The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for digital gadgetry, open code, smart hacks, and more. Processing power to the people!
Surj writes “Today I presented the Tux-Phone idea at the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference in SFO. An open cell phone platform named tux-phone. Three important disclaimers: It is not a novel idea. People have thought and written about similar equipment. We just started building it. The engineering process is fairly straightforward except for finding the right parts and putting them together while keeping it small.” Link. See previous.
Via Digg – Paul Allen has donated his collection of ancient DEC computers to this site. Program like its 1972! “PDPplanet.com offers users something unique–the ability to telnet to a DECsystem-10 or an XKL Toad-1, log in to a personal account, create or upload programs, and run them. We encourage enthusiasts at all levels of experience, beginners and old hands alike, to apply for accounts on the 2065 (running Tops-10 v7.04) and the Toad-1 (running Tops-20 v7.1) and to visit the PDP Planet Forums to share ideas and ask questions.” Link.
I’m using lots of macros with my DIY VR set up, I’m going to try this tool out “MacroMaker allows you to create macros or recordings to automate most anything that you already do by hand. MacroMaker was written more for the use of people who regularly use computers and programmers rather than the casual PC user. Most anything you know how to do by hand can be translated into a macro or recording in MacroMaker. If you are having to perform repetitive tasks, this program will help you out tremendiously.” [via] Link.
Chris writes – “This is my (our) first modification. We got the inspiration from Arkku on flickr. We did ours a bit differently, he used 1 LED, we used 2. The process is the same for each. Since there are only 5 volts to work with, both versions require the circuit to be built in parallel. I just have one more parallel circuit in my mod. There are two options for this mod. One involves removing the circuit board, the other leaves it in and splices the connecting wire. The choice is yours.” Link.
David writes “This is a PC Case mod that installs four binding posts that are linked to the PC’s power supply into an empty drive bay so that you can use it as a bench 5V or 12V power supply……..especially useful if you’re messing around with PIC programming, etc.” This is an excellent mod, this could make a great accessory for Maker types too if it were to go in production (or just make one with this how to). Link.
wireless.gumph.org has a how to on making a small WiFi antenna – “A small antenna to boost the signal of a laptop wireless card, that can be stuck to the back of the laptop screen. The design is the same as for the larger homemade antenna, but uses thin RG58 cable and is only 2 sectors long. The size was chosen so it could be housed inside the tube of an old pen, to provide rigidity and protection to the antenna.” Thanks Star! Link.
Here it is…3D-printing a SecondLife / WoW character, and mashup into Google Earth! “OGLE (i.e. OpenGLExtractor) is a software package by Eyebeam R&D that allows for the capture and re-use of 3D geometry data from 3D graphics applications running on Microsoft Windows. It works by observing the data flowing between 3D applications and the system’s OpenGL library, and recording that data in a standard 3D file format. In other words, a ‘screen grab’ or ‘view source’ operation for 3D data.” [via] Link.
