Category: DIY

These relatively straight-forward 10 steps show you how to install Photoshop on Ubuntu Linux, via the Wine Windows emulator. This looks so simple, even *I* might be able to do it.

[Via Lifehacker]

On the French site Hardmac, they discovered that the Sony-branded DVD/CD SuperDrive in the Mac Pro is not Sony at all, but rather, the NEC ND-4570 drive. A search on that drive showed that some of the specs for the ND-4570 were superior to those that Apple claims for the “Sony” SuperDrive (e.g. 32x CD-R on the Sony”drive vs. 48x on the NEC). The drive also supports DVD-RAM and DVD-R DL, two formats that aren’t even mentioned in the Apple/Sony stats. To unlock these features, you have to flash the firmware on the drive, which can brick it if you screw it up, but it looks fairly straight-forward, if you’re up to the risk.

[Via TUAW]

MAKE Blog has been posting lots of Halloween hacks, so we decided to get in on some of the fun. HackedGadgets has a nifty how-to video (via Big Scream TV) on how to turn a TV and a sheet of plexiglass into a hologram-like projector. Pretty decent bang for the buck (of course, that’s assuming you have a spare TV around to use).

Just in time for Halloween, it’s “Mad Scientist Lights,” and it’s a project on Instructables. I love this kind of tube lamp bulb.

But where’s the menacing finger of electricity arcing between two poles? Put one of *those* on the table behind the bowl of candy and watch the kiddies leave your Snickers and Milky Ways undisturbed.

You know you’re living in the 21st century when a device which allows you to automatically scan books into a computer can be made from a children’s toy building set. That’s what you get via this link — detailed instructions for building a fully automated book scanner out of LEGO pieces. The import of this is stunning.

[Via MAKE]

In the latest edition of Kevin Kelly’s always informative Cool Tools e-zine, he brings us news of a new Amazon offering:

“In addition to everything else Amazon sells, you can now secure small portions of materials and mechanical parts suitable for building and repair. Amazon has teamed up with the supplier Small Parts (reviewed in Cool Tools previously) to supply a huge variety of metal tubes, springs, raw materials (titanium, nylon, polycarbonate, glass, etc.), gears, plastic parts, fasteners and bins of other stuff that tinkerers and mid-night engineers might need. Of course you can order from Small Parts direct, but Amazon’s option takes advantage of their incredibly handy interface and billing system. Go to their “Industrial & Scientific” tab.”

We’re big fans of the Small Parts catalog here at Street Tech Labs (which Kevin turned us on to in the first place), so we’re psyched to see this new partnership (and a little nervous at the Amazonian ease of purchase that it represents).

Apple’s forthcoming iTV (or whatever they end up calling it) is certainly exciting, but it is going to cost you another US$300 on top of the living room media devices you already have. If you already have a networked TiVo, you can start serving Internet TV offerings from your PC to your TiVo/TV now, using an app such as TiVoServer. This Engadget tutorial shows how it’s done. Not for the newbie, but if you’ve done some TiVo hacks already, are comfortable with command-line set-ups and already have your TiVo on your LAN, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting this to work. Versions are available for Linux, Mac and Windows. What you’ll end up with is the ability to stream your DivX, AVI, QT and other popular vid formated files to any TiVo boxes on the net.

While we’re thrilled and all with the latest Apple releases of iTunes 7, that matchbook of an MP3 player, the second-gen Shuffle, and the forthcoming iTV (I can hear the commercial TV death knells now), we also like our fruity computing a little on the retro tip. So, we were tickled in rainbow colors to see this how-to on sharing your Internet connection between a Mac and a Newton Message Pad via a Bluetooth connection. Obviously you need to have a Newton Bluetooth solutiion (which the piece links to specifics on that).

We have a Newton that’s kicking around the Labs here. It seems to work on odd days, or otherwise has a mind of its own as to when it wants to power up. But maybe we’ll catch it on a good day and see if we can’t “Hello World” that puppy into cyberspace, just for kicks. Anybody got one of the compatible Bluetooth cards handy?

That crazy re-casing bugger Ben Heck has done it AGAIN. This time, he’s built a a water-cooled XBox 360 LAPTOP, with a 17″ screen and an aluminum case.

His site got so much traffic, it was immediately hosed, so here’s a mirror with the full project details.

[Via hack-a-day]

Here’s a simple DIY project to bodge up an AC iPod Shuffle charger by crossing an old cellphone charger with a USB extension cable.

As someone in the comments section pointed out, you can also go in the other direction: make a cellphone charger from a USB cable. Gopod bless all of those indispensable pin-out diagrams that are usually just a Google search away.