Category: DIY

O’Reilly has launched a new blog, called Hackszine, to coincide, and obviously to datamine, their growing line of Hacks books. Looking forward to visiting this site on a regular basis to find things like:

If you’re a fan of domain hacks like del.icio.us or blo.gs, you might be interested to know that getting a personalized domain of your own may well be within easy reach. Domain Hacks is a search utility that will help you find the combination of domain name and top-level domain that works for you.

And this one, thank Gopod!

Already tired of the relatively new Snap “feature” that pops up an annoying little preview balloon over every hyperlink on certain web sites? Well, it turns out it’s pretty easy to get rid of them, everywhere. Just click here to disable the feature using cookie technology (or, go to the Snap page that discusses deactivation and click the link from there).

Here’s a simple and cheap hardware hacks project to build an AC/DC adapter for a 2nd gen iPod Shuffle. Don’t worry, you’re not building the power adapter itself, just the adapter to the adapter, the parts that make an existing AC/DC adapter mate with a Shuffle.

[Via hackAday]

I changed my mind (hey, it’s a geek’s prerogative). I looked at the Thumbnail Guide to Digital Multimeters in my Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Building Robots and realized that it perfectly dovetails MAKE’s recent DMM how-to video and PDF because it focuses on what to look for when buying a multimeter. So if, after looking at the MAKE podcast, you’re anxious to add one of these essential electronics tools to your kit, here are the sorts of features you want to look for. So, here’s my Thumbnail Guide to Digital Multimeters.

We’re currently working on the next Street Tech Thumbnail Guide, on using a Breadboard. Our next one after that was going to be on Using a Digital Multimeter (DMM), but those loveable wingnuts over at MAKE beat us to it! So, while we put the finishing touches on the Breadboard guide, check out MAKE’s very nice video and PDF on using a DMM. We might still do ours, but maybe focus on buying the right meter for you, or something else that will complement MAKE’s materials.

O’Reilly’s CRAFT magazine, Vol. 2, is now on newsstands. I haven’t gotten my copy yet, but I was really impressed by the way the proofs looked on my pieces. Can’t wait to see the finished product. I have three articles in this issue: A piece on crafting clubs, The Church of Craft and Craft Mafia, one on scrapbooking your Moleskine (wait, that sounds dirty), and one on making “rubber” stamps out of art gum erasers.

Some of the other articles look juicy. I can’t wait to see the piece on making this awesome looking storage cabinet out of old PCBs.

Evil Mad Scientist Labs has come up with a cool way of playing clever word games on T-shirts and zipper sweatshirts using iron-on letters.

I don’t know how comfortable this particular ring would be, but I really like the idea of making rings, and other jewelry, out of electronic components.

[Via Make]

Instructables has a nice little tutorial on what you need to know to re-purpose AC/DC power adapters (a.k.a. “wall warts”) to use on other devices or on a DIY project.

One thing not mentioned here that I always recommend, especially for those who aren’t electronics savvy, is to label your wall warts as soon as you get your devices. Many warts are not labeled with the brand or name of the device they came with (and you can easily get your warts mixed up). Of course, if you read and understand this short guide, you’ll be able to match wart to device by the information printed on them (at least most devices have their power requirements marked on then).

It’s so fascinating how cultural vectors work, how things seem to happen in clusters, how ideas tend to emerge from indie sources simultaneous. Last year, I was looking at my ridiculous glut of charging bases, dongles, cables, and the like. I started thinking about ways to minimize, standardize, organize. Then I saw an item in a DIY magazine about making a cabinet to hide all of this mess, then a commercial carrying case/power bar to do the same, at home and in the car. Now I’m seeing solutions everywhere. This latest one is simple and easy to make.

[Via Make]

Our new cyberpal Jake von Slatt (whom I profile in an upcoming MAKE) has moved from Electrolytic Etching, which we covered a while back, to Electrolytic Machining (i.e. instead of just etching images onto the surface, etching all the way through the brass). He’s put up a two-part tutorial detailing the process, first trying his hand at a three-layer “clockwork trilobite” (which turned out looking a little like the Antikythera Mechanism), then trying to make individual parts using a thinner brass stock.

Herr von Slatt is also responsible for sending Boing Boing the link to the Flickr set for jonny5rd’s awesome retro-chic Persistence of Vision (POV) viewer, built from a US$5 POV toy, an X-Acto knife case, and a few other misc parts. Very cool.