Want To Write How-tos For Engadget?

December 20, 2005 by 7 Comments

Engadget

I’m hiring a new ‘How-to’ editor for Engadget. We’re looking for someone who can contribute at least 2 how-tos a month. Original how-tos can cover hardware, software, and anything in between. We’ve covered software how-tos like streaming with VLC and setting up Synergy. We definitely want someone who isn’t afraid of a soldering iron and can do things like building WiFi antennas and embedding sensors in clothing.

To apply for the position you need to:

  1. Post a ‘fresh’ how-to article in the style of Engadget with pictures/screenshots somewhere  on the internet (like a free blog from Blogger).

  2. Write a sample post for a ‘found’ hack (like the Hack-A-Day daily feature).

  3. Send both links, a little info about yourself, and 5 additional how-to ideas through the tip form before 1PM EST Dec. 27th. Use the subject ‘Engadget writer’.

For inspiration: here are how-tos we’ve done in the past. For additional inspiration: this is a paid position.

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RFID Based Spatial Address Book

December 19, 2005 by 12 Comments

rfid

The march of reader hacks continues and I couldn’t be happier. [Timo] has been experimenting with a prototype Nokia 3220 Near Field Communication phone. The phone features an RFID reader/writer (and an odd logo that seems to combine a Dreamcast with RSS). The phone’s Service Discovery application reads RFID tags that it encounters. The read data can trigger a variety of actions: dial a number, send a pre-defined SMS, or load a URL. Timo placed an array of RFID tags under the surface of his desk. He then recorded different actions to each tag and placed a corresponding Post-It note liable on the desk surface above each tag. So, by resting the phone on “call Jack” the phone would load the number. When he walks into the office he can set the phone down on “I’m in the office” and a text message will be sent. He’s got some interesting thoughts on this system. It made him very aware of where he had to set the phone when he didn’t want it to do anything. Timo also wonders how your acquaintances would feel if they found themselves ranked across your desktop.

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Playstation 2 Controller ADC

December 18, 2005 by 12 Comments

ps2

[Paul Skinner] sent in an interesting project that he has been working on. The goal is to use biofeedback (heart rate, skin temperature) for sound control. The Playstation controller offers multiple analog inputs so Paul decided to modify one to use as an analog to digital converter. Before tearing the controller down he connected the controller to Max/MSP to make sure he could read the inputs. The majority of the project was spent building amplifiers for the skin temperature and other sensors. Once the amplifier circuit was constructed Paul built several Max/MSP patches to use the data.

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Count Accumulator For Radiation Levels

December 17, 2005 by 11 Comments

carl

This hack was put together by reader [Forrest Cook]. He was wondering if there were any radioactive materials in his rock collection. This is an add-on box for a 60s era Victoreen CDV700 Geiger counter. Vintage gieger counters don’t actually count; they use an analog meter with an integrator circuit to do short term averages. Forrest’s box plugs into the headphone jack of the Geiger counter and does true digital counting with a Motorola microprocessor. The signal could also be sent to a computer with a little modification. He did find a handful of radioactive rocks, but nothing that was serious enough to worry about.

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Linux Running On PalmOne’s LifeDrive

December 16, 2005 by 25 Comments

lifedrive

I am amazed at how quickly Alex from hackndev was able to get Linux running on the LifeDrive. It looks like the majority of the work only spanned 2 weeks. The Linux system is started using Garux a bootloader that you run in the Palm OS. Garux unloads Palm OS from memory and boots the Linux kernel in its place. Alex has published GPE binaries of Familiar Linux that should be really simple to use. The touchscreen works, but since suspend isn’t working yet it’s still not practical as a stand alone environment.

[thanks andy]

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Drunk Animatronic Santa

December 15, 2005 by 23 Comments

drunk santa

Reader [Josh McCormick] hacked this awesomely drunk animatronic Santa. Here’s a cached video link. He purchased the 5 foot tall singing and dancing Santa Claus at Walmart for $50 with the intention of modifying it for an art show. Once he got it home he began tearing it down. He found the brains of the device in the left foot (just like Santa!). The motion control is all analog and there is a hidden potentiometer that controls the dancing rate (jigginess). Josh used a BS2P40 Parallax BASIC Stamp for the digital control of the device and the sound samples were stored on a Quadravox QV306M4. To get the movements in sync, Josh recorded the performance as the sound clip was being played back. The movements were stored on a 24LC515 EEPROM. With some last minute work he got it to the show on time, but it unfortunately broke during exhibition and he did not win. There should be some consolation in the fact that it is on the internet now and will be seen by thousands of people instead of a handful.

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Hack-A-Day Extra

December 14, 2005 by 24 Comments

esd

I’ve been having some serious static build up in my office so dad suggested dragging a chain? nah, I’ll just turn up the humidifier. It has been really bad though; one lightning bolt from a mislaid finger forced me to reset my iPod. It got so bad that I actually bought a static strap before assembling my latest machine. Something I should have bought 10 years ago.

My PVR-500 dual TV tuner card came in the mail yesterday. The driver and MythTV install went pretty well and didn’t require too much forum crawling. They won’t tune anything above channel 59 for some reason. Hopefully I get that figured out soon.

Team Hack-A-Day continues to dominate; we completed 6 million pints this week. Saying [yehoshua] got off to a great start would be an understatement. At last count he had 104 active processors in a completely legitimate borg. [scottpdotnet] entered his thin client cluster into the fray as well.

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