Front Row is a new media center application from Apple, it’s shipping on the new iMacs and you use it to manage movies, photos, music, DVDs and more from your couch – with a slick interface. No word if Apple will sell or distribute versions for that Mac you already have, but a couple folks have already hacked up a version of Front Row and have it working. Here’s a HOW TO of sorts via Digg and here’s a video over on TUAW + Flickr shots.
One of the hardest parts of sewing is making sure patterns fit to your body shape. Here’s an article online from Threads Magazine that shows four quick, easy, and cheap ways to make your own dress form. “With a few pins, some muslin, and 20 minutes, you can explore more pattern tweaks (and learn more about fitting) on a custom form than you could in hours of flat-pattern investigation on paper.” These DIY dress forms can be made out of duct tape (there are 2 ways!), molded paper-mache, or paper-tape. Link.
Old phone, with new cell guts, and functional. This project is a working cellular push-button telephone. The phone is an old telephone from my kitchen growing up that I modified into a working cellphone. The old bell ringer functions. You can talk and listen on the old handset. The phone is dialed with the buttons on its front. And it can be powered via a power cord spliced into the phone jack at the back. No text messaging, phone book, or camera phone junk. Smile. [via] Link.
Rick writes “A British equivalent to the Basic Stamp PIC micro controllers but cheaper. Free programming software and a good range of products for anyone who wants to control their world. Product can be purchased in USA and Australia.” Anyone use these? I’ve been trying to find something like this for beginners for a few projects. Link.
Make pal and Make faire participant Mark writes “…an extensive insight view of how I transferred my old digital camera (which would probably fetch only $30 on ebay or such) into a infrared camera. The whole idea is just that a lot of people probably have old cameras laying around, collecting dust, so why not make one of your old cameras an infrared one?” Link. Excellent how-to and documentation.
Great HOW TO by powderly on Instructables “The following is Instructions for assembling the first generation robot arm that my wife and I are developing for the Eyebeam Atelier AiR program as part of an animatronic self-portrait. This arm includes 4 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) from the wrist to the shoulder, runs at less than 20 W and is about 12 ounces. I am currently working on V2 with limit and home switches for each DOF, a single DOF hand and adding another 2 DOF to the shoulder. Motor control units for the arm are also currently being developed…” Link.
Raphael writes “One day, I bought a genesis game console with a few games. I got tired of playing Sonic and MicroMachines so I decided to build a reprogrammable cartridge. It can be used for many things, such as running demos, homebrew games and music on the real console.” Link.
