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Hillbilly AC/DC? “Goth” Tainted Love? Lounge hip-hop? During the course of several conference calls I’ve been on this week … the subject of interesting “cover” or remakes has come up on more than one occasion. I had stumbled across a few of these in my past … but wow, there were a lot more of these out there than I had realized! Some are funny, some are serious. Some are meant as a joke, and others not. And some - um - just defy any type of description whatsoever. I’ve collected the 10 best remakes/covers you’ve probably never seen … and in order, here they are:

#10. The Mike Flowers Pops - “Oasis … Wonderwall”

There’s nothing like big band “pops” covers of music of modern music. It’s not meant to be serious, but you have to appreciate the level of work that folks like Mike Flowers put into their work. Notice the “click” and “pop” sounds in the music - as if it came off of a record album (for those of you old enough to remember).

#9. Marilyn Manson - “Softcell … Tainted Love”

Ok, the guy is just plain weird. I can appreciate a good hate-filled, angst-ridden goth tune just as much as the next guy … but this guy is still, just — wow. Out there. Anyway, “Tainted Love” carries so much 80’s street cred that it had to be included in a list like this.

Warning: video clip could easily be considered Not Safe For Work (NSFW).

#8. Paul Anka - “Nirvanna … Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Starting his singing career in the 1950’s, and still belting out tunes today at age 67, Paul Anka provides his take on Nirvanna’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

#7. Tori Amos - “Nirvanna … Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Double Teen Spirit Bonus for you!! Tori Amos took a spin on this song as well, and it’s equally as intriguing as Paul Anka’s version is!

#6. Johnny Cash - “Nine Inch Nails … Hurt”

Known more for his historic tunes such as “Ring of Fire” and “Boy Named Sue”, it would appear that Johnny had an interest in all types of music - even covering a Nine Inch Nails song which has since been called “his epitaph”. To me, it is quite a haunting and somber rendition … rest in peace, Johnny.

Embedding of this YouTube video has been disabled by request - but you should still check it out here: Johnny Cash - Hurt

#5. Travis - “Britney Spears … Hit Me Baby One More Time”

While not the first group to ever riff on Britney’s career-launching hit … the shocking part is, that it’s actually much better than the original!

#4. Muse “Nina Simone … Feeling Good”

Few things embody Jazz for me more than the soulful voice of Nina Simone and her famous “Feeling Good” track. Well, the band Muse has revisited this tune with a hard rocker edge, and it totally works.

#3. Hayseed Dixie - “Green Day … Holiday”

The group that started this entire list for me … Hayseed Dixie started out as hillbilly/bluegrass covers of AC/DC tunes. You’ve not heard AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” or “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” until you’ve heard a bunch of hillbillies do it with banjos!

But I couldn’t find any videos they had done of those, that had decent sound quality. So here’s them doing their take on Green Day:

#2. Richard Cheese - “Sir Mix A Lot … Baby Got Back”

Rap/hip-hop music with a “lounge” spin? Sign me up! Richard Cheese, and his band Lounge Against the Machine, provide their take on Sir Mix A Lot’s “Baby Got Back” on the Jimmy Kimmel show in this video. I’m so impressed with Richard and his band that I’ve purchased several of his songs now - and am sad that Wikipedia says his voice is going, so we may not ever get anything else from him.

And then they follow it up with a bit of Depeche Mode, as well.

Other notable bands that Richard has covered - Pink Floyd, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Van Halen, Snoop Dogg, the list goes on and on and on…

#1. Alanis Morrisette - “Black Eyed Peas … My Humps”

Undoubtedly one of the most ridiculous songs of all times, Alanis Morrisette jumped on the opportunity to rip on “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas during the recording of her latest album. Apparently, as a way to let off some steam and do something completely frivilous for a bit - they recorded this and shot a video of it. Even funnier, apparently Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas sent Alanis a butt-shaped cake and a card - sounds like she approved of the song as well.

Got any others to add? Let us know in the comments!

Update 7pm ET 7/23 - We think we’ve narrowed down where the problem is.  Details below!

Update 2x 7/28 - iLounge.com member iScottL apparently got soaked by AT&T for $1,500 because of this oversight!

So I learned a little bit of a lesson last month with AT&T and the iPhone and data roaming during our wedding in Bermuda, and it was a bit of an expensive lesson to learn … so it’s worth documenting my experience here in the hopes that no one else runs into the same situation.

WAIT! Before you instinctively close this window thinking “Bah, what an idiot - you should have known data roaming is expensive!” let me be clear — I am very aware of how expensive data roaming is … I was before I left the country. And I am also aware of the protections built into the iPhone to help prevent you from running up a big data roaming bill. This is a story about a loophole in this system that causes that protection to fail…

So let’s start with a little bit of background, to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Simply put, international use of your cell phone is expensive. No two ways around it. Voice, data, SMS (text) or MMS (picture messaging) - if you are doing any of these with your GSM phone in a foreign country, you’re going to have to pay handsomely for the privilege.  As a result of this, I have always carried a dumb phone like a RAZR with me when I travel to a foreign country so that there is no possible chance whatsoever of my smartphone accidentally using data while I’m abroad.

Some people though, like that idiot Dave Stolte, have no grasp of this, and run up thousands of dollars of international data roaming charges and then cry all over the blogosphere and any forum they can find when they get their $3,000 bill in the mail.  Yes Dave, I called you an idiot, because - in this instance, at least - you are.  You are admittedly a web designer, but “I couldn’t even tell you how many KB the average web page is“??!?  Come on…

But anyway, I digress…

So if you use data internationally, be prepared to pay.  As a result of customers like Dave, I have no doubt that AT&T was on the phone with Apple immediately after excusing that $3,000 bill and asking Apple for a fix.  The solution came in September with firmware 1.1.1, which included the new capability to turn off Data Roaming!  Perfect!

Now if you’re out of country, this can protect you from accidentally roaming on a foreign network for data and getting a huge charge - but still being able to seamlessly use WiFi whenever you want.  And as an added bonus, in firmware 1.1.1 this switched was turned to Off by default.  So, in order to use data in a foreign country, you would have to intentionally go and turn this on.  And I believe you even get a warning message when this happens.

So, problem solved, right?  How on earth did I unknowingly rack up data roaming charges in Bermuda?

Bermuda, it would seem, is very friendly to US tourists.  So friendly, in fact, that it would appear that US carriers are setting up towers on the island.  It was no surprise to me when I got to Bermuda that I had GSM service.  What was a major surprise to me, though, was that all my friends on Verizon had service too.  CDMA outside the US?  WTF is that?!? 

But anyway, here’s the kicker — when I fired up my iPhone it did it’s normal search for a few minutes to find an adequate carrier to connect to.  After a few minutes, the iPhone had finally settled on a carrier to connect to … AT&T!!  Yes, that’s right.  My iPhone - when powered up in Bermuda - reads AT&T on the display.

Interesting, eh?  I guess it doesn’t really surprise me - I’m sure AT&T makes a bunch of money from folks from the US using their cellphones in Bermuda. But here’s the real kicker - because the iPhone thought it was on AT&T, the “Data Roaming” protection mechanism was effectively neutered. It thought I wasn’t roaming. But I was. Yet, I wasn’t. As a result, I had no protection wireless against data charges at all.

Realizing this, I intentionally turned off every data feature I could find on the phone.  But that didn’t completely solve the problem.  Occasionally I had to bring up the email client on my phone to get something out of an email related to our wedding.  As soon as you do that, though, the iPhone mail client immediately starts downloading your entire inbox.  So I got hit with some charges.

See that part on the end? General Packet Radio Service for $113.50? That’s the data roaming. In theory, with an iPhone with Data Roaming turned off - you should never, ever see a charge like that.  But because of this crack in the system, I got charged.  In the end, I’ll pay it.  It’s only $113, so it’s not the end of the world. I haven’t called AT&T yet … but maybe I will, just to gripe a bit and warn them about this loophole.  Perhaps they can have Apple improve the Data Roaming protections a bit more … but I used the data, I have no problem with paying for it.

Hopefully this post will protect someone else who may run into the same problem.  I have no idea how many other nearby countries this may be a problem with - maybe Bermuda is the only one.  Lesson learned, if you land in a foreign country and your phone still reads AT&T - be very very careful!!!

UPDATE!

Thanks to intrepid reader XFF at HowardForums, he’s reminded me that the entire GSM world seems to operate on a series of “country code” identifiers and “network operator” identifiers.  The country code identifiers are known as MCC’s - Mobile Country Codes.  The network provider codes are known as MNC’s - Mobile Network Codes.  Paired together, these two three-digit codes can narrow down what country you are in and what carrier you are on in that country.

The MCC for the United States is 310. In theory, no other cellular carrier in another country should be using 310 for any reason whatsoever.  Except, apparently - one carrier in Bermuda does.  If you notice on the MNC link, Digicel Bermuda uses a MCC+MNC combination of 310 38.  Hence, when you bring up the iPhone in Bermuda — it may think it’s still in the United States.  As a result, the “Data Roaming” setting is never consulted.

Bit of an oversight, no doubt!  The good news is that I spoke with AT&T Customer Service and they’ve credited me back all the data charges. But surely, this will end up happening again to someone.

UPDATE 2x!

iLounge member iScottL apparently got soaked to the tune of about $1,500 because of this gap in the MCC, the iPhone, and AT&T.  I feel sorry for the guy because the iPhone prohibits you - if you are on your proper home carrier - from changing any of the cellular data settings (APN names, etc.) so there’s really no way to protect yourself against this problem if you are traveling to Bermuda!

Well, Apple finally got around to releasing the first major firmware update for iPhones - “Firmware 2.0″ - and after having spent a weekend with it, I have to say that Apple has definitely done it again.

The new firmware adds a few new business capabilities, such as native “push” synchronization with Microsoft Exchange, and better VPN support - both of which seem to work very well so far.  The new firmware also adds integration with “MobileMe” - Apple’s new replacement for .Mac, available over at me.com.  Through me.com, you can have real-time push of calendars, contacts, and emails with the MobileMe “cloud” - and while its launch has had some bumps, over all it works very well.  I currently have all my data synchronized between my 2 Macs and my iPhone, and I’ll be adding two Outlook PC instances to that as well shortly.

But by far, the biggest improvement to the iPhone is the new App Store - the ability for 3rd party developers to write their own applications and make them available to iPhones all over the world as easily as buying a song on iTunes.  When tied in with the location-based services of the iPhone, the possibilities available to some of these applications are simply stunning.

Case in point - just last weekend, I was heading to HR-57 with some friends to hear some Jazz music.  The plan was to meet up at Bar Pilar first, have a few drinks, and then head over.  Of course, I was the first to get to Bar Pilar … so while I was passing the time, I decided to bring up a few of the 3rd party apps I’d installed on the iPhone and play around.

The first was Exposure - a “location-aware” Flickr client.  I was curious to see what photos, if any, had been uploaded to Flickr and geo-tagged in my area.  So I launched the app - and can you guess what was the first photo to come up?  A shot of the front entrance of Bar Pilar, where I was seated.  Pretty cool!

But the real home run was when I started playing around with Yelp for the iPhone.  I’d not used Yelp before - but was familiar with their “Real People, Real Reviews” concept.  So I wanted to see what Yelp thought might be a good restaurant for us to try out later after we were done with the Jazz bar.  Firing up the application and asking it to give me a list of nearby restaurants - the 3rd choice that came up on the list was Ben’s Chili Bowl, a very famous restaurant here in DC that’s been around for 50 years and I’d never had a chance to go to before!

Once my friends arrived, I pointed at my iPhone with a sense of giddiness and said “Hey! iPhone says we should go here for food later!” and sure enough, that’s exactly what I did.  Being a “suburban fellow”, I’ll admit I don’t know my way around DC all that well and therefore had no idea I was just around the corner from such a DC landmark! And without the iPhone, I would have missed it once again.

So firmware 2.0 is definitely a big hit.  Apple is going to do well with the iPhone, I have a feeling.   I only wish I had bought Apple stock when it was $60 and I was thinking about it.  Alas, hindsight is always 20/20 …

Yeah - I know, big newsflash with that title, eh?

Some days it is just about ridiculous, though.  Today is one of those days.  The latest Twitter update from Robert Scoble, stirs the pot about a possible acquisition rumor about Microsoft wanting to acquire …   Mahalo??!?

Scobleizer @jasoncalacanis is Mahalo selling out to Microsoft? Rumors are happening here: http://friendfeed.com/e/0aaefd0b-618e-4da8-9bdf-ae45408bcb95/Mahalo-com-Being-bought-by-MS/

…sigh…

So Microsoft fails in their bid to buy Yahoo! (mostly due to the apparent incompetence of Yahoo! management) and then releases a public statement about their position on the Carl Icahn proposal … in which Microsoft basically throws down the gauntlet and asks for an ousting of the current board and they’ll come back to the table.

“Despite working since January 31 of this year, as well as in the early part of last year, we have never been able to reach an agreement in a timely way on acceptable terms with the current management and Board of Directors at Yahoo!. We have concluded that we cannot reach an agreement with them. We confirm, however, that after the shareholder election Microsoft would be interested in discussing with a new board a major transaction with Yahoo!”

Pretty much sums up Microsoft’s positions right there, doesn’t it?  Vote out the board, and we’ll buy some - or all - of the company.  So clearly, they are interested in search.  And audience.

Which make the latest “OMG! Rumor mill…” post - from what appears to be a relative nobody in the Twitter/FriendFeed space - all the more amusing (full disclosure: I am most definitely a nobody in that space, so I’m not putting down Fred any more than I would myself).  If Microsoft wants search technologies, Mahalo does not seem to have any real technology behind their site (looks like a MediaWiki engine, and a bunch of copy editors).  And if Microsoft wants audience - Mahalo doesn’t gain much for them:

That barely-perceptible red line at the bottom is Mahalo’s traffic … compared against Yahoo!’s at the top.  Even more amusing than this, though (in light of a MSFT acquisition rumor) is the Compete “top keywords” that apparently get the most traffic to Mahalo:

So maybe Microsoft wants to buy search traffic for Grand Theft Auto cheats?  I don’t know.  But sure enough, someone in the A-List picks up on a rumor, runs with it/gets duped by it, and it becomes a giant blogosphere navel-gazing exercise within seconds. Sometimes, instant communication isn’t necessarily a positive thing.

In all fairness to Jason, Mahalo is a nice site and he’s a smart guy that deserves a lot of credit for Weblogs Inc. so I mean no disrespect to Mahalo here.  Certainly, I’ve never built a site that brought even a million visitors - much less 2 million. But the noise in the echo chaimber that is the blogosphere really gets deafening some days … this is one of those days.

Just had to rant a bit. If it does turn out to be true, I’ll eat my iPhone!*

*not really, that’s toxic as hell!

So now that AT&T “refurbished” iPhones have started flooding the market, a few details about how AT&T was able to offer such a great price are starting to float up to the surface.

For those of you unfamiliar, a few weeks ago AT&T began to sell “refurbished” iPhones in their corporate retail stores in the Northeast US. The prices were too good to be true - $249 for an 8gb iPhone, compared to $349 for Apple’s refurb, or $399 for brand new. Even better, the impossible-to-find 4gb iPhone began to resurface in AT&T stores at a price point of $199. There was such a scramble to get a hold of these deals, that iPhone forums were quickly filling up with posts from members that weren’t in the Northeast, begging members that were in the Northeast to pick one up for them. I’ll admit, I did this for one person.

Then, the refurb deal made it to AT&T’s website, and thanks to sites like SlickDeals and FatWallet, AT&T was sold out of inventory within mere hours. After all, for a $150 savings over brand new iPhone, how could you go wrong?

Well, we’re starting to find out now exactly what makes up that price difference… and it’s a lot more than just the retail packaging that the phone comes in.

For starters, according to “Nathan C” - reportedly an Apple Employee according to his profile - AT&T refurbished iPhones have been refurbished … by AT&T! Well, what does “refurbishing” mean to AT&T? So far, it doesn’t seem to mean much more than using the Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings on an iPhone. I know this personally, because the 4gb iPhone I purchased for my fiancee … was already “activated”, and on firmware 1.0.2. Some folks got firmware 1.0.1. And I wasn’t the only person to have this happen. In theory, I could have just put in an existing AT&T SIM and had a brand new iPhone to use without a new contract required. If Apple had refurbished these, I would have expected them to have at least reflashed the firmware to 1.1.3 or 1.1.4.

Additionally, reports are beginning to surface about refurbished AT&T iPhones showing up in pretty rough shape, and already jailbroken! Want someone’s body smudges all over your new “refurb” iPhone? Just get an AT&T refurb, and if you’re lucky you’ll have the remnants of the previous owner still on the casing.

But for saving $150, it’s ok - right?

Well, the icing on the cake may actually be the warranty. Apple offers a 1-year warranty on their new iPhones, and their refurbished iPhones. But what about AT&T’s refurbs? Initially, reports around the web when this deal first hit was that the iPhone warranty claim posted on AT&T’s website was “One year”. However, owners that are now getting their iPhones are checking their warranty support online, and finding out that not only do they not have a one (1) year warranty - some are barely 90 days long in the case of getting an AT&T “refurb” that was actually purchased on launch day, June 29th… which is when Apple thinks the one-year clock started ticking.

So what does “Nathan C” from Apple have to say about the subject? He simply states that the AT&T refurbs “have the Apple warranty” - no timeframe mentioned. Some Howard Forums members have apparently been able to get their warranty timeframes “reset” to the date of their AT&T purchase date - but this policy is not entirely clear yet.

I’ll check this out with my fiancee’s 4gb this evening and post an update as I have more detail.

UPDATE: Thanks to HoFo member Tristan! for posting a picture of his AT&T refurbished iPhone box, which clearly states that “Refurbished iPhones have a full 1 year warranty” through Apple. I’m still trying to dig up our receipt for our 4gb refurb, so that I can get our warranty status updated with Apple.