Computers & Mobile

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for digital gadgetry, open code, smart hacks, and more. Processing power to the people!

Apple Granted Patent for Tablet Mac

Apple Granted Patent for Tablet Mac

Figure7 Th Wow, a Tablet Mac might be hitting the scene soon! Awhile back there were stories (2004) about a tablet Mac and today Mac Observer reports “Apple Computer was granted a patent for an enigmatically titled “Electronic device” Tuesday, May 10th, 2005. Illustrations for the device clearly indicate it to be a tablet-style Macintosh, and patent filings specifically compare it to the “HP Compaq Tablet PC” and several other tablet machines“. Of course if you’re jonesing for one now, you can always make your own.

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How to Geotag

How to Geotag

geo.jpgHere’s a great step-by-step on using Firefox, Greasemonkey and Flickr to GeoTag your photos to use with GeoBloggers.com. Once you get the script installed, you browse to your Flickr image, add a new “geotag” and enter in a zip code. You’ll then use Google maps to locate a position and it saves the location data to the photo. Once that’s complete you can submit the image to Geobloggers. Link.

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Electrist – Palm Software for EE

Electrist – Palm Software for EE

electrist.gif
Electrist, from Red Binary Development (aka Patrick Griffin), is a $20 PalmOS app that helps anyone who’s building or modifying electronics. It plugs values into all the commonly-used formulas, as well as many obscure ones, and even shows resistor color codes. See a glowing review on page seven of the May issue of ESSN (Energy Self Sufficiency Newsletter). Link.

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Tales of Rescuing Old Hardware

Tales of Rescuing Old Hardware

tosh.jpgOn the BSD DevCenter Mikhail Zakharov has an article about installing NetBSD on an old Toshiba T2130CS- Intel 486DX4 75MHz notebook. The challenge was, with a lot of old hardware many of us have, is to install without the benefit of using a CD-ROM drive. With only the floppy drive and the LPT/COM ports, it’s usually tough to get anything on old machines. Link.

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Control the Parallel (or Serial) Port with Python

Control the Parallel (or Serial) Port with Python

par.jpgSean writes “Here’s a follow-up to your recent perlParallel post. It’s a python module for controlling the parallel port. This module encapsulates the access for the parallel port. It provides backends for Python running on Windows and Linux. They also have a serial port controller here. Link.

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Controlling a Parallel Port with Perl

Controlling a Parallel Port with Perl

port.jpgI was looking for something else, but then found this and figured it might come in handy for something- here’s how to control the parallel port with Perl using a module called Device:ParallelPort. Device::ParallelPort is a Perl API that allows low level access to the parallel port of most computers. It does this by using a number of drivers, which can be customized and added to, including Linux (direct and parport), Win32, Script, Dummy, and more. It also contains a number of direct access devices including an example printer and a relay controller card. Link.

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How to Make a Suit Case PC

How to Make a Suit Case PC

suitcase.jpgClever! I wonder if this would allowed on a plane. This is a tale of my new daily-use computer. It’s a full-function pc, running Windows XP Pro, with an amd athlon xp 3200+ cpu, 768 mb of ram, 3 monitor ports, plenty of usb ports, and a built in 10/100 switch. And it’s a suitcase. It has a handle. It has two latches. I take it to work with me every day, and take it home every night. All it doesn’t have is a CD Drive. Here is its story. Thanks Chris! Link.

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