Virtual PSP Modification

Those of you aching to pull open your PSP and do a little modding but afraid to void your warranty -- or worse, brick your baby -- will want to check out the Virtual PSP Modder software from AcidMods.

The Windows tool allows you to practice taking a PSP apart, look at the inside at up to 5X resolution, poke around with a virtual screwdriver and tweezers, tinker with the LEDs, apply random mods to see what works, and more -- all without having to crack open your actual, working PSP.

Or course, there's no PSP emulation, so you can't play any games, and you'll have to somehow translate what you do on the screen to real life at some point, but hey -- even Ben Heck had to start somewhere. Check out a fairly boring video of the software in action after the break.

Read more how to do this all.

The Hand-Carved Case Mod

Extreme Tech is having a month-long computer case mod contest. Each week the site picks a winner and then on August 20 they will announce the grand prize winner.

Last week's winner was this amazing Dragon Case, a computer case carved out of Black Walnut and painted. This thing is a work of art, especially the dragon. Hit the link for the case description and more photos of both the Dragon Case and the runners' up.

PC: The Hand-Carved Case Mod - Kotaku

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How to Upgrade Your Creative Zen Vision W Hard Drive to 100GB

Upgrade Your Creative Zen Vision W Hard Drive to 100GBPeople have made the case for choosing a Creative Zen W over both the iPod or the Zune (16:9 display, DivX support, 4.3-inch screen), but the storage size has always been a little lacking, even in the 60GB model. By upgrading the drive to 100GB, you're one-upping the iPod in both space and screen size. The process looks fairly straightforward, and as long as you follow each step to the letter, you shouldn't have to worry about bricking your player. [OneMansBlog via MAKE]

[via MAKE]

Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done

Build a gadget charger with a toolboxdiycharger.jpgWe're total suckers for DIY gadget charging stations that stow away ugly cables, so we couldn't resist Jim Driscoll's portable charger fashioned out of a $3 Walmart toolbox. Jim drilled a few holes to run the wire and used the toolbox's cubbyholes to accommodate his phone, Pocket PC, shaver and other gadgets, complete with labels for each.

Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done

DIY infrared digicam filter on the cheap

If you're looking to get in touch with your artsy side, check out Instructables' DIY infrared filter project, which not only involves crafting the hack, but also adds some new flavor to your digital photography routine. With some cardboard tubes, old negatives, electrical tape, and a few other minor tools, you can whip up one of these in a jiffy. You're good to go as long as your camera's sensitive to infrared light -- something you can test using an IR remote. We suggest experimenting with subject matter like nature scenes or architecture, but if you decide to perv it up, good luck trying to peep those Japanese Olympic swimmers.

DIY infrared digicam filter on the cheap

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DIY project turns an oscilloscope into a clock - Engadget

While the highly-regarded Pong clock has long held the crown for most intriguing DIY clock, it looks like the leaderboard could be seeing a change. Frank Techniek's interesting oscilloscope conversion is yet another prime example of turning vintage (or otherwise idiosyncratic) kit into a modern day gadget, and the 20MHz TRIO that once read signal voltages for a living is now enjoying an unusually time consuming (ahem) retirement.

Per usual, this expert-minded endeavor involved more circuitry, soldering, resistors, and time off than we have room to explain, but if you're interested in propping one of these up in your den, be sure to hit the read link for the nicely detailed bill of materials and assembly instructions.

DIY project turns an oscilloscope into a clock - Engadget

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Free your music from iTunes with iTunes Exporter

 

Free your music from iTunes with iTunes Exporter

FROM LIFEHACKER.COM: You just put together the iTunes playlist of your life, and now you want to slap it on a thumb drive to give your sweetie. You've got a dozens of gigabytes of iTunes music on an external drive at home, and you just want to copy your Top Rated songs to your laptop for listening on the go.

DIY LCD geek display

Not so many people know that we can use above small LCD to create our own unique display. Yes, it's a common LCD that usually used at any DVD/VCD players.

With some programming knowledge, the LCD can be used to display CPU temperature:



Winamp spectrum:



Winamp playlist:



But now you don't need any deep technical knowledge to do this all. You can use open source application such as LCD Smartie, and your LCD display will be ready to rock!

Pictures taken from http://arnanto.web.ugm.ac.id .

Pepakura: A Low Cost Hobby

Pepakura is how Japanese spell Papercraft. And yes, it's a papercraft. Almost like origami, pepakura is the art of making 3D object using paper. Cut the paper, stick them with glue, and build your own object.

To ease the job, there's a software named Pepakura Designer from Tamasoft, Japan. It could import 3D object from 3Ds Max application and generate "paper view" of the 3D models.

So, if you're a Gundam lover but having trouble with the bucks, now it's time to build your own Gundam at low cost!

Or try this chiby Gundam first:

http://win1999.web.fc2.com/Oshiire/EXTRA/018/18.htm

Create Your Own Star Wars Characters

Are you someone who can't miss anything about Star Wars? Why don't you build your own favourite character from, ehm, papper? It's cheap and awesome!

Print the pattern on a paper, cut them and fold into a sweet Darth Vader.

Looking for Luke Skywalker?

Daisy, open souce MP3 player

The Daisy is a multipurpose sound player for embedded aplications. It can be used as a standalone personal music player,as the sound for an art project, in a kiosk, as a museum tour guide, in a toy, or anywhere that high quality embedded audio is desired. It uses MMC or SD flash memory cards so storage size is unlimited. It has several interface modes for either human or machine control.

The Daisy is based on the Microchip PIC18F45j10, which is a new family of PIC microcontrollers. They are capable of running at a full 40MHz at 3.3 volts, which makes them ideal for this application. Also, most of the pins are 5 volt tolerant, easing interface with other microcontrollers. The other chip on board is a VS1011 from VLSI, Finland. It is an .mp3 and .wav decoder chip, a DAC, and a headphone amplifier all in one 28 pin package. I’ve been fooling around with this family of decoders since 2001 and I have never found an mp3 file it couldn’t decode... and the sound is very good!

All of the firmware was written using CCS PCH C compiler. The CAD files were made with EAGLE cad. The manual was writted with OpenOffice.

This is an open source project, with minimal protections reserved via a Creative Commons license. You are allowed to use any of the information on this page for any purpose, I only require attribution. Please go to the Creative Commons website and look at the GNU General Public License for the general idea