• Dougal Campbell just released Easy Gravatars WordPress plugin version 1.1 and it’s also now available at the WordPress Plugin Directory.
• Lorelle Van Foosen talks about a new breed of spammers and scrapers who steal your blog’s content – Spinning Spammers.
• Are you a business owner who uses HP printers and toners? Find out how you can win PHP 120,000 worth of HP products.
• Check out McBilly’s review of the Defensio anti-spam plugin, Akismet’s newest competitor.
• Plagiarism Today has a very interesting article entitled – “Google’s Shell Games“. It talks about Google’s DMCA policy and the issues involved in filing a DMCA notice to Google.
• Is it time to use a different ranking system other than Google’s PageRank? RealRank might be the answer.
• Good news PS3 fans! Sony has partnered with DivX Inc which means DivX media support in the PS3 console coming via a firmware update soon.
• Sonnie shares his view on PageRank, Profit and the Integrity of Blogs.
• Jhay rants about AVG Free and how he gets annoyed when it updates. I also use AVG Free and I agree with him.
• If you love Safari on Windows, you’d be happy to know that the Safari 3 Beta Update is now available.

You might be wondering why I haven’t published any posts the past few days and also why this issue of the Weekend Roundup was very late. The reason behind it was because I was sick. I got the flu last week and have been recovering the past few days. I’m really sorry if I wasn’t able to immediately reply to your comments, emails and publish the Weekend Roundup on time. I’m still haven’t completely recovered but I hope that things would be better this week. Have a good week and stay healthy everyone!

When Steve Jobs revealed the Apple iPhone early this year, it became the most awaited gadget of the year. The iPhone was officially released here in the US last Friday, June 29th. Hundreds of people lined up in front of AT&T and Apple stores across the country several days before the scheduled date of release just to be first in line.

A 4GB iPhone costs $500, while an 8GB version costs $600. Too expensive you say? Well, that doesn’t even include the contract from AT&T. If you add ‘em all up, your total expense would easily be more than a thousand bucks.

Anyways, Will Greenwald of CNET.com came up with a list of alternative gadgets that you can get for the price of one 8BG iPhone.

• An 80GB and a 30GB iPod
• An 8GB, and a 4GB, and a 2GB iPod Nano
• Seven iPod Shuffles with $40 left over
• A Playstation 3
• A Nintendo Wii, and a Xbox 360 Core System, and a year of Xbox Live Gold
• An Xbox 360 Premium, and a year of Xbox Live Gold, and a Xbox 360 media remote, and a Nintendo DS Lite
• A Nikon D40 digital SLR with a 18mm-to-55mm lens
• A Panasonic DMR-EH75V DVD recorder/80GB DVR/VCR deck and a Panasonic SC-HT40 home theater in a box

Although the iPhone is indeed a bit pricey, you can’t deny that this is one of the best cellphones or gadgets ever built. When the iPod first came out, people were willing to pay $400 for a 5GB, monochrome version. So it’s not a surprise to see people willing to shell out that much money for the iPhone.

Buying those alternative gadgets can’t match or replace the feeling of excitement and joy that only the iPhone can bring.

As for me, even if I had the money to get one I’d pass for now. I’ll wait a little longer until Apple upgrades or improves the iPhone capabilities and I’m sure by then, it would be less expensive.