Make a BigBrother Traffic Light
Green is good! – “Network Operations Centers and Help Desks all over monitor their systems and networks with a somewhat open source product called Big Brother. Here’s how to add a traffic light to indicate network status. Big Brother provides a web interface that shows the status of the network, and systems. The web interface allows you to drill down and see the status of any device monitored. It does all this in a very simple and elegant way, by providing color indications, red, yellow, and green to tell you how things are going. Well all of this really can put the idea of traffic lights into your head if you like to “repurpose” consumer electronics like I do. So lets get to task and use our desktop computer, running Java to monitor a BigBrother web page and change a faux traffic light to match the color-status of our network.” Thanks Victor! Link.
A clever maker out there made his own robot pal – “My dream of a home-built robot was smolding since the early 80ies. The floor of the young boy’s room was covered with “fischertechnik” parts, and a robot which clears the mess seemed feasible… Well, it took some years until the project actually started. And this not only due to my personal capabilities as a mechanical engineer, but also in the environment of today’s technologies: Webcams, WLAN, and last but not least powerful yet power-saving PC-Mainboards.” Here’s how he made his robot! [
Check out this amazing relay computer “Features of the Arithmetic Logic Unit: Two 8-bit inputs (from B and C registers) 8-bit result (onto data bus) 3-bit function code input Functions: Add, Increment, And, Or, Xor, Not, Shift-left, Nop Carry output (from Add, Increment) Zero-detect output Features of the Register Unit: 8 Registers (8-bits each) Register Names: A, B, C, D, M1, M2, X, and Y Data Bus (8 LEDs and 8 Switches) Features of the Program Control Unit: Program Counter (16 bits) Instruction Register (8 bits) Jump Target Register (16 bits) Increment Unit (16 bits) Increment Register (16 bits) Address Bus (16 LEDs and 16 Switches)…” 
Nathan True’s excellent mobile hotspot – “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just plug my phone in… and have it automatically connect to the phone and serve its sweet, sweet Internet over a Wi-fi connection? Better still, have it transparently proxy all connections so that nearly all Internet programs will function properly? Maybe even prioritize certain types of traffic, or encrypt everything so my wireless carrier can’t spy on what Slashdot stories I like to read? All of those things would be just great. And all of those things are exactly those things which I set out to do (and/or enable you to do!) in this project. ” [
Peter writes “Korg has kept its OASYS Linux PC – synth hybrid closed, but not Open Labs. Their Windows-based synthesizer keyboard slash DJ/VJ workstation slash home entertainment center (with remote control) has an open hard drive bay, four PCI slots, and hinged access to the PC innards, all with a fully-customizable Windows install. Sure, it’s preconfigured for music production with a 15″ touchscreen and software bundle, but you could go inside the machine and reconfigure it into whatever you wanted. One idea: control games from the music keyboard.” 
Fsteele writes in to confirm you can stream purchased video with the new iTunes – “Thanks for the link; it works just fine with store content. That’s actually how I noticed it. I’ve successfully imported content I captured via EyeTV, as well, but it looks like it only works if it was imported via iTunes 6.02. My wife has a couple of videos she bought with 6.01 that aren’t available. What really makes this cool is that there’s now a video streaming server inside every copy of iTunes, so it will be interesting to see what people can do with that.” 
Stefan writes “A nice detailed description of Oregonian Adrian Carbine’s record-setting amateur rocket flight. Powered by twin “N” motors, the two-stage model soared to over 40,000 feet. Dimensions: Length: 17’4″, sustainer dia: 4.25″, booster dia: 4.6″. Pad weight: 96.5 lbs. Weight without motors: 43.5 lbs (including parachutes, tubular nylon, electronics, avionics bays, CO2 systems, etc.). The entire airframe weighed 28 lbs empty.” 