Every once in a while, I get reminded about a cool tool that I've used and then totally forgotten about. In today's example, the reminder came in the form of a post on UNEASYsilence about how to change your Mac's boot image.

The boot image, in case you're new to the Mac world, is that gray Apple logo that you see after the startup chime when booting up your machine. It's surprisingly boring, so back in December of 2007 Jésus Álvarez wrote a small tool to replace that drab gray Apple with something more exciting.

BootXChanger is free, and it changes the Mac's boot image. There are limitations to what you can replace the gray Apple with -- the background must remain the boring #BFBFBF gray, the image can't be too complex, and the image should be sized at 128 x 128 pixels -- but you can do a lot within those borders. BootXChanger comes with a dozen sample images (below), and instructions are provided on how to create your own.

Well, mostly. It's an iPod mini dressed up in wood, and the clickwheel happens to be wood as well -- check out this gallery at the Sydney Morning Herald. Australian modder Josh Darrah whipped up this crazy wooden skin for his mini, and a wood dock to boot after calling the metal and plastic case materials normally coating iPods "crass." The flannel carrying case he made is a nice touch, too.

Good news if you'd like one of these for yourself: Josh is considering a DIY kit to mod your own iPod.

Thanks to Leighton Johannesen for the tip!

Looks like Stack for Jailbreak has some new improvements. For those of you unfamiliar with the application, Stack adds a quick-launch menu directly to your iPhone dock, letting you expand your dock space to hold all your favorite apps. With it you can add 16 items (using grid view) or 5 items (in fan view) for easy access in each stack. And stacks are not just limited to the dock. You can add stacks anywhere in the home screen as well.

As this video shows, you can now rename your stacks as well as use drag and drop editing. So you can create a 'Games' stack, an 'Internet' stack, and so forth. Removing items from a stack is just as easy as adding them. Just drag them out from the stack for an Apple-standard "puff of smoke" animation.

Stack, which is developed by iPhone expert Steven Troughton-Smith is donor-ware. Although not ready for public release, he has regularly been seeding early alpha builds to people who have donated to the project. But as you can see, it's making great progress.

Stack is a jailbreak-only product as Apple does not permit this kind of OS-based enhancement in App Store. That's a pity, because the relative difficulty and fear of jailbreaking keeps this kind of groundbreaking software away from the general public. It's an enhancement that Apple really should have built into the iPhone -- and hopefully someday will.

A little while ago, we posted about Gregory Cohen's eeeMac -- he modded an eeePC into an OS X-running ultraportable, including adding a little Apple icon on the back. And now, he's posted how he did it all on a blog, so that if you've got a few Saturday afternoons, an eeePC to destroy, and a big interest in making a really tiny (fake) Mac, you can do it too. And even if you don't want to crack the case and do a little modding, you can still try to just get OS X running on the little machine -- Gregory has done all the hard work for you and boiled everything you need down into a 22mb disk image (you'll also need a retail OS X disc, of course).

Very cool. I'd never have the time or insight to put one of these together, but I can definitely marvel at the achievement.

TUAW reader Sandy Winkelman (AKA Winkstink) sent us a tip the other day about an amazing mod he's done. Sandy took a 1942 Philco radio, gutted it, added a Mac mini and 17" Sony monitor with touchscreen, and turned it into a classy networked digital media center.

The sound system consists of a Sony DVD/CD/receiver with a 2.1 speaker system. Watching the video, you can see how music can be played through iTunes and Front Row, all with the touch of a finger on the screen. Sandy also shows how Front Row is used as a front end for watching movies and video.

The Philco also has an EyeTV for viewing and recording live TV, and can be controlled from an iPod touch or iPhone using Remote and/or DVDremote. Sandy has also made a Picasa gallery with more pictures of the details and construction of this sweet mod.

Have you been working on a mod? Let us know about it.

iPhones.ru posted a video (with dialogue in Russian, I think) showing a first-generation iPhone that's been modified to light up the Apple logo on the back of the device when it's turned on.

Sadly, it doesn't show how exactly the modification was made, though I conjecture it uses light from the main display somehow, perhaps with optical fiber. Maybe the presenter is discussing it, but I don't speak Russian, so it's hard to say.

It looks pretty cool. I'm old enough to remember when people were doing this to their PowerBooks, so who knows? This might just be a built-in feature of some future iPhone.

[Via Saiko Land and Engadget]

Two intrepid users have found a simple way to mod their old iPhone docks to work with iPhone 3G: a rotary tool.

All it takes, apparently, is grinding away about a millimeter of the plastic where the back of the iPhone 3G rests against the dock. A rotary tool with a tapered grinding bit appears to work the best, as it avoids touching the dock connector.

It might not have exactly the fit and finish of a new dock, but hey, the price is right if you already have the tools.

iPhone 3G docks are $29 at the Apple Store. Dremel grinding bits are about $10 for a five-pack.

[Via Digg.]

Back in February, we posted a link to a beautiful iPhone case mod that used a matte black TiAIN finish. iPhoneclub community member Jo Croiman has gone in the opposite direction, creating a polished metal beauty complete with LED logo.

The Psycho iPhone Mod, as he calls it, is the result of manufacturing his own rear case pieces, polishing them for hours with a Dremel and affixing LEDs -- taken from another dead iPhone -- underneath a plexiglass logo (the LEDs only pull an additional 50mAh from the battery).

Finally, he sandblasted his own logo into the back of the case. We think it looks fantastic! Great work, Jo.

This isn't the first time we've seen someone take macro photographs with an iPhone, but it is the most involved.

Last time, someone just held a pocket magnifying glass against the lens. This time, blogger Colin Devroe attached the lens from a dead digital camera to the back of his iPhone McGyver-style and produced some nice results.

But what about low-light situations? Colin has got that covered, too. He mounted a small, giveaway light he picked up at last year's SXSW's keynote to the iPhone and found that it functions as a nice flash.

Good job, Colin! You've demonstrated the answer to the question, "Why are you holding on to those old things?" (Answer: "Because I might need it some day").

[Via our very own Flickr pool]

We all know that the iPhone is beautiful (OK, not all of us). The only thing I dislike about its appearance is the chrome band that separates the top and bottom halves. The iPod touch is much more attractive without it.

General [M]ayhem forum user KnightKrew felt the same way, and did something about it. Check out this beautiful iPhone mod. With its entire body encased in black TiAlN, it is the Sith Lord of iPhones.

What the heck is TiAIN? It's a ceramic coating used to improve the performance of cutting tools. KnightKrew decided it would be the best material for his project after examining the composition of the phone's external surfaces with an electron microscope (see the pictures here). He states that it's now even more durable.

That's some serious modding. It looks great, KnightKrew.

Personally, I'm an Adium user at heart -- iChat is super nice (especially for a built-in chat program), but it just doesn't have the features and customizability that that Adium does. But if you have to use iChat for whatever reason (easy video conferencing comes to mind) despite your love for Adium, then this mod, sent to us by reader Philipp, will probably come in handy.

It's called iChat Pro, and it basically simplifies your iChat window, squeezing out the borders and cutting the buttons at the bottom. I don't think you can change the colors and design of the display the way you can in Adium (it's been a while since I used iChat, and a quick browse through the preferences didn't reveal any options for that), but at least it looks a little more professional than the, let's admit it, a little goofy, default iChat GUI. iChat Pro is a free iChat mod from Infinise Design.

Forget the TAM. I want this thing.

David Clausen decided to celebrate the Mac's longevity by making something special. So, he gutted the case of a 512K Mac (the case is in great shape, by the way), then inserted the workings of a Mac mini and a grayscale monitor. Add to that a LS-120 floppy disk drive and a custom-built USB microcontroller (to use the original mouse and keyboard), and you've got one badass compact Mac. For more detail, check out the Flickr Set.

All because he wanted to "...experiment with creating a custom USB device." That's one heck of a device. Hey Dave, if you decide to sell these, let me know.

[Via Adam Tow]

Here's something completely silly: An 18K gold iPod nano. For a fee (oddly, I couldn't find pricing information. Hmmm), EXEOO will remove your iPod nano's casing and replace it with one made of 18K gold.

But wait, there's more! They'll do the same with your 5th generation iPod (back side only), universal dock, earbuds and iPod remote. Why? Because who doesn't want to place their golden iPod in a golden dock while listening to golden headphones?

If you've got more money that you can handle, buy a golden iPod. Because, you know, muggers only like the original models.

Scott Walker sends in his seriously cool Mac mini mod which, after careful deliberation, we declare our Rig of the Week. Scott is the assistant managing editor at The Birmingham News (Alabama), and decided to build a Mac project around an old newspaper vending machine. As you can see, he's basically mounted a 17" LCD in the newspaper window. Using a Mac mini, GraphicConverter, PhotoPresenter and some AppleScripts, it displays the top half of newspaper front pages as gathered each day from the Newseum. A big TUAW 'attaboy to Scott for combining new- and old-school technology in such a clever way!

This week's rig comes from reader nash_h, who modded a Cube to look like a tiny Mac Pro. First of all, we love Cubes and secondly, this is one sweet mod. Nice job, nash_h.

"new mac pro" posted by nash_h.

If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. Each Sunday we'll comb through the most recent entries and declare a "Rig of the Week!"