouldn't mind having one, specially seeing the contrast with the MacBook Pro 17. The look needs a little bit more polish, but the specs are good and we like both the black and white models.

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A growing mass of people have been reporting that the omni-button trackpads on the new MacBooks are glitchy—every 50 or so clicks, the trackpad will stop responding for a few seconds at a time, even to hard clicks. Whether it's a hardware or software issue hasn't been officially confirmed by Apple, but a supposed email response from Steve Jobs promises simply, "Software fix coming soon." This isn't the first time there have been trackpad issues with Apple notebooks, but we haven't had any problems with our new MacBooks or Pros. What about you guys? [AppleInsider]

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It's a given that each firmware update for the iPhone and iPod Touch will seal up exploits used by the Dev Team to 'Pwn' the devices, but nobody expected the new MacBooks to present a problem for would-be Jailbreakers. Users over at HowardForums and iPodTouchFans are reporting problems running the Pwnage tool on the new aluminium MacBooks, which don't seem to be able to recognise an iPhone or iPod Touch when it is booted into DFU mode, a vital requirement for jailbreaking.

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While we've officially confirmed that the Nvidia chipset in the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros can theoretically support up to 8GB of RAM, Apple says the capacities for each top out at 4GB. Turns out, the actual number is right there in the middle--chip supplier Ramjet has tested and officially confirmed that the new MacBooks can support 6GB RAM via one 2GB module and one 4GB module. But why not eight?

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How embarrassing. A loyal and loving wife baked this beautiful MacBook cake for her husband's friend's birthday. Note her meticulous attention to detail, including the little indentation in the front to open the computer and the perfect slightly-different-white Apple logo.

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