Translating Japanese Crafts
Ningyo or Kokeshi? If you’ve seen our post last week on Japanese craft books, you may have also found a lot of Japanese craft sites along the way, but have no idea what they are saying. Check out Makewrite’s full Japanese craft translation guide and how to use Google Translate to see your what your favorite Japanese craft sites are sayin’. Makewrite says, “It may actually make less sense translated into English than it did in Japanese, but that’s half the fun.” Link.
AntonOlsen writes “This is an easy to build dc-dc switcher that can drive quite a few LEDs at 3.3V with a single AA battery. Version 1 is going in a mini mag light and I’m thinking version two will make a very light weight bike light.” [
Refik writes “Here’s a free Funcion/Signal generator. Engineers and hobbysts need a function generator to test their circuits if they are working properly and it happens that they don’t have money to buy a function generator or don’t have time at the moment to build one! This function generator is a free of charge software that needs just a sound card in the computer!” 
Simple and handy phone tether – Killbox writes “I was talking to a friend who has a Sidekick about an old pager bungie I had on my TREO (I wont forget it if its clipped to me lanyard!). I mentioned that I wanted to make one out of ao old phone handset cord – So I went home and built it! one 25′ coiley cord made about 5 of these, some terminal connectors i crimped on, keyrings and clips. Total cost under $4.” 
MAKE flickr photo pool member Zapwizard writes “I don’t have enough money or time to replace my headunit, or buy the Radioshark. So instead I am integrating a iTrip FM transmitter directly into the Mini. The iTrip was wired up, I choose to wire it to +5volts from the USB, as I couldn’t find a reliable source of 3.3volts. A dummy headphone jack allows the iTrip to turn on. Later when I replace my headunit I can just jack into the headphone jack and get straight audio.” 
Sid on the Hacks site writes up a good simple how to/tip – “My LCD display wouldn’t come on, it would just flicker. The LED on its external power supply was steady on when it wasn’t plugged into the monitor. When I did plug it in, the LED blinked at the rate of 2x per second. Measuring the power coming out of this supply using my multimeter, I saw that the power level wasn’t steady — it was pulsing slightly (about 2x per second). This was while unplugged from the monitor. Found a new power supply on eBay, and now everything’s fine.” 
Brian McConnell on the 