Hi all, we’ve been very busy trying to finish some DIYs for you’all. We have some cool USB 6-Axis
controller hack for PC from Garrett and some more Christmas DIYs coming this week!,
If you notice that we are not posting, it’s most likely we are too busy working on our next DIYs, so
in a way, good news for you…hehe
In the meanwhile, you can enjoy some mini LED Christmas tree that will allow your cat to nicely
enjoy some Christmas trees. Of course, you can build our LED Christmas tree, but it might give
your cat a good fight so…. Well, my roommate and our contributor Kenji just got a cat,
so this might be great for all those of you Hello-kitty lovers…

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This guys got some cool pics of his homemade 3D laser scanner.

Here’s a cool server status board you can make using Triklits, which are color changing LED strings.

In September, I read a post on one of my favorite blogs about these Triklits programmable LED light strings and I instantly fell in love with them. I ordered two strands as well as the USB interface card and had a ball making these things come to life. After fiddling with them for a couple of weeks, I began to build this automated statusboard to help me monitor systems for me and my clients. The board updates every 60 seconds and displays information from several different sources including my Nagios installation, my source code repository, a bug tracking database, and a soon-to-be-implemented build server. I’m still working on the Perl scripts that I use to query the different sources, but when I’m done, I’ll post the source code here.  This was a fun one to hack at last weekend!

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Someone hacked a 2GB USB Drive MAC system! cool…

Here’s a cool DIY on how to make a USB device with a PIC via .

They also have a simple howto on making a USB thermometer to get you started right.
The code looks pretty simple for anyone with prior PIC experience.
You could probably use this for making your own wii controller device for PC.

Tight ass hack for using wii controller for your macbook!

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Here’s a detailed instructions on building your own skype server for your home phone system.

One irritating feature of Skype is that it must be running on a computer for you to make and receive calls. That is, when your computer is off, Skype doesn’t work. Moreover, when you run Skype on the computer you use day in and day out, Skype’s performance (call quality, reliability and so forth) can suffer if you are doing other things that deprive it of the runtime resources it needs.

My solution was to build a Skype server that provides 24/7 phone service with the minimum of hassle and fuss. By dumping your regular phone company and taking back control of your home phone wiring using a Skype server, you will have not only a phone system with nearly the same capabilities as before-indeed, in some ways better-you will also save a bundle of money! In my case, I save a little less than $700 US each year (this year, next year, and the year after that, and so on), or about 82% off of my old phone bill.

Using a Skype server plugged in to the existing copper phone wiring of your home means that you can lift a receiver anywhere in your home, at any time, and get a regular dial tone. Incoming calls either from Skype users or regular phones ring all handsets throughout your home. Basically, you can make Skype behave like a regular phone line, but at a tiny fraction of the cost.

Somebody in Japan hacked up this wii power glove, awesome!

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Nice little nixie clock for holidays! via
See video of it here.

Christmas is around the corner and I am still working on my nixie clock and have everything all set as far as powering the clock from the usb port and the high voltage conversion. I am playing around with crystals and code to get everything all dialed in. The final design will be mounted on a 2″ circular diameter pcb. This will allow the clock to be easily mounted inside a 2.25″ round acrylic tube. Total price should be around $30 for the clock. One of the really neat things about this clock is the allowance for a battery backup using the LIPO BACKPACK II. With the latest iteration of the backpack and the 1A current capability you can now power the clock on its own for over 20 hrs!