Open source media center for Windows…
Why buy a Media Center PC when you can make your own – fun project for an old PC “MediaPortal turns your PC in a very advanced Multi-Media Center / HTPC. It allows you to listen to your favorite music, radio, watch your video’s and DVD’s, view, schedule and record live TV and much more. You get Media Portal for free/nothing/nada/nopes and best of all it is opensource. This means anyone can help developing Media Portal or tweak it for their own needs! “ [via] Link.
This is from earlier this year, but I didn’t see how it was done – so here it is. Ever want to make your own TRON lightcycle game? But not a video game, real life! Here’s a page that details how a group of racers hacked up gear and software to make a real life TRON racing game. Ingredients: “gps-receiver, backpack with laptop(Tatonka Serverpack with Gateway Solo 2500), keyboard, trackball (from old broken laptop), helmet (giro switchblade) with display (old viewfinder)” 
Here’s a really good example of what you could do with an old Apple Mac G4 cube – build an aquarium inside of it! This project was inspired by 
Omegas writes in about the DIY Minimoog – “If you want to get started with analog synth building but Minimoog seems too complicated, see the instructions at 
This is an update to the underwater ROV submarine built a while back. It has an improved design, and is more versatile. Maker Jason writes “…the build process, and parts, I used to build an Underwater ROV with camera – This will be version 2 of my ROV adventures, I plan to take things I learned from version 1 and fix them, plus I will be adding features later. The plan is to make this a flexible platform that will allow me to add things like temp/pressure sensors, air lift balloons, torpedos, sonar, grabbing arm. But stage one is going to be working the bugs out the main platform.” [
Nonstopmac writes “This article will show you how to easily setup a free DNS service that will give your Mac computer a static hostname. There are a lot of possibilities you can use this for, as most of the Internet connections offer dynamic IP addresses. Having a dedicated hostname can make it easier to remotely connect to your computer and run any kind of server.” 
Could be a fun MAKE project…“Cuckoo IP is a voice messaging system. The clock’s answer phone can be dialled from mobile or landline. Leave a voice message, select a time for the delivery of it. At that time, the cuckoo will emerge from the clock and broadcast your message. The device uses networking protocols to communicate with a server. Every minute, the clock asks the server if there’s any message for that time-slot and request the sound file.” 
