Functional prototypes in 30 minutes or less…
I asked Scott and Bjoern to write up what they’re up to when I saw the challenge of making a functional music player in 30 minutes, they write “d.tools is a hardware and software system that enables designers to rapidly prototype the bits (the form) and the atoms (the interaction model) of physical user interfaces in concert. d.tools was built to support design thinking rather than implementation tinkering. With d.tools, designers place physical controllers (e.g., buttons, sliders), sensors (e.g., accelerometers), and output devices (e.g., LEDs, LCD screens) directly onto form prototypes, and author their behavior visually in our software workbench.” More info and downloads here.
I think Quanta makes Apple’s Powerbook too, I wonder if they made the 
MAKE reader Matthew writes “I woud like to suggest a make project to design and build a hard drive/electronics shredder, not one to shred software but something to shred actual metal hard drives, they have commercial versions. The end product can be recylced.” Awhile back there was a round up on 
Here’s how to emulate the telezapper by using SIT tones on your answering machine or voice mail messages…“Predictive Dialers are used by telemarketing firms to gain more ‘dialing efficiency’. About 75% of junk calls are made with a predictive dialer (PD). One thing a PD does, is monitor what happens when the phone is answered. The Telezapper can emit a ‘disconnect’ tone when your phone line goes off-hook. The tone it transmits is either a single ‘ultra-modulated’ tone or an actual set of 3 ‘Special Information Tones’ (S.I.T.) common to the telecommunications industry: depending on the setting you seletct. It works… now… in some situations. You can get a set of all three Special Information Tones from Private Citizen. Just record the tones at the beginning of your answering machine message and put your greeting right after it.” 
Nice mod, adding Bluetooth to laptop with an extra USB port…TomTheGeek writes “This weekend I added internal bluetooth to my Dell CPx laptop. These laptops have a two port USB hub in them but only one is available on the outside. The other one is only used if you have a docking station. Since I don’t have a docking station I found the traces for the unused USB port and placed my USB bluetooth module internally. These are the connections I had to add to the main board in order to use the USB port…” 
Here’s another great how to on converting an ATX power supply to a lab power supply, Abizar writes “Computer power supplies are US$15 but lab power supplies are US$100+. By converting the cheap (free) ATX power supplies that can be found in any discarded computer you can get a phenomenal lab power supply with huge current outputs, short circuit protection, and very tight voltage regulation.” 
300 hours and approximately 130 wood joints to build, Nicholas Falzone’s excellent case mod “The Sangaku case mod a fusion of computer technology with Japanese the furniture-making tradition. Sangaku translates to “mathematics tablet” in Japanese. The top connects the sides, with the shorter pieces lining up with the lines from the doors and the acrylic strip carrying the black from the front of the case up and over through the back. The two sides started out being four sliding shoji doors, two per side, but to get the lighting to work, I combined the two on one side. The joinery on the doors was made almost entirely by hand, using Japanese chisels and a dozuki saw.” [