So here’s AOL’s latest and greatest plan to get back on track with the browser wars - The next version of Netscape will let you browse using either a Gecko or Internet Explorer engine. And you can switch back and forth between the two. Gecko, of course, is the basis for Mozilla, FireFox, and older Netscape versions. AOL spun off the Mozilla Foundation as a non-profit last year and it’s produced FireFox. (There are brilliant people in the back office at AOL!) The new version is based on FireFox 0.9.3 –and was done by Mercurial Communications in Canada, not inhouse. Huh?

The bottom line, of course, is that you get FireFox, which is currently popular, as well as the browsing capability of Internet Exploder, without, says AOL, the vunerabilities of IE, for those sites that are hard wired to work only with IE. Talk about Schitzoid! And it will probably catch on like WildFire.

Christmas is coming early this year, here at AliceandBill.com. Bill, myself, and our interns Terry and Cyrus have been working round the clock bring you our brand new reviews section.

We call it “Real Tech Reviews” in keeping with our strict policy of not accepting paid advertising, or any issue where we might be swayed to cover products we don’t like or use. Everything on the site is owned and operated by us, and if we give it a 10, it’s a 10 because it’s sitting on our desk cranking away, not because some sponsor promised a banner ad if we wrote about it. Independent and Real. What a concept.

We also want to hear from you. Every review has a link where you can post your own user reviews. We feel that every regular on this site is like an extended version of our own testing lab. If you disagree or agree, let us hear from you and share your knowledge with everyone else. If there’s a product you’re dying to write about, submit a review and let’s get this party started.

Enjoy! And let us know what you think. This is only the beginning.

I’m not a big fan of the iPod Mini, but a cool site called DecalGirl has some innovative iPod skins that would make a great gift for all your Mini-toting friends and family. In addition to racy items like Leopard spots and Tie Dye, there are geeky choices gallore, including the Matrix skin, a camouflage number, and an especially creepy one called Human Skin.

At only $4.99 apiece, you can send a skin to everyone on your shopping list and whistle a happy tune when the post-holiday credit card bill comes in.

Calling All Todds Dept: We are having some sort of weird rendering problem in Mozilla. One reader named Les sent us in a screenshot (see picture on the right)and Bill himself has reported a problem.

Bill hits refresh and it clears, but if there is anyone out there who knows their way around a template, please let us know what we can do and we’ll feature you here in an upcoming and moving tribute.

Virgin Mobile just completed a study where 95% of the participants admitted to the modern age’s newest problem: Drinking and Dialing. Apparently the cell phone makes it too easy to place that 2:00 AM call to the ex, or the slurred and highly inappropriate invitation to the new person you’re dating (or rather the new person you were dating until you D&D’ed.)

In Australia Virgin Mobile is now testing a new drunk dialing service where you can enter the phone number of people you absolutely should not call, and then after 20 beers when you decide you really, really want to make that call at 3:30AM, the number remains blocked until 6:00AM the next day. Tech Dirt makes the good point: when sober you know you would never call that number so are you even likely to block it? If only there was some way to activate it later. Cheers!

This may be the coming season for wearable technology, but we’ve certainly heard that before. This time though, retail giant The Gap, has inked a deal with Wild Planet to produce a washable hooded fleece sweatshirt with an embedded FM radio and headphones.

Gap is calling the garment a “Hoodio” which may be one of the lamest names we’ve heard to date, but the sweatshirt will feature embedded radio controls on the sleeve, a detachable power pack, and of course earphones in the hood. Rock on.

I’m not sure why I am posting this, since bathroom humor is not my style, but I have to say it made me laugh out loud as I dug my way through 400 post-Thanksgiving emails. Someone with way too much time on his hands invented a robot that shall we say, impersonates someone using the toilet.

As he put it: “I snuck RoboDump into the men’s room at the office. Unfortunately, today turned out to be the day of a board meeting. Whoops! It still went over well; the office was abuzz all morning with gossip about the guy in the bathroom. Several people theorized it was the CFO. The janitor commented to someone in the hallway that he wanted to clean the restroom but ‘this guy’s been in there all morning.’ I also decided to dress it in businessware to make coworkers less likely to try to talk to it… if it looks like a customer or visiting bigwig, they’ll be less likely to offer help or ask for a courtesy flush.”

More pics and the audio (if you can stand it) here.

IF YOU BELIEVE THIS — “AOL and Systemax combine forces to bring you one of the greatest deals ever on a loaded powerhouse desktop PC and monitor, featuring bumper-to-bumper world-class components, along with a top-quality Lexmark Ink Jet Printer! The spectacular Systemax AOL PC runs on a blazing fast Intel Celeron 2.0GHz CPU that carries with it 256MB of lightning-quick DDR main memory - upgradeable to a mind-boggling 2GB - a 40GB Ultra ATA 100 hard drive and so many extras that we could fill volumes of literature describing them. Here are just a few – 52X CD-ROM drive, SIS Integrated Graphics, Cyber Acoustics CA-2016 2-piece speaker system, Realtek AC ‘97 6-channel audio, 6 USB 2.0 ports, 56K Max v.92 Send/Receive Fax Hard Modem, 10/100Mbps LAN Support, 104-key Keyboard, Scroll Mouse and mouse pad. Of course, the AOL Systemax PC runs on the award-winning Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition operating system for incomparable performance and stability. And this fantastic computer is housed in a sleek, stylish fully equipped black Micro ATX tower case with 250-Watt power supply.” — I HAVE A BRIDGE TO SELL YOU!

Haven’t we done Internet PCs before? The December 1st TechEdge column (out a few days from now) will explain.