Rob solved a phone ringing problem in cubicle land “I work in an office of several cubicles. Often someone is on the other side of the room, and a phone rings. Who’s phone is it? All the phones sound the same, and the cubicle walls block line-of-sight to the indicator light on the phone. That is, unless it’s remotely located in a picture of a deer, up where I can see it. Now, with Caller Eye Deer, I know whether or not to run across the room.” Link.
Want a robotic voice to read the news from Google on your music player? Here’s how. Jeremy english writes – “This document explains the step used to create a podcast of google news. A bunch of standard unix tools are used to get the job done. You can get a copy of the scripts here. All of the work is done on my local machine then uploaded. The host, where my website sits, does not let me use my own executables. I will be skipping the process of uploading the files since that is unique to my webserver.” Link.
This is a great, use an old Palm to control your PC’s music. JT writes “After using several mp3 player thin-clients and other Palm-based Winamp interfaces, I decided to write my own. Basic requirements: Must not require using (and losing) a stylus – Edits playlist order with a single touch/drag – Direct searching Winamp media library and server directory browsing.” Link.
I didn’t know Goodwill had eBay-like auctions, but they do. Make reader zw suggested that the “Cameras & Electronic Equip” section has a lot of good deals and interesting equipment. And it’s true, there are a ton of weird and cheap electronics, most of them under $50. I also saw a new 4G iPod for $150. I’m not sure how good the actual purchase and delivery is, it seems the member organizations of Goodwill Industries International are the only sellers. It might be worth checking out. Link.
Peter is looking for some Makers out there, he writes “Basically, the folks at National Instruments have added DSP (digital signal processing, useful for lots of audio applications — both industrial and musical), to LabVIEW, their high-end development platform for creating test / measurement / control applications. Here’s the cool part: they designed a free synth (as in musical synth) to run on the platform. Somewhere out there, there’s a scientist or engineer who’s going to love fiddling with this thing. It’s electronic music for Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. Know anyone in those communities (blogosphere or printosphere) who might be interested in this?” Link.
Here’s something to make when it’s cold outside. Snow! This site has a couple of snow machine designs that can be built from stuff you might already have (an air compressor, a high pressure sprayer, various plumbing fittings). There also has a page describing the physics involved in snow making. Thanks J. Wolf! Link.
Run a Mac, on a stick. “Running Linux, Windows or applications like Firefox, Thunderbird and AbiWord from a USB flash memory device is old hat. How about a Mac 128K or Plus on a USB key? Using a ‘portable’ Mac system you can: play with old system software and applications without dusting off your old Mac, impress your friends, or show others what the older Mac system looked like, use Mac on Windows and Linux.” Thanks Jim! Link.
