Archive for the 'Computers' Category

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My Mind Is Blown!!!

Published on June 8, 2007 in Geek Fun and Software. 1 Comment

Every now and then you see something that makes you say to yourself, “Wow! It’s too bad I’m so stupid or I would have thought of that.” The video below made me have one of those moments just now.

Interconnectivity and “community” are a few of the important terms in today’s techno-world, but these dudes skyrocket that idea to a whole new level. I can pretty safely say that this is the most amazing bit of software I’ve seen in quite some time:

I guess it’s just one step closer to when we can all just jack into “the collective” from our “cerebral connection enabled” couches. What a glorious day that will be.

Mad SteamPunkin’ Skillz

Published on June 7, 2007 in Case Mods and Geek Fun. 0 Comments

A few months ago we directed your attention to a unique and truly inspired creation over on The Steampunk Workshop. The Steampunk Keyboard created by one of the members over there is indeed a work of art and although the usability of this unique design might be in question, the supreme coolness of this clever mod could never be. Well, it seems the creator is up to his same old tricks. Apparently he decided that his nifty old timey keyboard just didn’t look right in front of his Dell LCD so he decided to do the only logical thing…

Now, you might argue that this brass-embellished beauty would clash with your current art deco motif, but for me… I just wouldn’t care. I’ve seen a lot of case mods in my day and I have to say that of them all, this is the one mod that I would actually drop hard earned cash on in order to obtain. I can’t even express how giddy this thing makes me. My favorite part of the whole design is the update he’s made to the monitor control buttons (click on the pic to head to the gallery page). Maybe it’s just the anticipation of Bioshock’s impending arrival, but I love this thing.

That’s One Powerful Gameboy…

Published on May 11, 2007 in Case Mods and Nintendo. 0 Comments

One could easily make the argument that Ben Heckendorn is something like a modern day Michelangelo. His creations could easily be considered works of art, many of them on par with the Sistine Chapel (to us geeks anyway). However, there are others out there that have some mad hardware hax0ring skillz as well. Take, for instance, the following example:

Although not nearly as svelte as something Ben might have come up with, you have to give credit to the industrious young creator of this Gameboy PC. You can click the picture for the full gallery of this amazing creation as well as a description (if you can read Japanese). As you can see in the pictures, the screen was removed to make room for the guts, but even without a screen, it’s pretty impressive.

Apparently this tiny machine runs Windows XP off a 4gb flash card that slides into the game slot. It also sports 2 usb ports, a built in nic and a vga port (so you can connect a monitor to compensate for the lack of a built-in screen). I’m sure the video specs aren’t anything to get excited about, but just imagine taking a pc that size to a lan party….

“Dude… where’s your machine?”

“In my pocket.”

“Heh… not THAT machine. I was talking about your computer.”

“I’m not kidding… it’s right here.”

The group then collectively gasps and someone can be heard to say in a near whisper…

“woot!”

Princess Zelda’s 24k DS Lite

Published on May 4, 2007 in Case Mods and Nintendo. 0 Comments

Sorry about the lack of posts lately (as if anyone out there really gives a shiz). I’ve been in the middle of changing jobs over the past few weeks and haven’t had too much extra time for blogging. However, I did run across this super cool DS lite mod yesterday over at DS Fanboy and knew immediately that I had to pass it along.

The gold plated DS (I’m gonna assume its just gold paint) that you see to the left is the creation of an obviously fanatical Zelda fan, but it’s difficult not to respect those mad modding skillz. You can click the pic for the full gallery, but apparently the die-cast crest actually swivels to maintain proper orientation so that it’s always right-side up. The insides are painted to match as well as both of the stylus and the charging dock. It truly is a creation that Gannon himself would lust after.

Usually a DS Lite such as this would be out of reach for most of us mere mortals who lack the modding skills to create such a masterpiece. Never fear though… this particular DS Lite is being auctioned off on eBay for the Penny Arcade Child’s Play charity. So if you’re not opposed to spending waaaay too much for a shiny gold DS Lite which will make you the envy of all your friends, head on over to eBay and place your bid. (current bid as of this posting is $660 so you gotta want it real bad)

Ben Heckendorn Rocks the Atari. . .Again

Published on March 30, 2007 in Case Mods, Games, Geek Fun and Hardware. 0 Comments

Ben Heckendorn brings gladness to my heart with his clever mods and amazing home-built engineering. This latest beauty brings you the Atari, including cartridge-as-sunshade, in a portable format. Here’s the link to the engadget post, and here’s the link to Ben’s page for this project. It’s not quite nuclear fusion, but’s it’s right up there on the coolness level. While you’re there, take a look at some of the other projects. Definitely gives one some food for thought about what’s possible when you’re smart and so forth.

A Blast From The Past… Kinda

Published on February 28, 2007 in Case Mods. 0 Comments

This is probably the coolest keyboard mod I’ve ever seen (not that I’ve seen a whole lot of em, but still). Keyboards seem to be somewhat neglected in the mod scene, but I think its mostly due to the fact that people don’t wanna mess with their main interface tool. If you get too tricky, I would imagine that the usefulness tends to go downhill fast. That being said, I’m not sure how “useful” this particular keyboard would be. There’s a video on the build page (here’s a mirror) showing the keyboard being used effectively to touch type, but I wonder how well it would work during an intense Counter Strike session. It’d sure look purty while playing some Bioshock though.

Windows Vista = Windows ME?

Published on February 10, 2007 in Software. 0 Comments

Well, I don’t have a lot of hard theroizing on this one; it’s more just a gut reaction after the Vista launch. The more I think about it, the more this is similar to the situation Windows users were in back in 2000. Windows 98 SE was the strong player in those days, very similar to what Windows XP SP2 is today. Anything you wanted to do worked pretty well on 98 SE, and it was pretty stable. Then along comes much-maligned Windows ME (Millenium Edition, for you youngsters out there), sporting some small upgrades to the interface and media handling, but pretty much just a patch on Windows 98. All the time, Windows XP was waiting in the wings – just like “Vienna” is only a couple of years out today.

Personally, I had no trouble with Windows ME, and I expect I’ll have no trouble with Vista. There’s a lot of contention out there about whether or not it’s worth upgrading, what the exact benefits are, and whether the new OS will “take” or not. I guess only time will tell.

While we’re talking about time, I wonder what the future of the OS is. There’s a lot of talk about virtualization these days, and with Macs running Windows, and VMware running anything, it makes you wonder what things will look like 10 or 20 years from now.

To close, here’s a completely unrelated link sure to BLOW YOUR MIND.

Have them mod it for you

Published on February 5, 2007 in Case Mods and Computers. 0 Comments

Here’s a neat write-up over at Tom’s Hardware Guide. Side view of the finished case The guys had a chance to have a company called Protocase build a completely custom case for them. It’s an interesting story; the Tom’s Hardware guy sent his first design in, and they sent it back asking if he was sure he wanted something that bland. The Protocase designers worked with them to come up with the case pictured here. Turned out pretty cool, I guess. Protocase has some interesting designs, from rack-mount to mini-itx. Worth taking a look at if you want something REALLY special for your next rig. Considering my wife was less than pleased when I picked up my Lian Li case, I’m pretty sure a custom built case is out of the question.

This Aint Your Fathers Black Mesa

Published on February 5, 2007 in Games and Software. 0 Comments

So I was trollin the vast expanse of the interweb the other day and stumbled across a nifty little gem with a huge amount of potential. The Black Mesa: Source project could very well entice me to revisit the doomed Black Mesa research facility and take another crack at saving the world… Gordon Freeman style.

Back when Half-Life 2 was released, Valve re-released the original Half-Life, but upgraded to run on the then new Source engine. Unfortunately, this only updated the physics of the game. All the image maps were left the same and the result was not much of a change from the original. Well, there were a few fans that thought it could have been a little better and so decided to rebuild the whole game on Source, including a new look.

Like all things Source, this mod looks to be pretty killer. Unfortunately, like many of the mods out there (cough… Goldeneye: Source… cough…), it’s been quite a long time in development. They don’t have a release date posted on the site, but they seem pretty optimistic that they’ll be finished “soon”. I’m not going to hold my breath until they actually get done, but I do plan to keep my eyes on this one. As long as it runs well, this could be one of the coolest mods to hit Valve’s Source engine since its release.

Ginormous Heatsink from CoolerMaster

Published on February 4, 2007 in Hardware. 0 Comments

I saw this thingummy whilst trolling engadget today. I think they pulled it off of a 1982 Firebird. You know, the sweet 6-banger one. (Side note: bless these times where we can have horsepower with reasonable fuel efficiency. I had a sweet station wagon with a 350 V8 that got about 18 mpg and had maybe 200 hp.) Anyway, I guess size matters when you’re talking cooling area. Does it ever reach a point, though, when you realize you’ve gone too far? For example, when your video card won’t fit anymore, and your case is bigger than your bed?