Turn an Old Hard Drive into an External Hard Drive

Odds are you have spare hard drives lying around from old computers. Instead of tossing them out or letting them collect dust, you can easily turn them into DIY external hard drives and use them to backup your important files.

Basically all you have to do is pick up a cheap hard drive enclosure, stuff the old drive inside, and connect it to your computer.

More details about this project

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Touch Screen, Linux-Based Digital Guitar

Electric guitars require vibrations to create sound.  While they sound cool, this places an enormous amount of restraint on the guitar largely because the you have to concentrate on plucking perfectly and only have one hand free. The Misa digital guitar aims to change that.

The creator of this cool Linux based guitar uses a touch sensitive screen in order to pick up you hand movements and thus create sound. You don’t pluck strings, rather you move your fingers around on certain areas of the screen. Holding your finger down then moving it backwards will elongate the note.

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How to: Boost your Linksys Wireless Router Signal

The Linksys WRT54G router is a low cost and versatile wireless device which can be bought for about $30 on Ebay. What makes it powerful is that its firmware can be easily modded and replaced by third party firmware such as DD-WRT, a Linux-based, open source alternative which boosts the power of the device.
The idea behind the upgrade is to increase the range of the Wi-Fi router by overclocking and increasing the signal strength. Attaching a 9dB antenna to the router also significantly boosts the signal.

 To avoid any problems with overheating, a heatsink was added near the CPU and an extra fan on top of the router. The end result isn’t super attractive, but it’s an extremely cost effective way of covering a large area with an amplified Wi-Fi signal.   Check out the full project details and our similar wifi Hacks below:

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How to: Install Android on the Nook Color

A clever modder installed CyanogenMod 7 (a version of Android) onto a Nook Color.  For around $200, it’s a super cheap Android tablet with an 800MHz processor and flash support. The video tutorial below will walk you through the install process:

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DIY Open Source Laptop

We’ve seen open source computing power grow steadily over the years:  First the Arduino, then the Raspberry Pi, and now the open source laptop.  Yes, you read that correctly:  the goal of this project is to create a laptop built entirely with open source materials.  The laptop is powered by a quad-core ARM CPU, features an on-board FPGA, and has plenty of GPIOs.

The PCB is just 4.5″ x 6″ and its height is governed by the ethernet port at 0.60″.  In terms of memory, it can handle up to 4GB of a 64-bit, DDR3-1066 SO-DIMM.  The creator hopes to release a the laptop in kit after some additional testing and debug.  In the meantime, check out the project details to learn more about this complex project.

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