Make: Online: December 2005 Archives

« November 2005 | Main | January 2006 »

Archives: December 2005

< Previous | December 2005 Home | Next >

December 29, 2005

Poor Man's Air Conditioning...

If your car's air condition is broken, or if it just doesn't have one - this summer you might consider building your own, like this person did. This DIY car air conditioner is a wall unit inserted in the back window of an automobile and it is powered by a gas generator. With this many wrongs, it's just so right. Link.

DIY Traffic calming...

Interesting tactic, people were driving too fast in a neighborhood, so the neighborhood built "roadwitches" - "These type of "DIY traffic-calming happenings" are described by their creator as "roadwitches" and have included an 11-feet high rabbit, a big bed (for a sleeping policeman), a Casualty-style fake crash scene for Halloween and the setting up of a living room in the middle of the road." Link.

December 28, 2005

DIY Jerry Can Shoulder Bags

Rick writes "After reading a post in MakeZine about Kanita shoulder bags, I was inspired to make three shoulder bags from 4.7 liter jerry cans for Christmas presents this year. The Kanita bags sell for a whopping $128.89, which works out to CDN$123 or US$105!! Granted if I took my labour into account, I would have to charge about that much too. But, as a DIY project, it works out to less than CDN$10 to make each of these." Link.

HOW TO - Hack Your ePods Internet Appliance

Nick writes "Want an inexpensive Windows CE-based web browser, email client, MP3 player, voice memo recorder, rudimentary games machine, and home automation X10 controller that will also create and edit Microsoft Word and Excel files with handwriting recognition and 16-bit color in a package that resembles a space-age Etch-a-Sketch?...this is it" Link.

MAKE on NPR's Talk of the Nation today...

MAKE's editor-in-chief Mark Frauenfelder will be on a special NPR Talk of the Nation. This will be a live, call-in talk program on the "Do It Yourself" culture this Wednesday, December 28th the 3pm ET (noon PT) hour. Tune in, turn on, call in, make stuff... Link. To figure out what station it will be on in your area, use the station finder. We'll also post a link to the podcast when it's up too.

Homemade Skype Phone Receiver...

Trevor writes "Here's a simple mod I did to an old telephone reciever to make it compatible with my laptop- for use with Skype. I tried using the original coiled telephone cord, but for some reason I couldn't get adequate microphone volume through it. Funny, because telephones are made for talking..." Link.

December 27, 2005

HOW TO - Use the Kodak Wi-Fi Camera with Flickr

Kodaktoflicksm The Kodak EasyShare-One is one of the first wi-fi (wireless) enabled digital cameras on the market. Take a photo, connect to a wireless hot spot, then transfer them or email them. Sounds good, right? Almost, except that you can't really email the photos--they're sent to Kodak's EasyShare Gallery and the link is sent to that gallery. I use Flickr for all my photos, so here's one (of many forthcoming) how-tos on using the Kodak wi-fi camera with Flickr and a Mac. It's simple and works for me. Now I can send my photos to Flickr from anywhere.

Read full story

HOW TO - Make your own DIY Science Eco-sphere

PDF downloads on how to make those cool (but expensive) enclosed glass ecosystem - "Here you have the choice of two different ecosystems, a "dry land" ecosystem like the one in our Virtual Ecosphere and a marine aquatic one." [via] Link. If anyone has made one of these, post up in the comments and let me know how it worked out.

Use PNGs to make real 3D parts out of metal and plastic...

Wow, now you can upload a PNG image and have a part cut and sent to you, made from metal or plastic, no need to use CAD software. Simon writes - "I've just added support for PNG images. I'm really proud of this new feature, as it will allow even people who don't know how to use CAD software to start creating with Big Blue Saw. There are still a couple of quirks to work out over the next few weeks, and the help files will need to be updated, but this feature was much needed." Link.

The Make Widget (and how to make your own)

Here's our MAKE Widget (download it here) and a how to on how to make your own! - "Widgets are great--there is no denying it. Arranging these small, lightweight utilities on your Mac OS X Dashboard desktop puts lots of useful and fun possibilities at your fingertips and eyeballs. But when a widget you want doesn't exist, there is only one thing to do: make it." Link.

December 26, 2005

MAKE VIDEO PODCAST: "Glimpses of How it's made, Six-Minute Manufacturing"

MAKE is thrilled to offer this free 35 minute film for download! - "Glimpses of How it's made" - a tour of how many things in our world are made, each segment is 6 minutes (hence the full name "Six-Minute Manufacturing Glimpses of How it's made"). Learn about, get inspired, and see how it's made: LectroSonics (wireless microphones), Rose's Southwest Papers (paper converting), Accurate Custom (Injection Molding), Mega Corp. (water haulage equipment), Earthstone International (recycled glass abrasives), Butterman Tool (tool and die), Eclipse Aviation (small jet aircraft), Optical Insights (optical equipment). This film is high quality, 166 MB M4V and will play on video iPods, as well as any PC/Mac with the latest version of QuickTime. To get this video delivered automatically to your computer/iPod click here to subscribe to the MAKE audio and video feed. Video provided by Blue Canyon productions and Manuflix.

Read full story

HOW TO - Adding internal Bluetooth

Chris writes "Adding internal Bluetooth to a laptop has been done before, but Tom shows us how to do this without using a internal USB hub. An easy project to hide yourself away with during those upcoming stressed family reunions." Link.

The RFID address book desk

Timo Arnall's excellent experiment with RFID and physical spaces, like his desk..."For the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with tagging personal space with the NFC. This started by embedding RFID tags in my desk, to use it as an information surface for contacts, SMSes and links. Underneath the desk I have stuck a grid of RFID tags, and on the top surface, the same grid of post-it notes. With the standard Nokia Service Discovery application it is possible to call people, send pre-defined SMSes or load URLs by touching the phone to each post-it on the desk." Link.

HOW TO - Build an Arcade-Style Game Chair

Nice project to go along with a new Xbox 360...Chuck and Sean write "How to inexpensively build your own arcade-style racing game chair. The site describes building a low-budget chair for your living room with parts from the junkyard as well as building a full-size version utilizing a 32" TV. Lots of pictures and advice." Link.

Get your MAKE on...

Ok Makers, get your aggregators ready! We're finishing out 2005 with a ton of posts, articles, contests and more - if you haven't yet, add MAKE to: Kinja, My AOL, MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines, Rojo, Newsgator or Pluck (or any other feed reader with our RSS feed). Look for lots and lots of fun! If you're new to RSS, take a look at these articles for just about everything you might need or want to know.

December 25, 2005

DVD to iPod - Convert, the easy way (Mac)

This is the best application in the entire world for converting DVDs to iPod video, it's one click - "HandBrake Lite is a horribly-mangled abomination of HandBrake, jettisoning its non-crucial features with the one-track goal of creating iPod-sized movies from DVDs. You only really need to click two buttons to rip a DVD for iPod. It's as easy as that. Less stuff to read, and fewer confusing words. All videos are automatically resized to 320px wide. Widescreen movies are properly cropped before conversion. Smaller interface, easier to stash away on your screen somewhere." Link.

December 24, 2005

Ask MAKE on Christmas day!

Ok, I'm going to try out a bit of experiment on Christmas day inspired by the "Call for Help-a-thons" - post up any and all questions about setting up your new computer, protecting a PC from viruses/spyware before letting the kids online, iPods, converting videos, PSPs - anything you happen to need help with. I'll check the messages and answer them and/or do a Skype/Gizmo/Instant message session. Most folks won't be at their computers and online, but if you're reading Makezine.com and need a hand with your tech, post up and let us know. Lastly, if you didn't get MAKE for the holidays and want a free copy of MAKE (digital edition) read the comments...

How Fiber Optics are Made

Excellent video on how fiber optics are made - "..."At the Speed of Light" is inspirational on any number of levels. It describes what Corning calls "the union of glass and light". Developed in the 70's by a trio of scientists -- Drs. Keck, Maurer and Schultz -- who went on to win the National Medal of Technology for their efforts, it is truly remarkable. They are making fibers thinner than a human hair. The single mode fiber is a mere 8 microns thick. One micron is one-millionth of a meter." Link.

REAPER - Rapid Environment for Audio Prototyping

Justin Frankel (Winamp & Ninjam creator) has a new multitrack recording software called REAPER. This is a pretty good PC program to try out, small, fast, looks like it can tap in to your system sound for recording Skype or other VoIPs too, that could be useful for podcasts, etc. Don't fear the Reaper, it's free, for now. [via] Link.

The dashboard that obsoletes all others?

Speedometers, rearview mirrors, many will have LCDS (I can't wait to mod one!)...."To say the new Mercedes S-Class dashboard is impressive is probably the understatement of the year. Basically, it's a [LCD screen] embedded in the dash that displays all your data virtually. What's cool is it mimics analog gauges like the original Carrera GT concept was sporting when we all first saw it for the first time. But the real mind blower, is when the night vision activates and everyting in front of you disappears and you see a video screen displaying what's in front of you." [via] Link.

< Previous | December 2005 Home | Next >