Check out this wet and wild spring break story. Actually, Nate True spent his break hacking a tap light to make it emulate an Ambient Orb. It is wireless and you have full control over the color. You could have it indicate almost anything: new mail, rss feed activity, cpu temperature. It isn’t a perfect copy of the orb: it is $100 dollars cheaper and you don’t have to pay any monthly fees. I guess that just means you’ll have more money left over to throw at other executoys, or you could save it and take a real trip next year.
Peripherals Hacks1541 Articles
Tv-b-gone Now B A Cellphone
Allright, we all should know about the handy device that came out awhile back called tv-b-gone and how it shuts off tv’s by holding down a button. problem is, it’s pretty easy to spot if you’re an awesome best buy security guard wearing that coveted yellow shirt, so you’re risking revealing yourself somewhat by using it. however, if you were to say, disguise it completely as a cellphone by totally redoing the whole thing, then you may be able to casually stroll by those TVs while “chatting on the cellie” and get out alive.
by alive we mean casually strolling out of best buy or an electronics store. very impressive idea here.
thanks [AJ]
The $1 Infrared Solution For Your Pc
infrared comes on a lot of cool devices, but not everyone has a transmitter/reciever to take advantage of it. well now you can and for about a buck. just make sure your pc has room for an IR port. if it does, you’ll need to pick up the following to get going:
+An infrared LED, an infrared photo-diode
+Two BC548 transistors
+A 10 nF capacitor
+A 4K7 resistor, a 47 K resistor, a 15K resistor, a 22 ohm resistor and a 1 K resistor (all of them 1/8 W)
That’s it aside from your trusty soldering gun and a lil’ solder. Wire it up, connect it, and start waving your cellphone, palmone, or whatever it is with IR around to have windows recognize it!
thanks [captain]
Make A Turntable Out Of An Old Mouse
Ever wanted to get your DJ on but you just couldn’t bring yourself to get away from your pc for more than 5 minutes? Of course you have. That’s why a guy named Alex went and took apart an old school mouse and a turntable and made them into a very interesting combination. Along with some special software, you can use the axis’ of your mouse-turntable combination to actually scratch in realtime. Kind of like the poor man’s Final Scratch. It’s definetly a very unique concept that would be really interesting to try.
Oh yeah. And the turntable is Windows 95 compatible (thanks anigan!)
Joysticks Made From Clothespins
you want an interesting hack? here’s one for ya. this dude took ordinary clothespins and made em into a joystick. joysticks are apparently the big rage lately. you too can make one for your MAME arcade at home, or maybe just for fun. but beware, it will be messy and it will be ugly. just plain and simple.
Homebrew Helicopter Flight Sim Controls
whirlyman sent us a link to instructions for turning a usb flight stick into a realistic helicopter flight control system for use with your favorite flight sim.
steve, the project’s creator, did something really interesting here because his control system externally manipulates the stock ms flightstick. the stick wasn’t disassembled or altered to connect the realistic controls for the pedals, cyclic and collective.
update: ugh — geocities bandwidth limit exceeded. for those of you who just want to take a quick look, i’ve added a couple pictures and a link to google’s cache after the break. let me know if a better mirror exists and i’ll post it.
Pocket Pc Phone Remote
griffen tech sells a program called total remote that lets you use your pda as a infrared remote. for pdas without an ir port, it also comes with an audio-to-ir adapter that plugs into the headphone jack.
scotty-o’s pocket pc phone had an ir adapter, but he wanted less pathetic range and he didn’t want a silly ir adapter hanging out the side of his phone. so he did what any self-respecting hacker would do: he took his phone apart, hard-wired the adapter circuitry to the phone’s audio output, and reassembled it all back into the original phone casing. nice!
