Hacks

BATMAN: adhoc mesh routing

BATMAN (Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking) is a routing protocol designed for multi-hop ad-hoc mesh networks. When you run BATMAN on routers in an ad-hoc network, the nodes in the network constantly send out little broadcast packets that are picked up and re-broadcast by nearby machines. Rather than have each node develop a formal […]

iNoteBook: repurpose an old laptop

It seems like I end up updating my laptop every couple of years, but as cool as new hardware is, sometimes the challenge of finding a new use for the old machine is more interesting. The iNoteBook mod is a classic example, transforming a broken, screenless iBook into a stealth desktop machine. What’s your favorite […]

Safari single window mode

Dennis Stevense posted a great little Terminal hack which enables single window browsing for the latest version of Safari. If you’re running 3.1 you can type in the following command to make all “target=’_blank’” links open in a new tab instead of in a new window: defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true This is one […]

Run Safari in Ubuntu

The Ubuntu Unleashed blog has a simple guide for getting Safari to run in Ubuntu. You basically install the Windows version of Safari under WINE, copy over a few core Windows fonts to your WINE install and it just works. You can even install the flash plugin. I’m not positive that I wouldn’t feel a […]

Easter egg anemometer

Here’s something fun to do with the kids tomorrow after they’ve finished emptying those big plastic eggs of jelly beans and malted milk balls. The basic ingredients are plastic eggs, a small DC motor from an old CD player, and a cheapo multimeter. It’s a quick afternoon project, and you’ll be able to measure the […]

Easiest cross-browser CSS min-height

Enforcing a minimum height for block elements in HTML is one of those few CSS tricks that you can’t live without. There are still enough folks using IE6, unfortunately, and it doesn’t support the min-height or min-width CSS parameters. This has caused the invention of a number of different hacks and browser-conditional style sheets to […]

Visualization API for Google Docs

This looks really useful. Google recently released an API for using Gadgets and visualizations inside of (or pulling from) the Google Docs spreadsheet system. Developers can create useful visualization models, like Gantt charts or geographic heat maps, and Docs users can use these tools inside their own documents. The Gadgets in Docs framework also allows […]