Ask MAKE on Christmas day!
Ok, I’m going to try out a bit of experiment on Christmas day inspired by the “Call for Help-a-thons” – post up any and all questions about setting up your new computer, protecting a PC from viruses/spyware before letting the kids online, iPods, converting videos, PSPs – anything you happen to need help with. I’ll check the messages and answer them and/or do a Skype/Gizmo/Instant message session. Most folks won’t be at their computers and online, but if you’re reading Makezine.com and need a hand with your tech, post up and let us know. Lastly, if you didn’t get MAKE for the holidays and want a free copy of MAKE (digital edition) read the comments…
Hans writes “Laser Chess was created by Mike Duppong back in the late 80s, and you can find lots of software versions of the it on the web. However, a Brazilian student named Alexandre Van de Sande actually made a actual working laser version of the game!” 
Excellent reason to roll back any PSP, a Commodore 64 emulator! – “64psp began life as an experiment to learn how to program the PSP. No PSP C64 emulators existed at the time and the Frodo source code appeared to have a gentler learning curve. A PSP port of VICE is also in progress. Both emulators have their plus and minus points, so why not try both?” [
Make your own gift wrap – Jack writes “This year as I was putting together Christmas gifts, I realized that I’d forgotten to pick up a roll of wrapping paper. At this point, I recalled the Make-a-Flake site I came across a while ago, and it hit me that I could prevent another trip to the store and at the same time, make custom wrapping paper for each of my giftees. Win-win!” 
There’s a new google-maps-style 
Rob sent in this great LED Menorah with a USB interface, the Maker J. Schrier writes – “It can correctly calculate the dates of Hannukah for at least the next few thousand years (or any historical date back to 2 B.C.E.). As well as “lighting” the candles based on when the sunsets (I set the default geography for San Francisco/Berkeley, but you can enter any latitude/longitude and (assuming you don’t live too close to the arctic circle) it will be correct to within a few minutes. Furthermore, the shamas (candle you use to light the other candles) can blink out any morse-code message you want It will convert the words to morse code for you!” 
For any of you Second Life makers who have been itching to create the ultimate virtual home there are a couple of bidding wars over on Ebay. Both