s1axter posted on Sat. June 9th 2007 at 08:04 PM PST
Need a table for your porch? Why not dumpster dive and make one using a stop sign and a trashcan?
It's amazing what you can find in a university dumpster, chairs, desks even discarded street signs. When I was in school I saved this stop sign from the landfill and kept hanging it on walls; until today at least. Now you can't just tack a sign to a platform without drilling the steel, that's where more dumpster diving comes into play. I was lucky enough to find this nice piece of plywood, carelessly discarded in the trash. A few quick cuts and I had a nice platform to mount the sign.
A run to Home Depot to find a base resulted in a $12 trashcan and $3 in hardware. So for $15 I now have a nice, chair level outdoor table/conversation piece.
For your viewing pleasure I snapped some pix of the materials and table.
s1axter posted on Thu. June 7th 2007 at 10:24 PM PST
This is one bad-ass line following bot!! It has six wheels and tears down the line like a bat out of hell. I'm not too sure why you would put six wheels on something that follows a line on a lab floor but whatever floats your boat. Check out these two videos from youtube, my favorite part is the first vid when it stops for the trash can.
s1axter posted on Wed. June 6th 2007 at 10:01 PM PST
Woah! Yes Geeksinside.com got a facelift. It's been in the works for a while but never really got put up. That was mostly due to me not knowing how to make a database correctly. Firewire helped out and the end result you are looking at right now. There are some big changes here. If you are a returning visitor might not notice all of them right away.
First are the blog images and links. To help differentiate between posters & blogs we added blog images so with a quick look you can see who posted what. If you click on the image (we call a 'tile') or the name of a blog anywhere on the site you will go to that person's blog.
On a user blog page, there might be some more posts that aren't on the main page. It allows us to put up more stuff, and have an actual blog since sometimes I want to post stuff that isn't 'front page' quality.
Comments work again!!!! SCORE! And we now have a review process to keep all those spam bots out; logged in members get auto-posted comments. Plus the count below each article is accurate!
We added cool text tools as you can see here so posts are easier and you don't need to know HTML to emphasize things.
Now the sad part...the projects section is down. I really wanted to make a project/news site ever since I started this but it's a lot of code and figured I better start from a solid base. All the posts/files/pix are still around but right now they are locked in the database, as the code base develops I'll bring them back.
Old links still work but they re-route to the new pages. I really need to make true permalinks not just ?p=### on the url.
That's about it, poke around and leave us a comment about the site and what you want to see from us here at Geeksinside.com!
(The post image is kinda random but I thought it was cool. I stole is from here :-P )
s1axter posted on Wed. June 6th 2007 at 09:19 AM PST
Ben Heckendorn is at it again, this time he isn't modding the latest gaming system but rather making new stuff all together. You might remember Ben from the Atari 2600 portable, NES portable and XBox 360 laptop mods that have been splayed all over the net.
Ben's latest creation is the AudioFX Pro 5+1, a USB gaming headset that he has turned into a commercial product that should be hitting shelves soon. The headset is designed for comfort and style with a 40s leather look to fit right in when you are flying a P51 Mustang in Battlefield. What adds to a cool look is the addition of "force feedback" motors to give you that all encompassing feel of being in the game and virtual 5.1 surround sound.
Right now the headset is available on eDimentional.com and sells for $80 with the basic AudioFX selling for $50. Take a look and congrats to Ben.
firewire posted on Tue. June 5th 2007 at 03:03 PM PST
I just wanted to apologize to everyone for not posting this weekend. It has definitely been a crazy couple of weeks out in San Diego.
Ever want to take your rc plane/helicopter and take some photos from the air? There is a group of hobbiest that now focus on making hacks that allow you to take these photos. Here is a cool article on how to hack a camera to take pictures from your model airplane. If your bored take a look.
The hack in the post is specific to a certain camera but I am sure you can use the same guidelines to modify any digital camera (they are all fairly the same). I would really like to know if anyone gives this a try. I use to be a model airplane hobbiest myself and would like to know how it turns out. Just send me an email at firewire@geeksinside.com.
s1axter posted on Tue. May 29th 2007 at 09:49 PM PST
Hey, it's been kinda dead here the past few days. That's what moving and flying across the country for a wedding all in the same week will do to a website, lol. Unfortunately, I leave for the wedding tomorrow and I'm not going to be around the comp until Sunday. I'll see if Firewire can post some stuff regularly while I am unavailable. I promise some cool stuff when I'm back next week including a review of an embedded systems book!
For now check out Electro Tech Online http://www.electro-tech-online.com/ . It's a forum for tons of stuff about hardware and embedded programming.
firewire posted on Mon. May 28th 2007 at 01:16 PM PST
So I was driving home from work the other day and ran across this sweet car. Not only was the license plate great "<3 L1NUX" but if you look in the top right hand corner of the trunk it says "BioDiesel". I just thought it was something everyone might find interesting.
s1axter posted on Thu. May 24th 2007 at 07:06 PM PST
This is a cool video using a BOATLOAD of LEDs in a matrix to write 3D letters and shapes. I want to know how long it took to solder all those LEDs together.
Dumpster diving stop sign table
S1axter's Tech Log of Crazy Stuff
Need a table for your porch? Why not dumpster dive and make one using a stop sign and a trashcan?
Ben Heckendorn is at it again, this time he isn't modding the latest gaming system but rather making new stuff all together. You might remember Ben from the Atari 2600 portable, NES portable and XBox 360 laptop mods that have been splayed all over the net.
I just wanted to apologize to everyone for not posting this weekend. It has definitely been a crazy couple of weeks out in San Diego. 
Hey, it's been kinda dead here the past few days. That's what moving and flying across the country for a wedding all in the same week will do to a website, lol. Unfortunately, I leave for the wedding tomorrow and I'm not going to be around the comp until Sunday. I'll see if Firewire can post some stuff regularly while I am unavailable. I promise some cool stuff when I'm back next week including a review of an embedded systems book!
