Giving us a chance to break out the TLAs, [Blair] sent in his latest hack where he embedded an RGB LED into his EeePC to display twitter, pidgin, and email notifications. It is based around the ATtiny45, and requires very few additional parts. He based the project on a foundation of work laid by [Dennis Schulze] on notifications and the work of [Dave Hillier] that used V-USB, a library for implementing USB on AVRs. The entire circuit was done freehand and crammed inside the netbook. He says that it is a lot easier to see notifications, even when the laptop is shut.

Related: Email notification via RGB LED

[Asier] pointed us to this video of his PC-PIC II acting as a peripheral to his EEepc. You can see him playing pong, using it as a musical input, and even a video game controller. This project seems pretty nice, though we would like some more information. We tried digging around in the “projects” area and couldn’t find anything.

[Florin] was given the task of repairing a GPS unit that wouldn’t boot up. What he found was unfortunately a bad processor. Fortunately, he was able to make a project out of it. After scavenging the good bits, the GPS module and the LCD, he set about making it a USB device. He now has an EEEpc with GPS.

We’ve all seen a million digital picture frames. Usually, people use an old outdated laptop or something. [Quinten] just sent in this one he made using an Eeepc 701. Being the first one available, the smallest both in terms of screen size and storage, they are available pretty cheap. There’s nothing amazingly groundbreaking here, just yanking all the parts out of the Eeepc and mounting them, nicely, in a wooden frame. [Quinten] did a great job getting everything in, with the least amount of space wasted. It strikes us that He has made a super cheap tablet conversion, he’s only missing the touch screen. We’ve seen Eeepc tablet conversions, but they seemed to have much more difficult to construct cases.

[Steven] managed to get his hands on a Panasonic CF-R1 for pretty cheap. Though it is a decently powerful machine, it was built in 2002 and didn’t come with an internal wireless card.  It did, however have a mini-PCI slot.  [Steven] promptly installed a wireless card, but found the internal antenna lacking. The solution was to custom mount an external antenna. Mounting it was fairly easy, he removed the phone jack and epoxied the connector in its place. The reception was greatly improved. He says he went from seeing 6 access points to 31 as soon as he installed it. Similar things have been done to the Eee PC 900.

[luke] has put together a set of EeePC upgrade instructions for those who suffer from solderphobia. If you have the EeePC 700 or 701,  also known as the 4G surf, you can upgrade the storage, add bluetooth, and a touch screen without having to solder a thing. Those models don’t have the built in camera, so they have an unused internal USB port.  With some crafty taping and careful placement, you can upgrade as easily as [luke]. We’ve really seen the EeePC mature, the product line has expanded quite a lot. For those who don’t mind a little solder, there have been tons of hacks for the EeePC.

[Terry Porter] added an external antenna to his EeePC 900. Initially, he mounted it on the side of the unit, but found that the location caused it to no longer fit in its carrying case, and made plugging in USB or Ethernet cables very difficult. His resolution was to move the mount to the rear portion of the case. His professional looking mount is definitely worthy of some attention. Check out the project for a breakdown and some great pictures showing the necessary modifications to make it fit.

If you’re going to crack open your EeePC, you may want to just go all out and add everything available.

Some of the Eee Box PCs have been shipped with viruses on board and ready to go. The virus was sitting on the D: drive, labeled as recycled.exe. As soon as that drive is opened, the virus is unleashed on the other drives and removable media attached. Strangely, Microsoft has come to the rescue as their Malicious Software Removal Tool detects it and removes it. This was only on some models, and apparently mostly in Japan.

Before you denounce ASUS for this oversight keep in mind that they make things that we really want, such as the touch screen Eee PC promised in 2009.

[via Gizmodo]

[acabtp] has already started hacking on his Dell Mini 9. He wanted to add GPS functionality, but didn’t want a dongle or anything external. After ordering the smallest GPS unit he could find, he found a place to wire it in internally. The end result had no bearing on the external looks of the computer. I wonder if he used the modification guide dell released?

Marketed as direct competition for the EEEPC, we’ll probably start seeing a lot more hacks for these. We’ve already seen the EEEPC taken hacked more than we ever expected.

[thanks strider_mt2k]

We have run many EeePC hacks before. Like most people, what we really want is a Mac netbook. The folks over at Wired have written up some nice instructions to help you run OSX on your EeePC. The process is a little involved, so don’t expect to just pop in a disk and be home free. There are a few setbacks though. No flash support, hardware F-keys don’t work (volume, brightness, etc), and ethernet doesn’t work. WiFi works but only with a third party driver/app.

[via Gizmodo]

Over at the EeeUser forums, [PvP_lostnight] is designing a kit to convert your EEEPC to a different form factor. He is modeling the design after the Samsung Q1 UMPC. The kits will eventually be for sale, but as you can see from the pictures, there’s a long way to go.  He seems to be taking lots of input from the forum members, so go there and help him make it perfect.

[thanks Tony]

One of the things that made the original Asus Eee PC such a big success was the ability to add almost anything you wanted to it. While this might not have anything to do with Dell releasing a service manual showing you how to disassemble your brand new Mini 9, we’re not gonna fault them for making one available.

The service manuals show the proper way to gain access to the various parts of the Mini 9 right down to the motherboard itself. It’s nice to know that the Mini 9 isn’t locked down where simple things like replacing the RAM or upgrading to a larger SSD won’t void your warranty.

[via jkkmobile]

OCAU member [Bismar] was in the market for an e-book reader, but all of his commercial options were too expensive. He decided to build one himself, and what he came up with is the Tabeee MK1, an e-book reader made from a 7″ Eee PC, a touchscreen, and a custom case.

The project is far from completion, still in the midst of its first objective: building the case. [Bismar] cut an old Lian Li case for the aluminum base, then made sure the motherboard from the Eee fit properly. The next major step was bending and cutting an acrylic sheet to form the exterior of the case. He hit a few snags bending the sheet, but forum members offered some ideas on how to do this effectively. The project is still rolling along, and we’ll be sure to show you the Tabeee MK1 when it is finished.

Jkkmobile has just posted their touchscreen hack for an Eee PC 900, and it looks great. Installation of this kit is pretty easy, just fit the panel to the screen, connect the controller to the USB lines, close it up, calibrate it, and you’re done. The controller board is placed on top of the WiFi card. Jkkmobile has informed us of touchscreens for older Eee PCs before, but this is one of the first we’ve seen for a 900+ model. The post lists a few sources for touchscreen kits, but no word on which one they used.

Those of us who have been eagerly waiting to get their mitts on an MSI Wind can see some light at the end of the tunnel, as it is currently under review for domestic sale by the FCC. The Wind is MSI’s answer to Asus’s game-changing ultraportable, the Eee PC, and has slightly better specs. It features an Intel Atom 1.6GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM. It also has built in bluetooth and webcam. Check out a few shots of the Wind’s internal parts at jkkmobile or grab them all from the FCC’s site.