The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for digital gadgetry, open code, smart hacks, and more. Processing power to the people!
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.” Link.
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.” Link.
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.” Link. On a related note, the RSS feed on hacks site is awesome.
Brian McConnell on the Etel blog writes “Radio Handi enables people to create voice communities around any subject, place of interest or peer group, and to telecast live audio from MP3 feeds or conference phones. You can create a message board and party line for your club, for people who share an interest, or for your friends. With it, you can create an open party line that people can dial into from all over the world (30+ countries and 1 VoIP network to start with, much more to come). It’s also a great platform for ad hoc broadcasting. Just hook a microphone up to a Mac running Gizmo, and you can beam a live audio feed into a conference room that people can then dial into from all over the world (watch for a series of how-tos on ad hoc telecasting and other topics later this week).” [via] Link.
Zerocool60544 in the AutoIT forums writes about a PC control project using a browser or cell phone “I use lego mindstorms’ motors, they don’t a lot of torque but I geared them down to be a little slower but stronger. The water bottles are the counter weights so their is always tension on the line. There are two motors on either side. (one near the closed position and one near the open position).” [via] Link.
Surj writes “Today I presented the Tux-Phone idea at the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference in SFO. An open cell phone platform named tux-phone. Three important disclaimers: It is not a novel idea. People have thought and written about similar equipment. We just started building it. The engineering process is fairly straightforward except for finding the right parts and putting them together while keeping it small.” Link. See previous.
Via Digg – Paul Allen has donated his collection of ancient DEC computers to this site. Program like its 1972! “PDPplanet.com offers users something unique–the ability to telnet to a DECsystem-10 or an XKL Toad-1, log in to a personal account, create or upload programs, and run them. We encourage enthusiasts at all levels of experience, beginners and old hands alike, to apply for accounts on the 2065 (running Tops-10 v7.04) and the Toad-1 (running Tops-20 v7.1) and to visit the PDP Planet Forums to share ideas and ask questions.” Link.
