Is using an empty baked-bean can to grab a Wi-Fi signal from a mile away high technology? The answer is yes if you’re an entrant in Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair being held this week in Phoenix. Steven Buss, an 18-year-old Wi-Fi buff from Palm City, Florida, built three different types of antennas to see which provided the greatest range for his wireless network Link.
I’ve been trying to download the premiere episode of SYSTM and so far it’s going good- if you use a client like Bits on Wheels you can watch all the transfers, clients as it happen. Here’s a quick video I made that shows my download/uplaod (2MB QuickTime MOV).
Out here it pays to be self sufficient: the nearest town is across the Rupununi river and down a gruelling four-wheel-drive track – about three hours away in the dry season, or about three days away in the wet. There’s no telephone, no mains electricity, no anything really. Except, surprisingly, broadband internet access, in all its glory. With a satellite dish outside the house, and electricity provided by solar panels and a current inverter, DeFreitas is possibly the world’s least likely internet nerd. [via] Link.
If you use Roxio Toast (Lite or Titanium) to make your own CDs/DVDs from audio purchased from the iTunes music store, those days are over if you upgrade to 6.1 – “Following discussions with Apple, this version will no longer allow customers to create audio CDs, audio DVDs, or export audio to their hard drive using purchased iTunes music store content” Link.
Shopping list, prices, and step-by-step instructions to build a durable and versitile home studio…for less than $100! This is a good guide if you want to make your own photo studio on the cheap. The sections are divided in to plumbing, nuts and bolts, electrical, oversized wood and backdrops. It looks like many of these things might already be laying around most basements, so you could do it for even less than $100. Link.
The new Sting-Ray Electric shares the original design characteristics of the Street Series Sting-Ray, but adds an electric motor and a battery pack in the form of a motorcycle engine casing so it looks even more like the chopper it originally emulated when it took the world by storm way back in the early sixties. The new Sting-Ray Electric will reach 14 mph and the battery will last up to two hours for a price of US$399. Those specs are distinctly commuter machine territory. Link.
The prospect of saving money and controlling every aspect of their computer is leading a growing number of users down the path of DIY. Happy to rely on the manufacturer warranties for each individual component, DIYers assemble and configure their own machines and provide their own tech support. The payoff, they say, is a more powerful machine that they understand down to the smallest quirk. Arts-law student and PC enthusiast Greg Sadler says building his own PC is as much a learning tool as it is a hobby. Link.
