Magazine’s aim: Demystify how-to in today’s world
Front page! You’ve driven 50 miles into the deep woods, and snowy weather is expected within 10 hours. Your cell phone is out of range and out of juice. And “someone” left the parking lights on, so the car battery is dead, too. If you were MacGyver, or a Make magazine subscriber, you might think to crush a few aspirin from the first aid kit into the battery, add some water, wait awhile, maybe pray, then crank the engine and hope it works. Link.
Good beginner guide to running, installing and using a USB drive for just about anything you might need on the go. Encryption, Firefox browser, word processing, arcade games and yes even an operating system can be run off your USB hard drive… if you know how!
Stunning jewelry for guys and gals, made from all sorts of electronics parts. Cascading Diode Necklace and Earrings #NCD001, #ECD001
Created from 57 1-amp diodes intricately woven together, this elegant necklace with matching earrings is the perfect adornment for formal events. [
Another POV project- this one is neat clock. A motor spins the “propeller”, and a small microprocessor keeps track of time and changes the pattern on seven LEDs with exact timing to simulate a 7 by 30 array of LEDs. It is an illusion, but it works nicely.
An old how-to, but still useful- Laptops are different from desktops/towers. They use certain hardware such as PCMCIA cards, infrared ports, batteries, docking stations. Often their hardware is more limited (e.g. disk space, CPU speed), though the performance gap is becoming smaller. In many instances, laptops can become a desktop replacement. Hardware support for Linux (and other operating systems) on laptops is sometimes more limited (e.g. graphic chips, internal modems). Laptops often use specialized hardware, hence finding a driver can be more difficult.
If you think engraving is just for having your name etched on a trophy, think again: most materials can be engraved and it can produce some great modding results. With a little practise, anyone with the time and inclination can add an Engraving badge to their modding armoury. Sit back and relax as engraving extraordinaire Micke Gustafsson shows you how…
“From Waste to Wonderful!” Unique in house product used to recycle kitchen waste into an organic compost soil conditioner. This system ferments and pickles food waste in less than half the time of conventional composting methods w/o odors. “Bokashi” is a Japanese word meaning “fermented organic matter”. It is a system of odorless composting, where carefully selected, “effective” microbes or “EM” are used to decompose organic kitchen waste. [