Hack A Day Is Always Hiring

October 3, 2008 by Eliot 14 Comments

We’re always looking for people to contribute posts daily and help expand the site. We’ve added a handful of contributors in the last couple months, which you can see in our new How-tos.

This is a paid, freelancing position that requires professionalism, consistency, and reliability. We want to hear from people that are passionate about software/hardware hacking and growing Hack a Day. To apply, send the following to jobs@hackaday.com

A short bio about yourself
3 example daily posts written in the style of Hack a Day
3 software or hardware how-tos you’d like to see. For examples of work we’ve done in the past, look here, here, here, and here.
A couple sentences on how you would improve the site either through features or content
Any additional reasons why you would make a good fit for Hack a Day

Do not send any attachments. Having your own blog you can show off is a definite plus.

[photo:fbz]

Xbox 360 Laptop In Progress

September 21, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

[Ben Heck] posted and update on a project he’s doing for THQ. This latest Xbox 360 laptop is being built as a contest prize. It’s based on a 60GB Xbox 360 and is slightly larger than the previous laptops. It can accommodate a standard 360 hard drive without modification. An Xbox Live camera is included as well.

We hadn’t realized how many Xbox 360 laptops [Ben] had built. There’s the original. The one he built as a how-to for Engadget. Then, the one based on an Elite and now this.

Real Time Gas Monitoring

September 21, 2008 by Eliot 12 Comments

With the weather getting colder, [Daniel] decided it would be a good idea to monitor how much energy his gas heating was using in real time. He used a Nokia 6680 cameraphone to monitor the heater’s flame through the sight glass. PyS60, a Symbian implementation of Python, checks the image sent by the camera and measures how much blue flame is visible. These values are stored in a SQL DB on the phone that can be polled over Bluetooth. At the end of the billing cycle, he’ll be able to correlate the amount of gas used with what the phone reported.

[Thanks, florent bayle]

Direct To Garment Printing

September 20, 2008 by Eliot 32 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3iOuKzhUlQ]

Reader [deren lik] pointed out the world of direct to garment printing to us. You can purchase commercial machines that will print directly onto a t-shirt using inkjet technology. Unfortunately, these machines cost ~$10K, so hackers have decided to fill in the gaps. DIYDTG hosts plans for how to build your own DTG printer. Their standard instructions are based around the Epson C88 printer. A custom carrier is constructed and then the printer components are bolted on top. Commercial DTG printers are also based on Epson parts and you can easily purchase the garment inks even if you didn’t pay a premium for your printer.

DaScratch Multitouch DJ Interface

September 20, 2008 by Eliot 5 Comments

Stanton has released a new controller peripheral for laptop DJ’s. DaScratch is a USB connected MIDI device designed to emulate record interactions. It features a large touch area where the user can make scratching, sliding, and button pressing motions. The compact device has presets for software like Traktor, Serato, and Ableton Live, but can work with anything that supports MIDI. Multiple units can be paired together using magnets.

As the video below shows, there are quite a few different interactions possible. We really want to see a teardown of this device though. We get the distinct feeling that it’s designed to look more impressive than the underlying hardware actually is. Continue reading “DaScratch Multitouch DJ Interface” →

XBMC Cross Platform Beta Released

September 20, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

It’s been a big week for the XBMC team. They announced the release of their first cross platform beta in preparation for a full release in October. XBMC started as a media center project for the original Xbox, but has expanded a lot since then. The new beta works on Linux, OSX (Leopard and Tiger), Windows, and Xbox. They’ve created XBMC Live, so you can get XBMC up and running quickly either by booting from the CD, from a flash drive, or using it to install to a disk. People have been writing add on apps too, like the XBMC Remote for iPhones.

This summer we covered both Boxee, a social version of XBMC, and Plex, the original XBMC OSX fork.

Mark Hoekstra Has Passed Away

September 20, 2008 by Eliot 63 Comments

UPDATE: His personal site has been updated.

It was with great sadness that we learned of [Mark Hoekstra]’s death this morning. Earlier this week, the 34 year old hacker suffered a heart attack while riding his bicycle and was admitted to the hospital in a coma. [Markie] has been a Hack a Day commenter for much of our existence and a project contributor for nearly as long. It started simply with things like his bright green Hack a Day iPod sock and a hand crank iPod charger. He did an excellent job documenting his projects; many people had built IR cameras, but none were nearly as thorough as him. He also enjoyed sharing his love for obsolete hardware with the community. He built a wireless eMate, turned two Mac SE/30’s into audio viualizers, and wired shutter glasses to an old SGI.

It was always a treat to hear about [Mark]’s latest project and he’ll be missed greatly.

[photo: Bram Belloni]