Get a free copy of Linspire until the 6th: I downloaded it, burned the ISO, and it worked just fine off a Sony VAIO and lots of other old PCs around here. You do need to join their software service if you want to do more it seems, but overall it’s a great Linux distro to play with. So far, my favorite “live” CD to carry around is WHAX – post your favs in the comments. [via] Link.
AppleMatters had Daniel Kushner explain the inner workings of Apple’s new Mighty Mouse. Daniel is a post-industrial designer at IDEOs San Francisco studio. Here’s the complete dissection. Link. I’m in week one of using this mouse, will have a report (or a project) with it soon.
Encouraging…Disabled scientist Professor Stephen Hawking is using a hi-tech gadget to communicate by blinking because his deteriorating health limits movement. The Infrared Sound Touch (IST) switch has been developed by the American company Words+ and works by emitting a very low-powered infrared beam. The reflection of the beam changes when the eye is closed and the cheek muscle moves and so controlling the computer is as simple as blinking. Link.
The Ninth Circuit has created box-wrap patent licenses. Now the label on the box that says “single use only” is given force of law, and if you refill the cartridge you are liable for patent infringement. This from Lexmark, the company that already tried and failed to control the printer cartridge after-market using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)…Will patent owners exploit this decision as an opportunity to impose over-reaching restrictions on formerly permitted post-sale uses, repairs, modifications, and resale? Will consumers soon confront “single use only, not for resale” notices on more and more products? Will innovators stumble over labels announcing “modifications prohibited”? Link.
Raphael writes “I wanted to enjoy the sound of a real adlib sound card as I did 15 years ago, but I could not use it in my computer since it does not have ISA slots. Fortunately, parallel ports are still around so I decided to to interface the card to the parallel port”. Link.
MAKE Flickr photo pool member gkaufman posted up shots of his work area; be sure to post up yours! I have 2 workbenches in my garage. I built them both from a kit (StrongTite??) at Home Depot. The one in the back of the garage holds almost all of my tools, and is used when I need to do normal garage-type work (woodwork, grinding, auto repair, etc). The workbench up front is for computer-related activities, including any arcade stuff I might be working on. Link.
Miles off the paved highway and at the end of a long, bumpy driveway that cuts deep into the woods, Mick Womersley puts the finishing touches on his solar panel-topped home. It’s not your ordinary rural dwelling, even one designed to be ecologically sound. Womersley, a human ecology professor, and his wife Aimee Phillippi live comfortably in a house built of roughly 200 straw bales. Link.
