Awesome Do-It-Yourself USB Drive

Modders and do-it-yourselfers would love this project. The picture above might look like a hacked USB cord but it's actually a USB drive. Awesome right? It will surely be a hit with your techie (and maybe non-techie) co-workers.

It's quite easy to make too. Check out Evil Mad Scientist for the step by step instructions.

Upgrade Your Life (by Lifehacker)

Lifehacker's Upgrade Your Life is the ultimate compilation of the best Lifehacker tips and tricks. It's a book version of the best Lifehacker has to offer. While you'll have to shell out dollars to get the book, the online version is absolutely free. There are lots of great tips you can use. Here are the most useful for me...

• Outlook tip: Color code messages addressed only to you - This is extremely useful since I get a lot of email advisories that I don't necessarily have to read asap. This makes the most important emails (the ones addressed directly to me) stand out of the numerous unread messages in my inbox.
• Generate unlimited email addresses with Gmail - I hate, hate, hate spam. Who doesn't? With this tip, you can create "disposable" email addresses for use with websites that require the submission of an email address.
• Future-proof your email address - Email addresses used to be novelties. Not anymore. Now, they are a cruicial part of your social life. That's why it's important to choose an email address that will grow with you.
• Create and customize your own planner with D*I*Y Planner - Electronic PDAs aren't always the best choices in organizing your life. Sometimes, the good old planner is the way to go.
• Power Texting Tips - Text messaging may not just be for kids and teenagers anymore. These tips take you from novice to power texter.
• Create your own virtual private network with Hamachi - If you've got multiple computers at home, creating your own VPN makes it a whole lot easier finding and accessing files from other machines.

Check out Lifehacker's Upgrade Your Life for many other useful tips.

Laptop DIY

If the price of your new laptop has left you all broke and laptop accessory-less, then DIY! Here are a bunch of do-it-yourself projects for all sorts of laptop accessories that will surely make you the envy of all your friends. Ok, maybe not, but they're still cool projects! :-)

• Foam, foam, foam! There's no better and cheaper material to encase your laptop in than foam. This step by step tutorial shows us how to custom make a foam case for your laptop.
  
  



• If foam doesn't float your boat, then cardboard and duct tape might. Check out this instructable for creating your very own cardboard and duct tape laptop case.
  
  

  
• This PVC laptop stand is cheap, easy to construct and definitely cruicial if you use your laptop on a regular basis. Your back will definitely thank you.
  

Macro Photography 101

I love macro photography. For those who are unfamiliar, macro photography is "the art of taking pictures of things extremely close-up." It's a great way to see your subject in a whole new perspective. However, it's not exactly the easiest thing to do, especially if you don't have a dslr in your camera bag. Erin Manning has created a how-to for taking macro photos using just a regular point and shoot camera. Take a look and you'll be taking terrific close-up pictures in no time.

Keep Your Love of Gadgets from Making You Broke

Gadget freaks, relax. When every new gadget makes you whip out your credit card, it's not a good sign for your wallet or your bank account. Your love of gadgets doesn't have to mean going broke from credit card debt. Put Things Off has a great article on how to curb your anxiety everytime a new gadget is announced.

Then again, when you've got the money to blow on gadgets, go ahead. No ones stopping you from being an early adopter. Just don't complain when the prices are lowered a few months later.

Ever Tried Googling Yourself?

Do you like what you find? Being the somewhat paranoid person that I am, I've always used an alias for all my online interactions. Add to that the fact that I've never made the news, so I have a tiny, almost non-existent online footprint.

However, some of you might be not so lucky. And chances are, someone might be Googling your name right now. It may be a prospective employer or secret admirer but one thing's for sure, you will be judged by the information that's available on Google about you.

Lifehacker has a great article on how to "have a say on what Google says about you." It basically shows you how to setup your own website and make it somewhat your online calling card so people can easily find you online. It also gives ideas on how to link up your site so it appears high on Google's search results.

It's a nice article, but it won't tell you how to remove any incriminating information about you online. I don't think it's possible to do that anyway. Tough luck.

Lifehacker's Master Your DSLR Camera Part 2

It's been a while, but finally, Lifehacker.com has posted the second installment of the Master Your DSLR Camera series. While the first installment tackles the program mode of your camera, part two talks about the manual mode and the priority modes.

The manual mode is especially useful if you want to be completely in control of your exposure. However, the priority modes are great shortcuts for great shots if you don't want to tinker with a lot of settings. Anyway, check out the article and prepare to do some more experimenting and hopefully pretty soon, you'll be shooting (almost) like a pro.

Link: [Lifehacker]

Easiest Way To Solve A 3x3 Rubik's Cube

I've been meaning to learn how to solve a 3x3 Rubik's Cube all on my own. I tried different techniques via Rubikssolver.com. Although they were fairly easy to follow, the problem is, my poor memory limits me. My efforts were not paying off as I was having a very hard time memorizing the algorithms required for the different situations.

It would be a different story if the logic of the algorithms were explained. That way it would be easier to remember the combinations. Anyway, to make the long story short, I think I've just found the easiest to understand 3x3 Rubik's Cube tutorial. It's a 25 minute video and the host manages to explain every single step in a way that is very easy to understand. Don't just take my word for it... check out the video below and try solving a cube. Good luck!

Easiest 3x3 Rubik's Cube Tutorial You Will Find - Watch the top videos of the week here

Make Your Own Cheap 5.1 Surround Headphones

This is pretty cool. As we all know, headphones can be pretty darn expensive, expecially those which are especially made for surround sound systems. Babblin5 had this great idea to create his own surround headphones out of a cheap headphone and 2 pairs of earphones.

I'll be honest, I was a bit skeptical about this at first. However, after reading the comments about it, it seems like people are pretty pleased with their do-it-yourself headphones. Not bad for a cheap hack-job. Check out the instructional video below...

5.1 Surround Headphone Hack! - The best video clips are here

Turn Your Old Highlighter Into a Flash Drive Case

Check out this great idea from Instructables.com. Here's a disclaimer though: it comes with really crappy pics. However, at least the instructions are very easy to understand. So you've been warned.

The instructable shows us how to somewhat camouflage and disguise your flash drive to make it look like an ordinary highlighter. I can't count how many times I've lost a flash drive. Who knows which hands my important data will land into? At least if my flash drive is disguised into a highlighter, nobody will give it a second look if ever I leave it somewhere. Now all I have to remember is not to put it in my pencil case along with every other highlighter I have.

Link: [Instructable.com]

Lifehacker's Master Your DSLR Camera Part 1

Lifehacker's doing a great article series about getting the most out of your DSLR camera. Part 1 is all about the Program mode of your camera. This guide is very useful and informative especially for budding photographers. So if your DSLR's dial is permanently set to AUTO, you'll want to check this article out.

I'll be looking out for the rest of the articles in the series and I'll be posting updates for you guys as well. In the meantime, have fun and experiment!

Link: [Lifehacker]

Paint Your iPhone Black

Mark Hoekstra disliked the bling factor of his iPhone. Yup, it was definitely a conversation starter, but not with the people he wants to talk to. So what's a guy to do? His solution is to paint his iPhone black. You might want to do the same, even for a different reason.

Of course you just can't cover the screen in masking tape and paint the thing black or you might just end up with a black brick. Painting your iPhone requires the talent of an artist and the skills of an electronics enthusiast. If you're missing both, Mark's got an in-depth walkthrough at his site which shows you everything you need to know.

The final product looks sweet. He even covered the button at the front with a retro Apple logo. I don't have an iPhone but if I had one and if it were up to me, I'd keep the retro logo but instead of black, I'd paint mine hot pink.

Make Your Own Noise Eliminating Headphones

Have you ever tried using the stock iPod earbuds in an airplane? It's torture. Even with the volume up to maximum, I had to cover my ears with my hands just to understand what I'm watching. Not a great experience.

In this situation, I would have killed for a pair of noise eliminating headphones. But the cheapskate in me just can't spend more than a hundred of dollars just for a pair of headphones. This Kipkay hack blew me away. It makes me think, why didn't I think of this before? Check it out and you'll see what I mean.

Headphone Hack! Make You Own Noise Eliminating Headset! - Watch a funny movie here

Kipkay's Battery Hack

I'm an Electronics Engineer but the thought of opening up batteries never came to me before. I mean, I know theoretically what the basic components of a battery are and how it works. I just don't know what exactly lies underneath the smooth metalic packaging of a regular 12 volt battery.

What Kipkay discovered inside these basic consumer batteries certainly surprised me. How can eight $4-$6 batteries equal to one $2 battery? It's absurd! However, now that I think of it more, packaging, shipping, and marketing does add up. Talk about not getting what you paid for. The proof lies in the video.

12 Volt Battery Hack! You'll Be Surprised... - video powered by Metacafe

U U U

5 Great Instructables Projects

I love projects. Finishing a project and admiring the product of my hard work just gives me great satisfaction. Not to mention showing it off to my friends (although I have reason to believe that more than once the enthusiasm they showed was less than heartfelt, haha).

Instructables is a great resource for all types of do-it-yourselfers. The projects range from piece of cake to what the heck?. Check out these great project ideas (great reasons to dust off your soldering iron).

• The Barbie Box: This is a camouflaged case/boom box for your mp3 player. I'm not sure what the inspiration of the author of this was, maybe the Hide-a-pod? Although, if it was up to me, I would definitely choose a different theme. I'm not a Barbie type of girl after all.
• LED Throwies: These are gorgeous in the dark. You can use them to decorate your garden or house for a party, or just throw them around for fun.
• NES Controller MP3 player: Another great mod idea for an mp3 player. The author of this instructable used a fairly cheap mp3 player and it looks very easy to do.
• Use an LCD Monitor as a TV Without a Computer: This is such a great idea. LCD monitors are considerably cheaper than LCD televisions it makes sense to try to use them as a tv display. Why didn't I think of this before?
• Turn Your Old Monitor into a Fishtank: So you've got an old monitor? Rather than throwing it to the dumpster, why not turn it into a fishtank?

U U U

Losing Weight for Geeks

I don't know what difference being a geek has to losing weight but anyway I'm willing to try anything that sounds remotely sensible. Not that I'm overweight or anything, but I've been feeling like such a heffer since I gained around 20 pounds over the last 6 years. G333k (I suppose that's pronounced geeek) presents 8 practical ways to lose fat. Here you go...

• Drop sodas forever Sodas are the enemy number one of this society. Drop it and your GI will get lower instantly. This will change the direction your body is taking and will reduce the amount of food converted to fat. If you are addicted to soda or have cravings, make sure you have only one in the morning, and once every two days. Gradually drop to once a week until you are happy without them. They are the pest of our century and are the main reason of people looking unhealthy. (I completely agree with that explanation. Although, I must admit that dropping them is easier said than done. I don't know why but I just can't seem to help myself. I love sodas! But, for my health's sake I will try to give it another shot. Sodas are bad... sodas are bad... sodas are bad.)
  
• Drop fast-food forever Fast food are bloody expensive! They are the typical solution to an unorganized geek. Get organized at your next shopping day and make sure you don’t need it anymore. If you really like the taste and are addicted. Make sure you get what you like once a week only, and at lunch! That way, your addiction will fade away softly. (Again, easier said than done! I'm not addicted to fast food but eating fast food is my quick answer to hunger. I mean, fast food delivery is the best thing since sliced bread. Or is it the worst thing? I seem to have relied on fast food far too much. Fine, fine, fast food is bad... fast food is bad... fast food is bad.)
  
• Drop sugary food to only once a week Cakes, chocolate bars and such are also raising your GI and making your flubber shine. Don’t cut them off entirely of your life. For starters, it’s nearly impossible to do, second you will find that once a week is just enough! (That sounds like a piece of cake to me, no pun intended. I've never been a fan of sugary food because they make my throat hurt.)
  
• Drop carbs at dinner Carbs are easily put to use by the body during the day. At night, they sit in your stomach and as you go asleep they will be more likely to be converted to fat. Carbs are converted to energy, which is used in your daily life. Unlike models, don’t drop carbs entirely or you will have serious issues at 50. Instead, reduce the carbs intake at dinner, as it won’t sit in your stomach all night. Carbs include pasta, potatoes, rice and bread. Also check the labels of whatever you’re eating at dinner to find out how much carbs it contains. (This was a major Aha! moment for me. I knew carbs were bad but I could never cut them out completely from my diet. Carbs are everywhere! But cutting them out from dinner is a more doable thing. Brilliant!)
  
• Eat dinner earlier This simple fact will allow you to digest better, and sleep better. If your body is able to process dinner before bed time, much less will sit there all night and turn into fat. (This one looks like a difficult one... I can't stand sleeping on an empty stomach.)
  
• Get physically active twice a week Sport is good. Any sport. From boxing to table-tennis. It makes you move, and that’s good for you. We live in a society that doesn’t make good use of our bodies. We’ve never moved so little. We travel by sitting, we work by sitting, we relax by sitting. This is just bad and it’s only getting worse. Find what you like and get involved. (Physically active to me means standing up to go to the bathroom. Does that count?)
  
• Sleep more In our fast paced life, sleep is a very underestimated asset. Good sleep makes you more focussed. It also helps the body recover and then get to work on itself. It takes about 7-8 hours for the body to recover, then after that it only starts to build and focus on what needs improvement. You can’t really get any better if you don’t sleep properly. Why do you think that babies sleep so much? (This doesn't help me at all since I already sleep for about 8-9 hours per day.)
  
• Increase protein intake Imagine a balance. To lose weight or get leaner, you will need to raise the amount of protein intake. It’s a very simple ratio: more protein than carbs in a day, and you get leaner. As bloody simple as it sounds. However, this is a hard task as carbs are everywhere, but decent intakes of protein are rare. (That's no problem at all. I love meat. Looks like I'll just have to eat more meat than rice or bread.)

Create Your Own Facebook

These days, everyone's crazy about the online social network Facebook. However, if you're tech-savvy (and even if you're not), you'd probably want to have your very own profile page or site that doesn't limit you to the boundaries of Facebook or other social networking sites. This article from Wired How-To's shows you exactly how to do that. I'm free to share the article under their Creative Commons Licence so I'll do exactly that. Here's the full article...

With a little savvy, anyone can create a page that hosts all of the essential stuff one would find on a Facebook profile that can be set up with the same plug-and-play ease. You'll have to store all of your photos, videos, and contacts elsewhere, but at least you'll be able to get to your stuff.

Start by setting up a blog. Say what's on your mind. Unlike your blog on Facebook or MySpace, everyone will be able to read it. From there, you can pull in your photos from Flickr--> or Zooomr -->, show off your impeccible musical tastes hosted at iLike --> or Last.fm -->, share your favorite web bookmarks from del.icio.us --> or Ma.gnolia --> and put up a list of your most recent reads using Shelfari --> or LibraryThing -->.

All of these services have open APIs, making it easy for third-party developers to build widgets for displaying public data stored there. As a result, many such tools exist.

Need to keep up to date with your friend's activities? Pull in a feed from their blog
or from their Twitter page. The Upcoming --> event notification service has a dead simple code generator that will create a widget listing all of the events you plan to attend, as well as those your friends are interested in. Like to chat? Meebo -->
offers an embeddable widget for AIM chatting, and Jaxtr --> does the same for SMS. You can even drop in a Skype --> button that lets your friends call you with
one click.

One of Facebook's unique features is the "everything in one place" feed service (Mini-feeds and News Feeds), but you can build such a thing yourself. Just create an account at one of the many feed re-mixing sites like Yahoo Pipes -->, FeedShake --> or FeedBlendr -->. Plug in all the feeds from the various sources you want to track and paste the resulting URL into a widget on your site. Voilà.

The free blogging software from WordPress --> has all of the functionality to let you embed these widgets and RSS streams. WordPress also has a thriving plug-in ecosystem, so it's likely a developer somewhere has done much of the dirty work for you.

An even easier option is to use a sharable and customizable start page from Pageflakes --> or Protopage -->. Pageflakes in particular allows you to build a customized chunk of cyberspace that aggregates all of your desired content just like Facebook, which you can then publish publicly (Pageflakes calls this a "Pagecast"). And beyond a simple user registration, Pageflakes doesn't lock in any of your personal data.

Although it looks complicated, with all these Web2.0 services popping up, it couldn't be any easier. It's really a piece of cake if you think about it... the possibilites are virtually endless. So go ahead and create your own profile page. Have fun while you're at it too.

U U U

My Top Make Videos

As all of you have probably guessed, I'm a huge techie. However, I'm crazy about crafts and the whole do-it-yourself thing too. Make Magazine is a great resource for me because it perfectly marries these two interests. They've got a blog and a podcast as well as an actual magazine (digital or made of paper) chock full of projects to keep you busy until the next millenium.

I present to you my top Make videos brought to you by Youtube:

1. Learn how to screenprint your own t-shirts: If I could wear t-shirts everyday of my life I would. This video shows you how to silkscreen your own designs onto t-shirts (or anything else that's flat and absorbs paint for that matter)... a very useful skill to have if you like having one-of-a-kind shirts. Although, if you want to be able to wash your t-shirt creations, I don't recommend doing the last bit... see for yourself.

2. Make a ring from a half dollar: I'm almost sure this should be illegal but the video says it's not. Anyway, the finished product looks really cool. Do this at your own risk though... I don't want anyone blaming me for getting arrested or anything. Haha.

3. Make a wallet out of tape: A wallet? Out of tape? Awesome. I love duct tape stuff. But this project uses different types of tape to make it more interesting. The video shows detailed instructions but feel free to divert and create your own pockets and designs.

Of course, their site Makezine.com showcases several other cool projects. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and make something!

U U U

Twitter Productivity Hacks

Aside from broadcasting to people you hardly know whatever you're doing or whatever you're thinking at a particular moment, Twitter can now do so much more. Thanks to integrations like GCal and Remember the Milk, Twitter is no longer just the micro blogging service we thought it was.

Remeber the Milk is a Twitter integration that reminds you of stuff you need to do.

Just send (Twitter user) rtm a direct message with the name of a task and
(optionally) when it's due. The task will be added to your inbox, and RTM will
remind you about it later.

pick up the milk

call jimmy at 5pm tomorrow

return library books in 2 weeks

(You can send a direct message on Twitter by posting an update with d rtm your message -- by SMS, IM, the web update box, or a third-party app like Twitterrific. So, you'd add a task with d rtm pick up the milk.)

GCal is a virtual calendar that lets you add events and appointments to your Google Calendar thru Twitter. Check Twittercal for more info on this.

To get started, just add gcal as your Twitter friend and grant it access to GCal. Now add any events by sending a direct message to gcal

d gcal meeting with paul tomorrow at 7pm

d gcal meeting with fred on monday, 25th of june at 9am

Source: Lifehacker.com

U U U

Build a Portable Charging Station

Ok, I admit it... I'm a gadget freak. I live for the latest and greatest gadgets. But this obsession has an ugly secret. Messed up power cords. I don't know about you but I always get mine mixed up in an ugly knotted mess. I have almost a drawer full of these chargers. The old ones get mixed up with the new ones and it's such a chore finding the right one (Ok, I'm acting like such a baby... all this ranting has a reason you know... I'm getting to it, be patient.)

Jim Driscol has a brilliant idea. Just drill some holes in a toolbox, pop in your chargers, hide the ugly cords under the top lid, even add some stickers indicating which gadgets the chargers are for and voila, a portable charging station. I know this has been done before but never in such a straightforward, no-nonsense way. It's great. Of course if you're a girl you could make your own version using a makeup kit instead of a tool box... be creative.

U U U