In our integrated desk post, we mentioned using pegboards and zip ties to organize cables. Lifehacker has a collection of pictures from their readers that are using this solution. We especially love [Steve Price]’s fliptop solution pictured above. It may not look too attractive, but we’d do pretty much anything to avoid crawling under a desk.
Author: Eliot1332 Articles
Asus WL500GP Audio Hack
The Asus WL500GP wireless router runs Linux and has two USB ports. [equinoxfr] wanted to install audio support internally to the router though (translated). Luckily, it uses a VIA VT6212 4port USB controller. So, he was able to wire two more internal ports. A Brando USB soundcard is plugged into one of those ports and wired to an external headphone jack. He wanted dual RCA connectors, but they just wouldn’t fit. The router is running OpenWRT Kamikaze. MPD is used to serve music with the wymypy frontend since it has its own lightweight webserver.
Syringe Logic Probe, Revision 2
[Travis Goodspeed] has updated his syringe based logic probe that we covered earlier. Instead of soldering to the outside, he’s using silver wire shoved into the core of the needle. A nice side benefit is the safety cap now fits. Inside the syringe are two LEDs that indicate current direction. The sharp needle makes it a lot easier to hit small traces.
Solar Engine
We spotted [Kerrin Mansfield]’s lovely solar engine on ladyada’s rantings. It uses 16 1/8th inch solar cells to collect power. At night, an orange LED pulses at .2Hz. He doesn’t have a specific write up on the construction, but from the component layout, it looks identical to [Gareth Branwyn]’s schematic in Make 08, which you can find in the PDF.
RoboGames 2008 Photos And Videos
Laughing Squid’s [Scott Beale] is attending RoboGames 2008. Check out the great pictures and videos he took on Flickr.
Detecting ISP Throttling
ISPs have recently become very aggressive towards their customers. They’ve been blocking or altering traffic to prevent you from using specific programs or protocols. Google’s Senior Policy Director recently stated that they’re developing tools to allow people to detect ISP interference. A couple other groups have been building tools as well: The Network Neutrality Squad just released the second beta of their Network Measurement Agent. The tool currently detects spoofed packets by monitoring the round trip time of the connection; early reset packets will have lower than average RTT. If you want to go more in depth, the EFF has published a guide for using Wireshark to do the detection. We’ve even heard rumors of people building tools to tunnel a session inside of one that looks completely different.
[photo: nrkbeta]
PSP L2/R2 Button Mod
This is quickly becoming an unintentional “game controller Saturday”. We haven’t been covering the PSP much lately, so this is a treat. AcidMods forum member [Electro] put together a quick guide for adding two missing shoulder buttons to the PSP. The L2 and R2 buttons are used while playing Playstation 1 games and are usually mapped to directions on the joystick. This mod jumps the joystick’s contacts an relocates the buttons to the shoulders. The switches used in the post seem kind of bulky, but you’re free to use anything that fits.
[via Engadget]
