HOW-TO: Laptop Resurrection And Upgrade

laptop resurrection
Follow along as reader [Seth] combines two i1400 Thinkpads. He refreshes the batteries, fixes the keyboard and trackpad, removes the floppy, adds USB ports and WiFi to end up with a ghoulish, but functional machine: The Franken-laptop!

I have been known to keep old hardware alive, long past it’s use-by date. Over the last year I acquired a couple of laptops. One of them had been smashed up (I think someone sat on it..) and the other got a drink spilled in to the keyboard. So I ended up with enough parts to make a cheap laptop.

Continue reading “HOW-TO: Laptop Resurrection And Upgrade”

What The Hack!: Some Post-conference Highlights

wthmatte

My What the Hack! experience was very much a positive one due to the cute bunnies and the fun atmosphere of the BSD tent where I resided during my stay (the blue arrow points to my spot on the bench).  Hardware people were a bit few and far between, but one day when I was in severe need of resistors for a project I went wandering and found stephanie at the wireless village: thanks! My DECT phone was in a state of severe disrepair/hackage so I may have missed out on meeting a ton of people that were trying to call me using the free DECT network. All in all I managed to not stay glued to my computer/soldering iron the entire time and actually attended some talks and geeked out with friends and new peeps. I’ve chosen to highlight three talks from WTH to share with you.

Continue reading “What The Hack!: Some Post-conference Highlights”