Commercial photographer Paul Adshead could have spent a few bucks for a macro lens attachment for his iPhone. Instead, a MacGyver-type of a hack gave him a lens and ethereal macro photos that seem achievable with only a high-powered microscope.
Feeling adventurous and uninspired by his smartphone photos, Adshead harvested an internal lens from a 1990s-era CD drive and, with a little tack-it putty, affixed it to his iPhone.
Arduino offers tools to build basically anything imaginable, from robots, to computers, games, weather stations, you name it. The possibilities are so vast, it can be hard to know where to start. So this bundle of Arduino lessons and materials offers a great resource.
Raspberry Pi is the platform for almost any DIY computing project you can imagine. From home entertainment systems, to robotics, to building your own smart home, it’s a compact processor with vast possibilities. So where do you even begin?
Raspberry Pi is a nearly limitless platform for all kinds of projects. It’s also a great way to bridge the physical and digital worlds, and a window into the internet of things. But to do that, you need the right gear and guidance.
Ever wondered what it would take to give your iPhone more storage? Apple charges a lot for additional room; maybe you could save a bundle by buying a low capacity version and upgrade the iPhone memory yourself.
A hobbyist successfully took his iPhone from 16GB to 128GB. But as he showed in a video detailing the process, it was a heck of a lot of work.
Arduino offers amazing opportunities for makers of all kinds. It offers a vast variety of projects of that combine electronics and machines, so it helps to have some guidance.
If you love Legos and the clicky feeling of using a mechanical keyboard then prepare to meet the keyboard of your dreams.
Lego master builder Jason Allemann revealed his latest creation today that transforms an old school mechanical keyboard into a fully customizable Lego creation. The Lego keyboard uses a Cooler Master Quick Fire Rapid keyboard as a base and replaces the frame and keys using 3D printed Cherry MX Lego compatible keycaps.
Take a closer look:
Despite the high prices, iPhones seem to be designed for replacement on a specific schedule. After a couple of years, the battery life starts to fade (and that’s assuming you didn’t drop the phone and crack the screen before then).
Even Apple’s extended warranty only covers two years. Do you have to pay $649 — at least — for the latest iPhone every two years just to be sure you have a phone that still works? Not necessarily!
After another red letter week at the Cult of Mac Deals Store means we’ve got some select cuts to share this week. There’s something here for everybody — save yourself some cash and a trip to the Genius Bar with a custom set of tools for fixing your electronics. Instantly enhance your iPhone’s pictures with a set of detachable lenses. Get an anonymous second phone number or 10 top tier apps for your iPhone and Mac.
Take a look:
If you’re coming up against the hardware limitations of your Mac, or just can’t afford one that performs at the level you need, you could always just build the machine you need. Spend a little bit of time on Newegg, and you’ll see that there’s basically no component they don’t carry, and no machine you can imagine that can’t be built. Getting the best parts for your personal computer can be costly, but with the Newegg $1000 Gift Card Giveaway even the highest-performing machine suddenly seems within reach.
For all the amazing devices you’ll find in an electronics store these days, it’s nothing compared to the wild DIY imaginations of people who aren’t the CEOs of major tech companies. Is there a machine to feed me breakfast? What about a device that guarantees I make a proper entrance?
No matter what you hare-brained idea, below you’ll find some of the best DIY tools to make it a reality.
So there you are, watching Netflix, binging on some TV series that everyone’s talking about when you suddenly fall asleep. What happens? Netflix keeps playing, running through a few more episodes while you catch some Zs.
Imagine, though, having a garment — socks, for example — that can automatically detect when you fall asleep and pause that Netflix stream for you. How great would that be?
If you’re comfortable around a pair of knitting needles as well as an Arduino mini-computer controller, some IR hardware and a soldering gun, you just might be the kind of person who should make these socks for a last-minute holiday gift.
Raspberry Pi is the super popular do-it-all DIY computer for the techno-curious tinkerer in all of us. Countless people have made video games, entertainment centers, security systems, automatic dog-feeders — if you can use a computer to do it, it’s been done with a Raspberry Pi. This starter kit is the perfect opportunity to get in on the fun, with the latest version of Pi hardware, a full array of accessories and peripherals, and instructions on all the tools, techniques and languages you’ll need to realize your Pi project. All that usually goes for more than $800, but right now you can get it for just $115 at Cult of Mac Deals.
With today’s tech, the general rule seems to be that if it’s broke you can’t fix it. But perhaps you could, if you just had the tools to work with the micro-sized, specialized screws and airtight seams of phones, computers, gaming consoles, and the like. Most of those tools for access are in this excellent bundle from iFixit’s, which includes a full arsenal of screwdrivers and an ultra-thin prying blade, all for $59.95 at Cult of Mac Deals.
Ready to build your own private robot army? Raspberry Pi is an inexpensive computer for coding and creating almost anything you can imagine, from home media centers to musical instruments, mechanical devices to gaming systems, and everything in between. This lesson bundle slices Raspberry Pi into five areas, from the very basics of coding and connecting computers to hardware all the way up to building a robot (really), and right now it’s just $39 at Cult of Mac Deals.
The Apple Watch is a great way to unlock all sorts of aspects of your life, from better health to your bank account. Heck, it’ll even unlock your Mac. But will it unlock your door? It can now.
The Apple Watch is one of the most impressive feats of engineering to come out of Cupertino. When it comes to repairing Jony Ive’s wearable yourself, you’re not going to get much help though, so the brilliant minds at iFixit have already come up with a few repair guides.
iFixit published four guides today on how to repair various parts of the Apple Watch that will help make your fixes a breeze. Unfortunately, iFixit says pretty much any repair you make yourself will break the Apple Watch’s NFC chip, but they’ve got a guide on how to fix that two.
Here’s are some of the quick fixes you can make to Apple Watch yourself:
Way back in the day (1972), Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak designed and started selling “blue boxes,” devices that generated specific tones that would game the telephone networks of the day (called “phreaking.” These would allow phone phreaks to make free long distance calls, for instance.
It was illegal then (the two Steve’s inspiration, “Cap’n Crunch” Draper, was sent to prison for five years for his own phreaking attempts), but you can get the same fun minus the jail time now at a new website that emulates the blue boxes of yesteryear.
Sick of the mountains of paper stacking up in your inbox? You’ve probably heard about the joys of having a paperless office, maybe even thought about setting one up, but didn’t know how.
Well, here’s how. Not only is it easy to set to do, it can totally change your life.
Here’s how to use your Mac and iPhone to effortlessly set up your own idiot-proof paperless office … the right way.
Taking macros of your monitor or American Apparel hoodie with your iPhone is so last year.
A Make Magazine tutorial shows you how to make a powerful microscope with up to 375x magnification using just your iPhone, a clear plastic panel, a piece of plywood and some inexpensive hardware.
If you’re a DIY-er that knows how to drill holes and take apart a laser pointer on a keychain, you could be taking super up-close pictures of cricket legs and your cat’s tongue before you know it.
The credit-card-size Raspberry Pi has taken the tech world by storm. Thousands of geeky kids and adults use the tiny, low-cost computer boards to learn about coding and create fun projects like motion detectors, birdhouses that tweet when birds are present, and mini weather stations.
You, too, can use this sweet little nerdy device to reproduce some of the cool things your Mac can do, without dedicating your entire computer to the project. Let’s take a look at what kinds of things might be interesting to an Apple fan with a new $35 Raspberry Pi 2.
You may may never be able to listen to Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes live in the Star Wars cantina for yourself, but here’s the next best thing: a turntable modeled after Han Solo’s famous parsec-shattering ship, the Millennium Falcon.
Never able to find an open Wi-Fi signal when you need one? Maybe you should carry around this sword. Modeled after Frodo’s weapon in The Lord of the Rings, it glows when it’s within range of open Wi-Fi.
Let’s face it. Deep in our hearts, we all know some colored M&M’s taste better than others. For me, it’s the red and green ones; for my wife, it’s the brown and orange ones. And Van Halen famously stipulated in all its contracts that the band should never be served any brown M&M’s, requiring some lowly stagehand to pick them all out by hand from a bowl before every show.
These days, things would be easier. Case in point: This simple machine, which was custom-rigged out of just an iPhone and an Arduino to individually sort M&M’s by color, no human intervention required.
Jewelry maker Mat Brown is getting married, and the romantic in him is hard at work creating wedding rings out of an alloy of silver and gold called electrum.
But on the practical side of sharing a life, Brown recently created space in his kitchen with shelves as unique as his jewelry: Brown used a glow-in-the-dark resin to fill in cracks in the wooden shelves, and happily shared the luminescent process and result on his blog.
