For those of you who have Pocket PC, specifically the iPAQ – here’s a good how to on mounting your iPAQ in the car with washing line pegs in the ventilation outlet. I’ve seen versions of these sell for $30+ and this looks like it will work better. Link.
Logan writes “I was tired of waiting for the commercial manufacturers to ship their covers for the new iPod. So, I bid on an eBay auction for some remaindered clear static cling vinyl from Earl Mich Company and made my own cover. Total cost: $16. Total playtime: 3 hours” Link.
In MAKE 03 we showed you how to make a VCR into a cat feeder, here’s MSN’s article about the project and the decline of VHS – “Don’t tell English inventor James Larsson that a VCR is useless. He’s got an idea what to do with that aging video gear–turn it into an automatic cat feeder, using the VCR’s timer to dispense food on a regular schedule.” Link.
Piers writes “Daylight savings has started now, and it was still quite light, but not light enough, and I really needed to use a flash. The shadows cast from my built-in flash are really harsh and especially prominent in close-up shots, so I made a makeshift light diffuser out of the top of a slide box, lined on the inside with some thin paper. It worked pretty well, as you can see, the photos have a nice soft light.” Link.
Astrogoth writes “Thanks to Apple, I couldn’t pair my Bluetrek G2 bluetooth headset to my PowerBook to use with Skype, so I built my own headset from an old pair of Grado SR-80 headphones and an Apple iSight web cam. I described what I did so others could do the same.” Link.
Dylan writes “First, eMachineShop. They are an online custom machine shop. You download their program, design the part you need, send in the spec, they machine it, and then it arrives in your mailbox. How cool is that?! They do injection molding, rubber molding, milling, turning, laser cutting, waterjet cutting, wire EDM, tapping, bending, blanking, punching, plastic extrusion, thermoforming, and casting. And the list of materials you can use is just silly. Second, Pad2Pad. Same deal as eMachineShop (it’s a sister site), but this time with custom printed circuit boards. You download the software, design your PCB, send it in, they make it, and then you get your PCB in your mailbox. These sites have got to be handy sites for people doing projects like the ones you see in Make.”
Jim writes “This weekend we made a homemade pet collar (to prevent our cat from scratching at a wound on his neck) out of left over folders from changing the colour on the back of my Powerbook. Saved us having to ring the emergency vet clinic and only took about twenty minutes. Very basic, but handy.” Link.
