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December 21, 2007

Essential hacker stocking stuffers

Like most of us, you've probably got some last-minute shopping to take care of. Or maybe there's a special someone in your life who keeps asking you for gift ideas and you need to start dropping hints to avoid another button down and a neck tie. Whatever the reason, here's a quick and dirty hacker gift guide with a variety of gift ideas that should put a smile on someone's face.

Make sure to add your own favorites to the list in the comments area and pass it along. I'm focusing primarily on smaller items that are available in local stores, but feel free to toss in whatever you think is important and shouldn't be missed.

Reading Material:

Make: The Best Of - a killer collection of the best 75 projects from our favorite magazine.
The Dangerous Book For Boys - this is a great book for sharing with your kids. Chock-full of essential information like how to tie knots, play poker, use a compass, build a tree house, and relate to girls.
Knoppix Hacks, 2nd Edition - the swiss army knife for your computer.
Illustrated Guide To Astronomical Wonders - ideal for anyone who's interested in knowing their way around the universe.
Also check out other books from the O'Reilly Hacks Series - Link

Gadgets:

Asus Eee PC - this ultra-tiny Linux laptop is just starting to appear in stores - Hacks
Linksys WRT54GL Router - the L in the GL stands for Linux. It's a $60 router that can be customized to do more than it's thousand dollar big-brothers - Hacks
Western Digital MyBook World Edition External Hard Drive - any extra storage is really nice to have, but this network-available drive contains mirrored RAID storage and a mini Linux computer that can run a web and database server - Hacks
iPhone or iPod Touch - did I really put that here? - Hacks
Broadband Mobile Card from Verizon or Sprint - they are getting super
popular, and heck, they are cheaper than an iPhone.
Nokia N95-3 - the winner of our most hackable mobile phone survey - Hacks

Toys:

Air Hogs Havoc Heli Laser Battle - remember the Picco-Zs and their clones from last year? Here's two of them in a single package, enhanced with a trigger that let's you zap your friend's heli down.
E-Sky Lama V4 Helicopter- Yeah, I'm crazy for helicopters right now. The counter-rotating models like this one are about $100, ready (and easy) to fly, and very hackable.
WowWee RoboSapien V2 - fun for the kids. More fun with a soldering iron - Hacks

Gear:

2GB or larger micro SD card, plus various SD and USB adapters - perfect for scooting files around, the size of a finger nail, and you can put a full Linux distro, anti virus software, or a Puppy Linux virtual machine on it - Hacks
Mini Multimeter - always handy.
Bike Multitool - a good one will pack allen and hex wrenches, screw drivers, and a knife into a pretty small package. Perfect for voiding warrantees in a pinch. Oh, and there's a chain tool, too - Link, Link
Soldering Tools - whether it's a new Weller or just a pair of helping hands, it'll be welcome in any stocking - Link, Link

What have we missed here? Add your wishes to the comments. Then find a completely non-tacky way to get this list into the hands of someone who wants you to be a happy hacker.

November 30, 2007

Aleutia E1: 8-watt Linux box

After so many years of successively bigger, faster, hotter, less reliable, power hungry computer hardware, I'm really tickled to see that a lot of manufacturers are testing the waters with something altogether different. There's the OLPC, the Asus EeePC, and now the Aleutia E1, a little mini desktop that sips 8 watts and is packaged with a flexible solar panel.

200Mhz might hurt a bit for crunching a kernel, but with a lightweight linux distro and window manager, you can still have a really responsive interface for general PC use. The big deal is that it has no moving parts, including a CF card for a hard drive and zero fans due to its low power consumption.

It might be a fun exercise to use these recent devices as a reference model and attempt to source the cheapest configuration for a DIY low-power, small footprint, zero noise, solid storage system. If you add a mirrored raid configuration, you'd have the ideal desktop system for the majority of PC users.

Tiny Linux PC uses just 8 watts of power, can be solar powered - Link

November 25, 2007

Recovering a dead external hard drive

What do you do when good hard drives go bad? Tell me if this sounds familiar. You spend a year or two filling up an enormous external hard drive, and just as you start thinking it might be a good idea to buy another enormous drive to back up your data, you boot your computer and hear a heart-stopping sound from your disk: thuck... thuck... thuck... thuck... @#$%!!!!

I had a huge amount of data go dark on me two weeks ago. I suppose I reached the end of the grieving process this weekend, because my mind started to clear up and it occurred to me that maybe all was not lost. After all, there are a lot of electronics in those external hard drives, separate from the drive itself. Inside your typical external hard drive is just a normal 3.5 inch internal hard drive plus the electronics necessary to power everything, control the drive, and provide USB or Firewire connectivity to the host computer.

So, voiding the warrantee, I pulled the enclosure apart and replaced the suspect drive with a working EIDE drive I had lying about. Sure enough, when I turned things on, the drive I knew to be good started clacking away. At this point, I was pretty sure my data was still safe and sound, but being that I didn't have a machine handy that could mount an XFS formatted disk, I couldn't verify things for sure until I could get the disk connected back to my iMac.

Most computer stores sell really cheap (approx. $30) hard disk enclosures which you can just slap an EIDE disk into to create an external Firewire or USB drive. I ran to my local store, picked one up, and I'm happy to say that I just recovered 320GB of data that I had just about given up on.

If you own an external drive that's failed on you, make sure to test the drive and enclosure before you throw it out. It's quite possible that your data is still intact and you can save yourself a couple hundred bucks and a lot of trauma by just replacing the enclosure.

At the very least, you might have a bad disk but a working enclosure that you can use to make a new external disk.

On a side note, until today I only owned a single external drive. Being that there's only one data point, I can't say a whole lot for sure, but I keep thinking that I'm just a random person with a 100% enclosure failure rate. Until I hear otherwise, I remain suspicious that this might be a fairly common failure point.

November 16, 2007

HOWTO - Fix a "Red Ring of Death" Xbox 360

The photo above is taken from a Wikipedia entry titled Xbox 360 Technical Problems, which describes a hardware failure issue that is not uncommon for Xbox 360 owners. The general problem is that the array of solder joints that attach the GPU and CPU to the motherboard can break overtime due to heat expansion during normal use. This is actually quite similar to an issue with many early model iBooks, and the fix is similar: you find a clever way to re-fuse the electronics back onto the motherboard.

Brian Whitfield wrote in about his own experience:

So ... all the Xbox 360 owners out there have one thing in common. We all dread to wake up and turn on our 360 only to find the 3 "Red Lights of Death" (RoL). That happened to me the other day, and I started to panic. Christmas time is soon, and I have absolutely no money to spend to fix up my 360. So I started looking for tutorials on how to fix this problem (as my Microsoft is off warrenty since I bought it off eBay).
I came across this lots of these "Towel Trick" tutorials. So I watched a couple videos on YouTube and read a bunch of blogs (I never knew so many people had soo much time on their hands), in any case, I figured I'd give it a shot. Now for those who don't know, the "Towel Trick" (TT) is where you turn on your Xbox 360 and then wrap it in a towel and leave it on for a certain amount of time (most tutorials say 10 mins, but I only left mine on for like a minute to a minute and a half). I turned off my Xbox and then unwrapped the towel and turned it on, and it worked. I played for a good 3 hours and no problems.

Today, I went to use my Xbox 360 and yet again, I received the 3 RoLs. So I did the same thing, and it worked again. Now most people will say this is stupid and overheating something only causes more damage to it. Well it might, but if the Xbox works, you can save yourself $140 (which is what is cost to send and have Microsoft repair it without warrenty). I can't believe something this simple worked. I was reading online somewhere (not saying this is entirely true, but hey, worth mentioning) that the reason for the 3 RoLs, is because of the solder between the GPU and the board. Supposedly, if you heat up the 360 enough, the solders melt a bit back into position. Again, not saying that is true, but good enough reason for me.

As long as my Xbox 360 works, I will probably continue to use the "TT", cause let's face it, everyone would rather have a more damaged Xbox 360 that works, then a minor damaged one that doesn't.

If the towel trick works for you, awesome. For most people, though, it sounds like it's a very temporary fix. To get the job done right, you need to liquify those solder joints and allow them to make a more solid connection.

In the case of the similar iBook issue, Mark Hoekstra from GeekTechnique was using a can of sterno atop the GPU to heat things up. That route, while demanding some sincere applause, freaks me out too much.

YouTube user twitch88 has a video showing how to use a heat gun to get the same effect. It requires a little extra equipment, but the process is a bit more controllable that an open flame. To each his own, though (and send me a pic if you are brave enough to try the sterno trick and it works).

References:
Towel Trick Info @Engadget - Link
Fix the Xbox 360 With a Heat Gun (video) - Link
Xbox 360 Technical Problems - Link
Fix an old iBook's video problems... with fire! - Link

November 5, 2007

Give one (XO laptop), get one, and get free T-Mobile access for a year

T-Mobile just announced that when you participate in the "Give One, Get One" program (donate an XO laptop to a child in a developing country for $400, get one of your own), you'll get a year of free Wi-Fi at T-Mobile hotspots:

The Give One Get One philanthropic campaign puts laptops into the hands of children in the developing world. For a limited time - from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26, 2007 - people can donate $399 for two laptops. One laptop will be given to a child in the developing world. The other laptop will be sent to the donor along with information on how to activate the one year of complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot service.

We're hoping to see a lot of cool and fun hacks come out for this uber-gadget when lots of hackers and kids get their hands on them - Link [via]

October 4, 2007

Make a power outage sensor and reboot devices remotely

Dingolishious tipped us off to a cheap way to receive power outage notifications, as well as remotely power-cycle electronics.

Our remote wireless site keep being unplugged or having the circuit trip from some combination of cleaning devices. I took a spare UPS and asked if we could get a $200 SNMP card for it so we would know when the power was off. Boss asked me if we could do it for less.
My solution: $70 IP Power 9200 delux. The IP Delux has 4 voltage input sensors, 4 current sensors and 8 web controlled switches. There is a 5v wall wart plugged into the switched part of the UPS running to a input. When the power goes out the ups kicks in running the POE and the wall wart turns off pin 1 on the IP Delux which sends me an email.

The added bonus is that the POE is now switched so if a AP on one wireless segment locks up I can go in one of the others and power cycle the POE remotely. IP Delux even hosts WAP so I could do it from the cheapest of cell phone web browsers.

I like the idea, and it's a cheap way to monitor power status with a bottom-end UPS. Take a normal "wall wart" 5vDC adapter, plug it into an outlet, and the 5 volt output raises and lowers the input logic pin on the IP Power or your own homebrew monitoring electronics - Link.

August 13, 2007

HOWTO: Power Over Ethernet on a Linksys WRT54GL router

With a little quick soldering, you can convert your Linksys router to receive it's DC power through the ethernet uplink instead of through a separate power cable. This is incredibly useful if you want to place your router above the ceiling or in a location that is inconvenient to get power to.

After the conversion, the 12v DC from the power adapter is sent along the unused blue and brown ethernet pairs. You'll be able to place your router over 500ft from the switch without the voltage dropping below the 5.5v that the router needs to operate.

HOWTO: WRT54GL DIY Internal POE! (Google cache) - Link

August 11, 2007

Tiny hackable computers

I've been a big fan of the Mini-ITX systems, using them in the past as silent, dual-purpose, storage and wireless router servers as well as a set-top media system for playing back transcoded DVDs. So I'm pretty excited to see the positive reviews that are starting to pop up for VIA's new Pico-ITX motherboard, which seems to offer just about everything you need (assuming you aren't a graphics junkie) in a 10cm by 7.2cm package that draws less than 16 Watts. General purpose, super small, low power, and it will run a standard OS. I can't wait to see what people will be doing with these things.

What's your favorite small form factor PC hardware? Got a favorite micro hack? Please share it in the comments.

First Look: VIA PX10000 Pico-ITX Motherboard @ geek.com - Link
VIA EPIA PX 10000 Pico-ITX Review @ mini-itx.com - Link
Gameboy PC (pictured above, translated) - Link

July 31, 2007

Make your own multitouch displays and software apps

Multitouch display technology has been gaining a lot of visibility recently, both with Microsoft's Surface interactive tabletop displays and the iPhone's slick gesture-based interface. Ignoring some of the particulars, the guts behind this technology is relatively simple, and you can make you own multitouch interactive display for little over the cost of a projector (the most expensive part of this setup).

An acrylic panel is edge lit with infrared leds. When your finger comes in contact with the acrylic, it scatters infrared light out the back where it is visible via infrared camera. As long as nothing is touching the acrylic, very little of the light escapes, instead just reflecting around inside. Image processing takes care of detecting tips of fingers and relaying their location to application software. Since the camera "reads" the whole display in parallel, it is easy to detect multiple fingertips at once, even those belonging to multiple users. All this sensing goes on in the infrared spectrum, leaving us free to utilize the visible spectrum to display interactive software.

So, a sheet of acrylic, some LEDs, a projector and a webcam and you're in business. Below is an example of this setup in action:

As you might imagine, there's a lot of software that translates the infrared fingerpresses that the webcam sees into a usable operating system or application interface. You're not entirely on your own with this. There's an image processing library called Touchlib which will handle passing your C++ app screen touch events. The community of Touchlib developers seem to be pretty active and have put together a number of open source, sample applications which can help you get started.

References:
DIY Multitouch Dsiplay @ Instructables - Link
Touchlib - Link
Natural User Interface Group (multitouch developer community) - Link

March 18, 2007

HOW TO Erase Your Hard Drive

bbum runs down some great ideas for removing all traces of your data from an old hard drive:

Me? I take dead drives apart. They have amazingly powerful magnets inside, along with all kinds of very useful screws, washers, nuts, coils, and other fiddly bits.
The platters, obviously, contain the data and they should be destroyed. I run one of the magnets over them upon removal and then keep a stack of the platters around as they have proven to be incredibly useful! The platters have been used for everything as clamp pads for gluing stuff to spacers to level a table or work surface to being used by my son as part of a bug house.

But the best of all has to be the one shown in his photo shown above: "Set up a high speed photog kit and drop a pinball on it!" Link

Related:

Hard drive belt buckle - Link
HOW TO Make a Hard Drive Clock - Link
PC Hacks - Link

February 22, 2007

AirPower - find places to plug in when you travel

261068080 B421586105
Jeff has a great power Wiki for when you travel and need to juice up your laptop -

This wiki is dedicated to helping you find power while travelling at airports around the globe. We also have a Flickr group to share photos - http://www.flickr.com/groups/airpower/ please link back to this Wiki if you post a photo.

AirPower Home - [via] Link.

Pictured here, power @ the N gate in SETAC by Travelin' Librarian.

February 19, 2007

Cool off your Macbook with smcFanControl

Make 362
Previously Dale had mentioned his Macbook was getting hot, here's a tool to manually control the fan to cool that puppy down...

Let's you set the minimum speed for each fan individually.
Adjust fan speed until the Macbook(Pro) is finally comfortable on your legs again
Auto apply mode to set the new fan-speeds after a restart
Sourcecode included! Extend it and change it to your needs

smcFanControl - Link.

More:
Updated version, smcFanControl 2.0 - Link.

February 14, 2007

RAID Tip: Which Drive Crashed?

In Building the Perfect PC, 2nd Edition, authors Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson suggest a way to tell which drive is which in a RAID array: use a felt-tip marker to label each end of the cable (no stripes for drive 0, one stripe for drive 1, and so forth).
Brady was perusing one of the Ignite speaker Leo Parker Dirac's blog, and came across a different approach:

If you're building a RAID array for your home, or somewhere else that isn't super-industrial-strength enterprise, here's a tip. Get each hard drive as a different brand. That way it's way easier to tell them apart.

For more details, including another good reason to do this, read Leo's full entry here.

Related:

Building the Perfect PC, 2nd Edition -- Link
Building the Perfect PC Figures: Extra Crisp --Link
PC Hacks -- Link

January 23, 2007

Stream Music to Airport Express Without iTunes

You don't need to use iTunes to stream audio to an Aiport Express. You can use the Windows 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.

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

(Thanks, Phil!)

November 13, 2006

Add Bluetooth to a Dell Notebook

I recently ordered a refurbished Dell E1505, and I was bummed out that it didn't come with Bluetooth. But it turns out that even if it didn't have Bluetooth in its Build-To-Order configuration, you can add it after the fact. I posted a photo set that shows you how to do it. I'm pretty impressed with how easy Dell made this: no tools required (the module is compatible with other models, so check the service manual if you've got a different Dell).

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