Ultimate Mac shrine

Now *this* is a Mac collection, check out the homemade Mac bar! - Link.

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Find open source alternatives to commercial software

I like the way osalt lists open source alternatives along with their commercial counterpart, very handy….
Find open source software alternatives to well-known commercial software:

Find alternatives for Visio -> Dia, OpenOffice Draw or Kivio
Or for iTunes -> Amarok or Banshee
Check-out Microsoft Access, Photoshop or Norton Ghost on you own.

Our mission is to provide easy access to high quality open source alternatives to well-known commercial products. And remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative.
Find open source alternatives to commercial software @ OSalt - [via] - Link.

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DIY supine computer desk/system

Ray made a homemade, low-tech version of the supine computer desk/system (The Ergopod 500) - Thanks Joe! Link.
Related:

Office Organix, Ergopod 500 - Link.

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About OHM and his LAW

Richjd posted up a PC application called R.EXE to help you learn about Ohm’s law…
“OHM’s LAW - What it is. How it works.
A personal LEARNING AID for the interested and patient learner. Just read the following pages with care or call them up using the HELP function under program execution.
A) Learn the color code for resistors through practice.
B) Learn to calculate rsistance for SERIES, PARALLEL, SERIES-PARALLEL circuits. Circuits are auto-generated and displayed. Answers are verified and a score card is kept. Chose a level of difficulty: (E)asy, (D)ifficult, (E)xpert. A calculator and notepad is needed for the more advanced levels. Just a notepad will do for the (E)asy level.
IMPORTANT: Answering questions on impulse will lead to failure and frustration. READ the instructions that preceed the cursor with care and respond in kind before going on (pressing ENTER).
REMEMBER: GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out” - Link.

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HOW TO - Ardunio, Bluetooth, PD, and Windows scripting button box

Danomatika writes -
“I made a small project that combines Arduino, bluetooth, pd, and windows scripting in python. Basically, an arduino wir;less play button provides transport control over FLStudio or any other windows app. Thought this might be useful to other makers!” - Link.

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Nixie Clock - Big Blue Saw

Computer controlled rapid manufacturing meets Nixie, Big Blue Saw writes -
“This gorgeous image was sent in by one of our customers, who used parts from Big Blue Saw to make a Nixie clock. This digital clock uses Nixie tubes, neon tubes which display the time. The creator, Joe Hoffman, tells us that the Nixie tubes are of Soviet manufacture from around the 1960’s. The center piece is acrylic.
Here are the original parts which Big Blue Saw made for Joe, laid out for incorporation into the clock. “ - Link.
Related:

Big Blue Saw - Link.

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HOW TO - Make your own laptop

Here’s how to make your own laptop, Torquil writes -
“I decided to create a laptop that at any point, I could upgrade every component as they grew too old. For very little money, I have created a 2GHz processor laptop with 1GB Ram, and an ATI Radeon 9200 128MB graphics card. OK, so it is a PCI graphics card and could be faster, but everything is upgradable - I could slot in a motherboard with PCI Express in the future.
The size of this could have been a lot smaller. With a Nano-ITX mainboard and no external graphics card it could almost be as small as a regular laptop, but that was not my plan. It needed to be as powerful as a regular desktop or I could not use it every day for office applications and games.” [via] - Link.
On a related note, here’s a review @ Slashdot of […]

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Open source USB lab instruments (almost)

Syscomp Electronic Design have some great USB lab instruments: Oscilloscope, waveform generator, network analyzers and microcomputer kits. The software is open source for Mac, PC and Linux… but the hardware isn’t. I’m going to see if they’d consider changing that and also doing kits…
“You know how useful it is to have your own computer, think what you could do with your own electronics lab.

Complete lab exercises outside of scheduled lab hours
Learn at your own speed
Explore new circuits
Equip a hobby workshop

System Features

Virtual Front Panels: all controls are operated from the computer host
Open source software runs under Windows and Linux
Computer-Based for storage, processing, and printing of results
Exchange data with other programs such as spreadsheets and mathematical analysis suites
Modular design accommodates any combination of instruments and makes the system expandable with new instruments
Connects easily to any computer via a USB port

Use the instruments separately or combine multiple instruments to create new measurement capabilities […]

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HOW TO - Make a Google Earth panorama viewer

Here’s how to make a really cool Google Earth panorama viewer -
“DigitalUrban is pleased to release its Panorama Viewer for Google Earth. The viewer has been created to be as easy to use as possible, all that is needed is a panorama - either from your local drive or via the web at sites such as Flickr - and a single change to the file name in Notepad.
We provide a step-by-step tutorial to create your first Google Earth panorama after the concept movie below which illustrates a series of London panoramas viewable in Google Earth.” [via] - Link.

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Google calculator for makers…

Bob sent in these great Google calc tips for makers–
One of the most useful tools I’ve found for Makers is Google’s built in calculator. It knows about all kinds of units and is as simple as typing in plain English.
For example…
Say I have an LED that I want to run from a 12v DC power supply. I already know that the LED requires a forward voltage of 2v and and a forward current of 20 milliamps. What I want to know is how big does my current limiting resistor need to be?
I know I need to drop the voltage by 10 volts, and my draw will be 20 milliamps so I go to the google search page and type “10 volts / 20 milliamps” in the search box hit enter and out pops my answer… “(10 volts) / (20 milliamperes) = 500 ohms”. Woohoo! Now, […]

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Stream music to an Airport Express without iTunes!

You don’t need to use iTunes to stream audio to an Aiport express. You can use the Win media player, WinAmp, Rhapsody, etc…
“oAEP - Stands for ovesen.NET Airport Express Player. This small application records the music and sound played by your pc and streams it to an Airtunes enabled Airport Express. It has never been this easy streaming music and sound to your Airport Express without using ITunes.
Yes, you red correctly. You can use Media Player, WinAmp or another music player with your Airport Express.” - Link.
Source included. Neat, this means you can also stream formats iTunes doesn’t like Ogg Vorbis (well, with a plug in you can).
Related:

JustePort - Link.

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The complete guide to PDFs in iTunes

There are a small but growing number of PDFs appearing in iTunes, users can subscribe to podcasts to automatically receive audio and video - and recently - PDFs. At MAKE & CRAFT we have experimented with this from the start - we have also cataloged all the podcasts that send out PDFs we could find here. Eventually I think phones (including the iPhone) will be able to read PDFs via this method, perhaps a future iPod making it possible to easily distribute ebooks to these devices. For now, you can use a Mac, PC or even a Sony reader to sync to iTunes (using a hack) and read PDFs directly. Any RSS reader that supports enclosures should download the PDFs as well, the RSS 2.0 feed is listed with each podcast. Last up, Amazon is said to be working on a wireless ebook reader, using e-ink like the Sony reader, […]

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Make: projects- Building the Perfect PC (review)

yyztech.ca reviewed our Make: projects book “Building the Perfect PC”
“As the tag-line on the cover says, “The perfect PC is the one you build yourself.” and so this book aims to show the reader how building your own PC is the best way to get the PC you want. Since there are different “perfect” PCs for different tasks, the book shows the different trade-offs made while building everything from a budget PC to a server and a mini-PC.
At 400-odd pages, there is a lot of information contained in this book. The PCs you’ll learn to build include: a basic home PC, home-office server, gaming PC, media centre PC, small form-factor and a budget PC.” - Link (full review).
Related:

Building The Perfect PC 2nd Edition - Link.

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HOW TO - Flash MIDI

Fred sent in a great Flash (Macromedia/Adobe that is) to MIDI control project –
“From 1734 when Louis-Bertrand Castel, a Jesuit monk, created the Clavecin Oculaire, a ‘color harpsichord,’ until today, artists have created instruments for performing color compositions. In the late 19th century, Alexander Rimington created the first ‘color organ’ for use in public performance. In the 1920s and 30s, Thomas Wilfred traveled the United States and Europe performing ‘lumia’ recitals with his ‘clavilux.’ In this tradition, I developed a computer system that allowed for the performance of user-controlled Flash animation.
The user interface is a Mad Catz Playstation 2 game controller and the UC-33e Evolution MIDI controller by m-Audio. The computer is an Apple iMac G5 with 1.8 GHz processor and 1.5 GB of RAM. The MIDI and game controller signal data is sent to Flash (.swf) files being played through the stand-alone Flash Player, utilizing ActionScript 2.0 code in […]

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