Here’s a good post from 1993 on making a circuit to use old phones as inter-comms- Talking over the phones is easy. You put DC current through the phone and it transmits and receives audio. So two phones and a current source (about 25mA) all in series will give you a talking circuit. A suitable current source can be as simple as a 9V battery and a series resistor whose value is adjusted (with both phones offhook) till about 25mA flows. Link.
9 months ago Firefox 1.0 came out, 80 million downloads later, it’s hard for me to use anything else. I have a pretty tweaked set up, the G5 optimized build, the brushed metal theme and here are my extensions and greasemonkey scripts. All of this together helps fuel the MAKE blog machine. The really interesting thing is- I think this might be the “end of Word” as we know it as all the browser tools are slowly replacing my need to use Word and Word-like applications. Any way, happy 80mm to the most DIY-MAKER friendly browser! Link.
This experiment uses a custom XSLT to convert GeoURL’s site-specific “near” information in RSS format to create a Google Earth KML file. You can create a static list (a snapshot based on the current sites indexed by GeoURL) or a Google Earth network link, which can be refreshed from within the application to get an up-to-date listing. Link. Handy for some our past HOW TOs.
Here’s a modified tunecast 2 that now uses USB and PS/2 power instead of AAA batteries. This is part of an ongoing project that also increases the range by 20-30 feet. [via] Link.
Duke University students are building and will live in a 4,500-square-foot “SMART” house. The purpose of the experimental project is to continuously invent and test home tech. For example, humming a tune will turn on the stereo and play the song you were humming. Alarm clocks initiate the process of breakfast being cooked by machines. [via]. Link.
Max did a great guide on converting a cpu cooler into a graphics card cooler. Produced better results than expensive graphics coolers even though its lighter and cheaper. Test results available. [
