Monsta-Mac-Attacker gets new face for 2006
AizeMashehu’s writes “I built two fan controllers into a happy-face baybus for two sets of fan arrays so I can hear the sound of silence while the eight large fans chug-a-lug-lug. One knob on the new fanbus controlls the two rear 80mm fans blowing into the water-cooling radiator (in addition to the existing 120mm fan with rear-mounted speed control knob sucking air out of the radiator from the other side) and the other knob controls the 2 front 80mm fans that blow air around 5 of the fastest hard drives in the machine. You can see a close up as well as an explaination of the switch here and the main machine that this is wired to in the other photos in this series.” Link.
Scott writes “For those who don’t already know, the Gimp is a powerful, open source image editing application. For more info on the Gimp visit 
Tom sent in this fun how to from Jared and Dan “The idea for this project evolved out of necessity. Dan and I are both avid gamers. After a few hours of gaming with our normal high-end mouse pads you get a build up of sweat. The mouse and mouse pad becomes slippery and you start to loose your competitive advantage due to the loss of precision. While there are a couple mice on the market that have small fans in them to dry out your palm, they all have major failings in precision and accuracy. So after some thought and discussion we chose to build out our own custom mouse pad with a blower in it to suck the air down through the pad and away from the gamer’s hand. The result is astonishing!” 
Craig guide on PC keyboard interfacing… “Why would you want to interface the Keyboard? The IBM keyboard can be a cheap alternative to a keyboard on a Microprocessor development system. Or maybe you want a remote terminal, just couple it with a LCD Module. Maybe you have a RS-232 Barcode Scanner or other input devices, which you want to use with existing software which only allows you to key in numbers or letters. You could design yourself a little box to convert RS-232 into a Keyboard Transmission, making it transparent to the software.” 
Japala writes “This is the project that I started to do something about these old and outdated mouse pads, maybe to add some more “glow” to them. I bought the plexi from a firm specialiced in plastics. They sell these surplus peaces priced by weight. I found this clear 500x500x5mm piece and payed 45 FIM for it (~$6).” [
Derek Yu writes “Creating pixel art is a skill I picked up because I needed graphics for my games. After a lot of practice, I became rather handy with it, and started to see it more as “real” art rather than just a tool. These days, pixel art is quite popular for gaming and illustration…In this 10-step tutorial, I’ll teach you how to create a “sprite”, which is a stand-alone two-dimensional character or object. The term comes from video games, of course.” [
A ton of MAKE readers sent word that their favorite alpha-Maker Macgyver made the super bowl “Entitled “MacGyver” the ad finds Richard Dean Anderson’s character in typical fashion: held hostage in a remote warehouse with time running out on a self-destructing bomb. Cleverly, MacGyver uses the purchases he had made with his debit card – everyday items at a convenience store – to free himself and escape to safety.” 