I left some comments in your blog. good work with the usb-powering hack (though I couldn't figure exactly how tou routed the + and - wires from the battery pack into the usb plugs).

I have a question concerning the automount: can you
#cat /etc/fstab
(as root I guess) and post the output here? perhaps that will give us some insight as to how to automount mass-storage devices. A nano running Linux and a N770 make a wonderful pair.