Archive for the 'Random Stuff' Category

HOW-TO: Cleaning the Apple Keyboard

keys removed

There comes a time, when your shiny white Apple keyboard gets so dirty that you can’t bear one second more. For me, that day was today. I love the Apple keyboard, it is nice, ergonomic and looks very sleek. However the only ‘disadvantage’ (if you could call it that) is that it is white. It gets dirty easily and you can see really clearly everything. A simple wipe of the keyboard with a damp cloth was not enough. There was still remains of tons of different things, and I wanted it off. You never really notice how dirty your keyboard is, unless you use a white keyboard, or something of a similar colour. But with the Apple keyboard, the outer shell is clear, so you can see everything there too.
This little how-to guide will show you how I cleaned my keyboard to perfection. Click on for the detailed guide (with lots of photos).

UPDATE: I’ve been dugg, TUAW’d and del.icio.us‘d.
UPDATE 2: I had to change the photos to get them from flickr as I am burning through my bandwidth really quickly. I am at 18GB, and my max is 21GB per month!

Continue reading ‘HOW-TO: Cleaning the Apple Keyboard’

Links for 12/10/2006

egg cuber

The shorts for Thursday 12th October:

  • The EggCuber in action – above (video) [link]
  • It’s been four years, but Windows XP SP1 support ended on Monday [link]
  • Developers are from Mars, Programmers are from Venus [link]

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The Geekiest Licence Plates

uber licence plateopen source licence plate
1337 licence platelinux licence plate

Geek24.com went geek licence plate spotting (on Flickr of course), and found some very good ones. There are quite a lot of them; The above few are just some of the ones that I found funny. If you look in the comments of the article, you will find links to other pictures of similar types of licence plates. If you don’t get them, well then shame on you ;)

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HOW-TO: Rechargeable LED Flashlight

rechargeable led flashlight

I thought I’d mention this because it is really cool! An LED flashlight was built using an old tic-tac box and a few other components. You basically shake the tic-tac for 60 seconds which is enough to power the LED. As you shake the tic-tac, the rare earth magnet inside the coil (the red thing) moves up and down and cuts the coils of the wire. This creates an AC current. However the LED needs a DC current, so a simple rectifier is built using 4 Diodes. This will ‘convert’ the AC current to a DC current which will then charge the rechargeable battery. The switch can then be used to turn on the LED. You can try it yourself, the instructables article gives you all the details, and a simple schematic for the rectifier can be found here. There isn’t anything that you couldn’t find in your local electronics shop (or RadioShack for you Americans)
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Links for 24/09/2006

amazon zune apple

Shorts for 24 September 2006.

  • Amazon UK attribute the Zune to “Apple Computer”, recently fixed it (above) [link]
  • Xbox 360 add-on HD-DVD drive adds 1080p, for $170, to be released on November 22nd in Japan [link]
  • Digital fingerprint lock broken by MythBusters’ photocopied fingerprint! (video) [link]

Links for 13/09/2006

lego chaingun

The shorts for today (and some from the past) are:

  • Rotating Lego Chaingun that shoots elastic bands at 11 rounds per second – with video [link]
  • Why Linux doesn’t need defragging (good article) [link]
  • World’s worst hacker – IRC transcript (absolutely hilarious) [link]
  • iTunes 7 for Windows includes a Software Update like app to update Quicktime and iTunes [link]
  • Joystiq’s Wii rumour roundup [link]

The Ultimate TV-B-Gone

ultra tv-b-gone

You know you can get those IR devices that turn of your TV sets? Well this is an awsome mod made to the most readily available one: the TV-B-Gone. This instructibles how-to details on how to mod that puny one IR-LED into 20 LED’s working in series and parallel (4 parallel blocks of 5 LED’s working in series). Now this will truly have greater range, capable of turning of every TV set within a 90-foot area, albeit it has to be line-of-sight. But be warned, if you go around toting this thing in pubs/bars, make sure you can run fast!

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Links for June 29

lapd gps dart

The shorts for Thursday June 29, 2006.

  • LAPD to trial GPS darts, like in the moves (above) [link]
  • Apple replacing some MacBook’s with the colour defect [link]
  • MacWorld’s 23 things we want in Leopard [link]

You Know You Go to a Tech School When…

I don’t know what a typical college campus is like. Everything I’ve experienced at Georgia Tech is apparently not normal for a university lacking “tech” in the title. I’ve compiled a few things I’ve noticed around school for your enjoyment on this slow news day. Here we go. You’d be surprised at how much I’m not exaggerating.

This is pretty funny and interesting. We don’t see much of this at our high school, as our tech support is quite unfriendly! We have some evil people there, (and some nice ones too), but they don’t like you sniffing around, even if you know what you’re doing!

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LEGO Lie Detector

lego lie detector

You can’t get more simple than the Galvanic Skin Response [GSR] sensor. It is just a cut 9V LEGO motor wire and some aluminum foil wrapped around your fingers with tape. I was inspired by talks by Mindfest panelists Karen Wilkinson and Mike Petrich who talked about using this type of sensor. The theory is that; the more relaxed you are the dryer your skin is and so the higher the skin’s electrical resistance. When you are under stress your hand sweats and then the resistance goes down.

This is really cool. Now anyone can make their own lie detector for not much money (assuming you already have a LEGO mindstorms kit). Nice hack!
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