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January 31, 2007

Transforming e-waste into art

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Erica Ogg @ News.com has a great write up of last weekend's SF Recycling & Disposal Artist in Residence program exhibit... I'm putting this in the "News from the Future" category, what a great program for artists and cities... There is so much stuff, it seems art is a natural fit...

"It's said that one man's trash is another's treasure. Never was that more true than Saturday at the SF Recycling & Disposal Artist in Residence Program show here.

I can't say I ever imagined myself venturing to the dump and recycling plant just south of San Francisco--or any waste disposal site, really--to take in a little post-post-modern inspiration. But that's where I was this weekend, heading down an uneven road pockmarked with potholes still filled with last night's rain, past rows of battered white garbage trucks parked behind chain link fences topped with barbed wire. " - Link & more.

ETSY LABS - 6pm Thursday 2/1 Brooklyn

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Reminder - If you're in the NYC area, come visit ETSY and some of the MAKE & CRAFT folks 6pm, Thursday 2/1 Brooklyn - Link.

Periodic table of tools

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Jason writes in with this cool periodic table of tools from ReadyMade... -

"While browsing a site linked in an Instructable I was referred to by the Make blog, I came across this Periodic Table of Hardware. If that ain't Make material, I don't know what is!" - Link & @ the ReadyMade store.

I'm not sure I'd buy a poster, but I certainly might arrange some tools on a peg board like this!

January 30, 2007

Zedomax builds a MAKE open source MP3 player

Max and his crew are extremely motivated and capable, they won a MAKE MP3 and are working on a touch screen and display for it, here's the video of where they're at and mini-review ... Good work gents! - Link.

Related:

Daisy, the MAKE open source MP3 player - Maker store.
Daisy, the MAKE open source MP3 player projects - Link.

Introducing Hackszine

Hack the Way You Think
We're pleased to announce Hackszine.com, the new online counterpart to O'Reilly Media's Hacks series of books. Brian Sawyer, Brian Jepson, Jason Striegel and Phillip Torrone will be posting over there and we'll have some more folks / guest authors too.

We've developed this site to promote the philosophy of Hacks as a way to gain control of the devices and systems in our lives. To hack something is to make it work the way it should -- for you. This site will bring you the best hacks we uncover in the wilds of the Internet, while at the same time delivering fresh, original content developed by our pool of Hacks authors and contributors.

As you'll likely notice in the site's design, the Hacks series is now published by the same team responsible for Make magazine, headed by Dale Dougherty, the publisher of Make and the original creator of our Hacks series. In many ways, we see Hacks as the technological or mental counterpart to the physical DIY space addressed by Make, and our vision is to grow the Hackszine site and its community in the way we have successfully connected "makers" with Makezine and Make magazine.

Let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from you. Have a hack? Use the "Submit a Hack" link on the Hackszine sidebar. We're also interested in hearing about the kind of hacks that'd work for you. If you have a specific itch that needs scratching, just click "Request a Hack" and tell us about it.

The RSS feed is here - Link.

Here are some great posts just from the last week!

Make Java-based Apps Play Nice with Vista - Link.
Six Tips for Hacking Windows Vista - Link.
Domain Hacks - Link.
Un-Snap Your Hyperlinks (YES) - Link.
Take Slick Screenshots on Vista - Link.
10 Government Hacks - Link.
Map Your Books - Link.
Top 10 Flickr Hacks - Link.
Auto-Correct Typos in Your Address Bar - Link.
Use a Windows-only Printer on a Mac - Link.
HOW TO - Return to "Classic" Google Image Search - Link.
Access Gmail Behind a Firewall - Link.
Shopping Sniper: Score a PS3 or Wii Online - Link.

Last up, we have a Flickr group - feel free to join and post up whatever hackery you think we should see.

Looking for a Chicago-area Maker (DONE)

Hey gang, we are looking for a Chicago-area Maker who can speak with a reporter from The Chicago Tribune sometime tomorrow morning/early afternoon about being a Maker, MAKE magazine, etc. Send us (just a sentence or two) on what you do, and provide your contact info. If you attended the Maker Faire even better! Contact Mark Ballard (UPDATE: We found our makers, thanks!).

Free 3 months of T-Mobile WiFi - Just pretend to run Vista

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A few of you sent in how to get free WiFi by changing your browser's "user agent" to be a Vista machine, so here's i-hacked.com step by step...

"For the release of Microsoft Vista, T-Mobile is offering 3 free months of their hotspot service. The catch is... You have to be running Windows Vista. (don't do it)

Here is a quick tip to get three months of free hotspot service at the firm's North American WiFi access points found at Starbucks, Borders, FedEx-Kinkos, hotel chains, etc. Turns out, they only use the agent information for validation... So that enables us to SPOOF IT!

1. Download the firefox extension for spoofing user-agents: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/59/
2. Restart firefox and goto: Tools > User Agent Switcher > Options > Options... \
3. Click "User Agents" and then "Add"
4. Fill out the window with following info:

Description: Internet Explorer 7 (Windows Vista)
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
App Name: Microsoft Internet Explorer App Version: 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
Platform: Win32

5. Save it, goto Tools > User Agent Switcher > Then click the newly added one. Browse over to http://hotspot.t-mobile.com/vista/ and you should be redirected to a trial sign-up page." - Link.

Do it yourself grassroots media web sites

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I'm really impressed with the open source collaborative news site platform - NewCloud, worth a quick gander if you're thinking of starting up a site for a particular cause/effort or project. Jeff writes -

"If you're looking to start up your own online media publication but want something more sophisticated than a blog, check out the latest release of the NewsCloud Open Source Media Platform. NewsCloud.com is a social network for news, like Digg but open source with a greater emphasis on building grassroots networks for collaborative journalism.

If you don't feel comfortable running your own Linux distribution, you might get your feet wet with a NewsCloud Journal or Group which you can customize with Smarty templates. NewsCloud promises more sophisticated hosting and customization options in the near future.

NewsCloud also offers a guide to bloggers for those that want to integrate more news content on their existing blog or promote their
writing on NewsCloud." - Blog post & Wiki.

Related:

NewsCloud platform overview - Link.
NewsCloud mission statement - Link.
Sign up at newscloud.com - Link.

Do it yourself grassroots media web sites

NewsCloud also offers a guide to bloggers for those that want to integrate more news content on their existing blog or promote their
writing on NewsCloud." - Blog post & Wiki.

Related:

NewsCloud platform overview - Link.
NewsCloud mission statement - Link.
Sign up at newscloud.com - Link.

Make Java-based Apps Play Nice with Vista

If you've tried to run certain Java-based applications on Vista with the Aero user interface eye candy enabled, you might have received the following error message: "The color scheme has been changed to Windows Vista Basic". This is because older versions of Java don't play well with Vista's Aero Glass user interface.
If you'd like to eliminate this annoyance, you have a couple of choices, but the first thing you need to do is install the latest and greatest version of the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) from java.sun.com. Then:

If the software you're using has a "Java not included" option, install that instead. You might have to follow some extra instructions to set it up (such as setting a JAVA_HOME environment variable), but when you're done, everything should work fine.
Dig into the software you've installed, and look for a java or jre subfolder. You'll need to find your JRE installation (check C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0). Copy everything from there into the misbehaving software's (Processing in the following example) jre folder. Here's how it's done at the command prompt, but you could rename java to java.old and copy the new JRE in using Windows Explorer as well:
```
C:\>cd \processing-0123

C:\processing-0123>ren java java.old

C:\processing-0123>xcopy /s "\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0" java

Does java specify a file name

or directory name on the target

(F = file, D = directory)? D

\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0\COPYRIGHT

\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0\LICENSE

\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0\README.txt

...
```

However you decide to do it, the next time you run the troublesome app, it should now appear in all its Aero-enabled glory!

Vote for MAKE - The 2007 Bloggies

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If you like MAKE and CRAFT, please take a moment and vote for us at the seventh annual weblog awards: The 2007 Bloggies. We're nominated in the craft category - Link.

Clocky - The alarm clock the runs away from you...

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We featured Clocky in MAKE 03 of 2005, it's an alarm clock that makes cute noises and runs away from you in the morning when you need to get up, it's like an annoying pet, in a good way. It's shipping now and we've purchased one to kick around (literally)... We have some photos of Clocky, along with a video we filmed with RocketBoom to give you an idea of what Clocky does. Our review is short and sweet - on the rare opportunities for sleep this is the most fun possible when needing to wake up - get this puppy!

Congratulations to Gauri Nanda for turning a student project and a wonderful idea in to a shipping maker-made product!

See it!

Photos of Clocky @ Flickr - Link.
Video of Clocky @ RocketBoom - Link & MP4.

More:

Get Clocky, $49 - Link.

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From the pages of MAKE:

Made on Earth, Clocky. MAKE 03 - page 16. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition or get MAKE 03.

HOW TO - Make PDFs for the Sony Reader (Ebook e-ink device)

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Here's a 43 page guide on how to format your PDFs so that they are optimized for the screen of the Sony Reader, it's not on Sony's site yet so we've put a copy on MAKE - Link (PDF).

More:

Sony Reader Internals 2.0 (pics!) - Link.
EBook - OSR - RSS feeds on the Sony Reader - Link.
MAKE on the new Sony PRS-500 e-ink/ebook reader - Link.
Sony responds to our Sony Reader questions--- - Link.
Sony reader action photos - Link.

Lover's Laboratory, Valentine's day electronic projects @ Design News

092605Gadget
Our pals at Design News put together a few electronics projects for Valentine's day...

Avoiding Doggus Interrupt-Us
Planning a romantic evening at home? Les designed a remote control door opener so you don't have to manually let Fido out of his cage. The system consists of a clevis mounted to the shaft of a solenoid and the door latch of the cage - Link.

Flame Flicker Effect Extra long-lasting Dripless Candles
A candlelight dinner? Relax and enjoy the lambent halos and silhouettes. With electronic flame flicker there's no hurry - the candles never burn down and they won't get wax on your tablecloth. But use real ones around the hot tub - Link.

Les Wears His Silicon on His Sleeve
If you're looking for cool way to wow that special someone on Valentine's Day/birthday/whatever, build her a flashing heart made from LEDs driven by a programmable microcontroller. Les Grant's gadget is simple to build and made from easily-obtainable parts - Link.

Staying Cool in a Hot Tent
Happy campers Bruce Field and daughter Ellie love their portable heating/cooling device built to maintain a constant and comfortable temperature inside their tent. To ensure climate control, they married a room air-conditioner and tent with slinky-type dryer ducting - Link.

First annual Valentine's special edition of Gadget Freak - Link.

HOW TO - Salvage surface mount components

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Neelandan shows you how to salvage surface mount components -

"I shall tell you how I rescue components from old circuit boards and store them for reuse. A board from an old (relatively new, that is) hard disk drive shall be shown for an example. The photo (taken using my scanner) shows one such board, after I removed the IDE connector." - Link.

Related:

Using SMT components in your electronics projects - Link.
HOW TO - Make a surface mount soldering iron - Link.
HOW TO - SMD soldering (Surface mount devices) - Link.
Surface mount component remover - Link.
Solder surface mount parts with a toaster oven... - Link.
Surface mounting with hand-soldering tools - Link.

Six Tips for Hacking Windows Vista

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Preston Gralla, author of Windows XP Hacks, 2E (as well as the previous edition) and Windows Vista in a Nutshell, has some great news for all you early Vista adopters out there:

Finally, the long, five-year wait is over--Windows Vista is here. But you won't have to wait five years if you want to start hacking it; you can start right now. Check out these six top tips for hacking Windows Vista.

Here are the six hacks in his article:

Hack the Windows Explorer Shortcut Menu
Hack Windows Vista Screensavers
Hack the Elevated Command Prompt
Hack Aero's Glass Borders
Hack System Restore
Hack Vista's Blinking Cursor

How about you? Got any early hacks to share? We'd love to hear them. Just use the "Suggest a Hack" form in the sidebar. Your hack might get featured on this site or just might end up in Preston's next Hacks book...

HOW TO - Make a desk lamp from scanner parts

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Got an old scanner? Jpitz31 shows you how to make a desk lamp -

"This instructable shows you how to make a desk lamp out of scrounged scanner parts and a few extras from Home Depot.

I have set up a small solar array, controller and a storage battery. I wanted to make some low power lighting that I can use in my office that would not consume a lot of power.

I had a bunch of scanner parts lying around and decided to put them to good use." - Link.

Related:

Lamp projects @ MAKE - Link.
Scanner projects @ MAKE - Link.

A desk... made from LEGO

Desk 21
Nat sent in this 120 pound desk, completely made from LEGOs...

Approximately 35,000 LEGO bricks were used. This includes almost all the pieces from 32 Blue Tubs (#3033), almost 300 (!) small baseplates (8x16 studs), and 63 blue plate packs from LEGO Shop-at-Home. A few other pieces were also bought from private collectors (226 tiles so the drawers could slide, et cetera).
The desk weighs about 120 pounds, I think. I have not actually weighed it... but I think that is close.
About 7 pounds of glue were used. Brand: Oatey, All-Purpose (PVC, CPVC, ABS) Glue.
The desk has the following dimensions (inches, WxHxD): 60" x 29.5" x 30".
It has 7 working drawers (six small, one large).
It has a folding lid in the top that conceals a hole for computer cables to drop through.
Yes, the top is bumpy -- studs up. I offered to make the top smooth, but the client specifically requested otherwise. Whatever. I also offered to build a retractable keyboard tray in the front, but that was not wanted. Nor a mosaic of the company logo on the top or sides.
Yes, I was paid to build the desk. Don't ask how much. It was worth my time.

A desk... made from LEGO [via] - Link.

I can't wait until we see a giant 2001 monolith complete with LEGO monkeys.

Related:

More LEGO - Link.

The comic book "Periodic table of the elements"

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This is pretty neat, you look up an element and see where it is mentioned in past comic books...

"Welcome to the Periodic Table of ComicBooks. Click on an element to see a list of comic book pages involvingthat element. Click on a thumbnail on the list to see a full comic bookpage. For technical information about an element, follow the link toMark Winter's WebElements. Werecommend that you start with oxygen to see some of our best stuff.There's something for everyone here!" [via] - Link.

Related: