Daily Cup of Tech

One of the complaints that I often hear from people is that modern technology looks too…well…modern! All the plastic and digital readouts are often too much for someone who is more akin to wood and cloth. So, this week’s Make It Monday project is a walks you through taking a modern wireless router and turning it into your latest family heirloom!

Instructables member radiorental walks you through creating a wireless home router with analogue utilization meter. Translated into English, he basically takes an everyday router from your local electronic shop, dismantles it, adds some electronics and a tachometer, builds a nice wooden box for it, and, presto!, instant aesthetic technology!

I’m going to warn you right up front. This is not a simple cut-and-paste type of project. If you want to make this project happen, you are going to have to be willing to get your hands a bit dirty. Make sure you are comfortable with basic networking, soldering, electronic circuitry, and carpentry. But, if you can check all of these off, you just might have the skills required to complete a very cool project.

For those of you interested, here is a quick video of the project in action as it is being tested:

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If you are like me, you would probably rather read a comic book than a manual or dry instructions. This is the entire premise behind Howtoons! Cartoon that teach you how to build or make something cool.

This week’s Make it Monday project is a Howtoons science project that any tech minded younger would get into. With just a few scraps that most people will have lying around the house, they can make a fully functional electric motor!

And since the whole project’s instructions are in comic book format, it is ideal for the little tinkerer who is more visually inclined. No chance of getting bored with reading these instructions. RTFM? You bet!

Now, there have been some complaints on the project page that people can’t read the words in the graphic. If this is also the case for you, you may wish to download the PDF version of the project. It is much easier to work with.

If you are the skeptical type and need some proof that this can actually work, check out the video that they made of a motor fashioned from the plans.

Now, this isn’t something that is as cool as, say, building your own fusion reactor, but we all need to start somewhere!

Happy building!

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This is one of those projects that makes you go, “That was so obvious! Why didn’t I think of that?!” Pretty much every computer system has the ability to run a screensaver. Back in the days of CRT monitors, they were a much needed tool, especially when you could read the text on your screen and the computer is turned off! In general, I tell people to turn off their screensaver if they have an LCD monitor or at the very least set it to a black screen.

But, I may have to change my recommendation to always use a black screen screensaver if more people start to build this little device!

photozz has developed a system that monitors (no pun intended) the status of the screensaver. As soon as the screensaver kicks in, it sends a signal to the printer port which is picked up from this device. This then tells the device to cut the power to all of the appropriate peripherals that are connected to the device!

This ideas is pretty ingenious to me because if the screensaver is running, then you are probably not at your computer to use the peripherals that are connected to it! I wish that I had seen this before I wrote Reduce Home Network Power Consumption. It is a really cool way to help keep the electric bills down.

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One of the things that I really don’t like about IT and computers is all the cords! Power, keyboard, mouse, network, USB devices, printer, phone, monitor, speakers, microphone, etc. It’s not hard for your computer area to quickly look like something that a rat put together!

So, someone had the great idea of going wireless and they called this technology bluetooth. It gives you the ability to connect several of your devices together and to lose the wires. But, in general, the range is limited.

Popular Science to the rescue! They have put together a little howto called Bluetooth a Mile Away. It walks you through the process of adding an external antennae to your bluetooth adapter so that you can use your bluetooth enabled devices from further away!

While this is a cool project, be careful! Some unscrupulous people out there have taken to Bluejacking and Bluesnarfing and I wouldn’t want you to help them out without setting up proper security on your systems.

Other Links:

• How Bluetooth Works
• BluejackQ
• Bluetooth and Linux

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I have decided to start a new column called Make It Monday. These posts will highlight some cool tech projects that you can do yourself. Some will be relatively easy while others will be more on the rocket scientist level with soldering and building circuit board required. None the less, they promise to be interesting!

The very first Make It Monday project is a computer controlled remote control vehicle. This is something that I have been wanting to do for some time. The closest I ever got to this was buying some USB to servo devices which are still in their plastic packages.

Be warned that this is not for the faint of heart or those who fear a soldering iron. But, you can purchase a kit from the author of the article if you would like the process to go a bit quicker.

Let me know if any of you attempt this or have in the past and what some of your results have been.

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