Jay writes -
Here’s a step by step tutorial on how to “refill” laptop batteries by replacing the Li-Ion cells. By purchasing higher capacity cells than your laptop uses normally, you can super-charge your battery life!
Jay’s Technical Talk » Refilling laptop batteries! - Link.
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Samantha writes -
I turned the shell of my dead iMac into a bedside lamp with an LED light from IKEA. Mmm, limelight!
Diary of a Necromancer - Little Miss Cleverpants - Link.
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David sent in how to convert an old PC Keyboard into a custom function key box
uC Hobby » Blog Archive » Custom Function Key Box - Link.
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Jake sent in this an already venerable IBM Model M retro-fitted with glass and nickel keys and mounted in a polished brass frame… Steampunk Keyboard Mod - Link.
Friggin gorgeous.
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The keyboard robot can use the keyboard of another computer -
A keyboard robot is a device that allows one computer to operate the keyboard of another computer. It also allows a computer to control its own keyboard. It can even be used to control a network of computers if a multiplexer is added.
The Keybot can do many things that cannot be done any other way. It can do something as simple as set the CMOS settings during a power up of a computer. It can do something as complex as linking many computers & programs together for artificial intelligence. It does not require knowledge of those computers nor the program languages used.
This report includes all the information needed to build your own Keybot. It also includes control software written in QBASIC. The Keybot project is inexpensive to build but it requires you to have some electronic knowledge and soldering ability. […]
Ilya points to a really cool (and free) commercial detector -
Comskip is a free mpeg commercial detector. It is a windows console application that reads a mpeg file and analyses the content based on a large amount of configurable parameters. After analysis it generates a file in various possible formats containing the location of the commercials inside the mpeg file. The formats include input files for interactive video editors (VideoRedo, Cuttermaran, Mpeg2Schnitt…) command line video cutters (mpgtx, cuttermaran, mencoder) and video players (zoomplayer, mplayer, …). Comskip can read MPEG PS files upto HD resolution (max 2000×1200) at 25fps (PAL) and 29.97fps (NTSC).
Comskip - [via] Link.
But wait, there’s more!
Related:
2004 paper on “Automatic Detection of TV commercials” - Link.
DVRMS Toolbox - Link.
ShowAnalyzer - Link.
Read Ilya’s post - lots of interesting ideas about TVs with built in ad blockers, just like Firefox.
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Check out the pages and pages of detailed photos on making this DIGG monster…
Project: Digg (custom case) - [H]ard|Forum - [via] Link & project site.
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Check it out, Brian shows you how to infect your own computer to test virus software - nice screencast!
Last week, Hackszine fielded a reader request to come up with a way to infect a computer without letting too much heck break loose. This procedure was so much fun that we decided to use it for our first Hackszine screencast. Check it out for a little surprise near the end: I managed to sneak the test malware past the virus protection, but it kicked in as soon as I tried to actually run it.
Related/Featured:
Reader Request: Make Sure Your Anti Virus is Working — Link
Cygwin — Link
Avast! — Link
EICAR test file — Link
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Jonah Brucker-Cohen is one of my favorite artists, his latest - a tactical toolkit to liberate pay-per use wireless networks -
Wifi Liberator is an open-source toolkit for a laptop computer that enables its user to “liberate” pay-per-use wireless networks and create a free, open node that anyone can connect to for Internet access. The project is presented as a challenge to existing corporate or “locked” private wireless nodes to encourage the proliferation of free networks and connectivity across the planet. The project was inspired by the ongoing “battle” between providers broadcasting wireless signals in public spaces, in particular: corporate entities, wireless community groups, individual users, and proponents of open networks. Like my Wifi-Hog project, the Wifi-Liberator critically examines the tensions between providers trying to profit from the increasingly minimal costs associated with setting up a public network and casual users who simply want to see the Internet transform into another […]
In our first printing of Make: Projects-Building the Perfect PC, 2nd Edition, some of the photos didn’t come out as well as they should have. I’ve posted a Flickr Set with some of the figures that looked most murky to me.
If you have any requests for a specific photo, please add a comment to the photo set and we’ll get the photo up there. And it doesn’t have to be a murky picture; if you just want to see it in more detail, let us know!
Related:
Building The Perfect PC 2nd Edition - Link.
Flickr Hacks Figures … In Color! - Link.
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I like how Extremetech doesn’t just review new motherboards, they rate them on how well they can be overclocked…
“When it comes to selecting a motherboard, you’ve got a bunch of factors to consider: Form factor, features, stability, performance, and price are a few that jump to mind. Some of us, however, look at one more little checkmark on the outside of the box: overclocking prowess.
Faced with five motherboards to review, including Nvidia 680i- and Intel 975-based boards, we decided to take a slightly different approach, to veer off from our normal modus operandi. While we still performance test all of the boards (except one, because it arrived dead), we look at how well they overclock a CPU. Not just any CPU, mind you; we chose one that presents a true challenge. “ - Link.
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Interesting, so PDF is going to be an open ISO standard…. The Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.7 specification for AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management Association, for the purpose of publication by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) - there of course a lot of efforts going on with (open document format) too. MAKE sends out our PDFs over iTunes/RSS 2.0 so I feel a little bit better now that it’s going to open, we can’t send out Open Office docs in the same way (yet) - but this pretty good. Adobe’s announcement seems to be timed as Vista launches today (with included PDF-like XPS document Writer) - Link.
Here’s a video of our 3D PDF of how-to build a spun gun!
Related:
What is a 3D PDF? MAKE shows you! 3D PDF of Spud Gun - Link.
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Here’s a great list of Flickr hacks from Thomas Hawk, he writes -
“One of the nice things about Flickr is that because of their open API a whole host of developers have built more and more interesting things to do with the site. It’s interesting to me today that so many of the ways that I use Flickr are not even through the site as designed by Yahoo, but instead through the work of outside developers who are constantly creating new and interesting ways to experience the site. Today I thought I’d share what I think are the top 10 Hacks on Flickr.” - Link.
I think my favorite is Flickr Leech, super easy to manage a ton of photos at once - Link.
Not on the list, but very useful - “Pool Cleaner” quick and easy way to delete photos if you manage a photo pool - Link.
Related:
HOW TO - “Photocasting” […]
A follow up from our how-to use a multimeter video… Here’s a resister calc dashboard widget for Mac OS X -
“Resistulator - A resistor calculator. It calculates the value of a resistor from the sequence of colored bands painted on the resistor. It also displays the corresponding color sequence when a resistor value is entered.” [via] - Thanks Mikest! Link.
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