The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for digital gadgetry, open code, smart hacks, and more. Processing power to the people!
Kevin writes in with a great video he shot at Macworld with some of the more strange things we covered here on MAKE – “In this video entitled “The Hidden Gems of Macworld”, you can see the G5 Bling and MBridge in action. The G5 Bling from Wiebetech lets you hack your own CPU stat display, while the MCopy & MBridge device which let’s you transfer or upload media between USB devices and the Internet without the need for a computer!” Link.
Aaron writes “Most of us cannot afford fancy 7.1 surround sound systems or feel that we do not utilize the computer’s audio functions enough to reap the benefit of one. However, most of us have stereos. That and a few cables is all you need to enjoy a nice audio system without damaging your bank account. In this article, I will show you an easy way to use your stereo as computer speakers for a nice sound system at a very low cost.” Thanks Star! Link.
Dan writes “The idea for Project Rogue Server A.K.A. Project Silver was started after an interesting conversation I had with a friend of mine. I had this dead ups lying around and didn’t know what to do with it. So we threw some ideas back and forth and the one that stuck was a hidden rogue server. This could be used for both good and awesome. Just think of the possibilities. A hidden file archive, hook it up to your hacked tivo, mess with the RIAA when the come search your house….. (#$))_%$)*@&^( )%^@ (NO CARRIER)” Link.
Here’s the first test of a 3D RSS reader “idea” I’m working on – I shot this last week before I left for Macworld so it doesn’t really show what’s possible, or how it works now, but I think it’s easy to get the idea – in the current version you point it toward a real geographic location and using a “lens” (a tablet pc with x,y,z axis tracking) as you point it at something you get the feeds, so let’s say you point it towards Redmond, WA you’d get news about Microsoft or something. For now I need to manually let it know where it is, but I think there’s a way to feed in more real world data. Ok, here’s the video – Link (MOV) and photos. I’ll have a new video and some more about this later.
MAKE pal Zapwizard sent word that his wooden iPod would be at the FastMac booth at Macworld where they showcased a lot of Macmods – here they are, great hacks! – A cursed wooden Mac case, a Madmax style Powerbook, this thing is awesome (here’s the story of it too), a solar station for charging batteries, an iTablet (Tablet version of a Mac made from an iBook), and the wooden iPod. UPDATE: Make sure to check out MacMod, they’re the folks who put the hacks together!
That was quick: here’s a new Intel iMac dissection, looks moddable too – “One can notice that the processor is not soldered to the motherboard, but via a socket. So, it will be potentially possible to change it in the future, if Apple does not prevent such modifications by some hardware or software trick.” [via] The site is down, but here are other places – Mirror 1, Mirror 2 and Mirror 3.
Tom made a pretty spiffy Ubuntu (Linux) home media center. He writes – “Like a lot of people nowadays, I have a growing collection of digital media. My digital media is stored on a home Linux server. Most of the digital media players available today do not support protocols to connect to a Linux server, which make them unsuitable for my use. I realized the best way to connect my digital media library with my home theatre was to build my own Linux home media center (LHMC)…” [via] Link.
