Gadget Hacks How-Tos
How To: Make a powerful flashlight
Kipkay shows you how to make a powerful flashlight for under ten dollars. To finish the flashlight off you can paint it with black satin paint.
How To: Hack your cell phone to charge on USB
Kipkay teaches you how to make a USB cell phone charger and first you need a standard USB cable. Cut off one end of the cable and use a voltmeter to check which of the four wires has five volts.
How To: Use codecs to prep video for the web
This tutorial will help give viewers a good understanding of how Video and Audio CODECS work. If you are encoding content for web streaming this lesson will benefit you. In this example the guide uses the MPEG-4 Part 2 and MPEG-4 Part 10 ( H.264/AVC) codecs to illustrate how to make sure your end users can view your streaming videos. Scroll part way down the page and click the "watch this video" link. Use codecs to prep video for the web.
How To: Get alerts on new videos without going to youtube
With their new API, you can now get alerts on new videos without going to youtube. This tutorial will show you how to set it up.
How To: Use wget to manage downloads
The free download manager wget lets you download all the files on a page or directory with a single command. It also allows you to resume downloads after getting disconnected letting you start where you left off instead of starting the download at 0% again. Check out this tutorial and see how to install and use wget.
How To: Protect your email address from spam
If you're putting your email address online on your own website, or sites like facebook or myspace, you may want to be a bit clever about it. Check out this tutorial and see how to protect your email address from spam.
How To: Make Firefox much faster
This tutorial explains how to make firefox much faster by editing the about:config options.
How To: Detect viruses and spyware
This video helps you to protect your computer against viruses and spyware often contracted when using peer to peer (p2p) networks like limewire, kazaa and emule.
How To: Download free sheet music for any instrument
This tutorial teaches you how to download sheet music from movies, video games, and tv series. Learn to modify the sheet music to transpose the notes to any instrument and print it out. Again if you can get sibelius or finale, it might be better but Noteworthy Composer works fine.
How To: Get a free college education online
This tutorial shows you how to get free full college video lectures from the best sites in the US. It's based on the Free Education Online Program from the OCW Open Consortium.
How To: Improve your download speed
The key to understanding download speeds and if it's possible to improve yours, is really to understand that you want to increase your bandwith. Check out this video and see how to learn about bandwith, kilobytes and kilobits per second and improve your own download speeds.
How To: Increase video quality with the FFDShow decoder
FFDShow decoder (win32) owns both as a video encoder and decoder. It can process the video while it's playing adding effects like sharpening, deblocking and color manipulation.
How To: Filter incoming emails in Gmail
If you're new to Gmail or just haven't taken the time to play with it, and really want to know how to deal with filters (sorry there aren't folders) and organize your inbox, then you'll want to check out this tutorial.
How To: Turn YouTube videos into AVI files or iPod mp4's
Learn how to save youtube's FLV files and turn them into editable AVI, wmv files that you can edit with movie maker or your favorite video editing software. You can use this to create video responses to your favorite youtube personalities by cutting direct video quotes from their video.
How To: Format text on your YouTube posts
This video tutorial will talk about html formatting on YouTube. specifically how to make your comments bold, italicized (italics), underlined, or all of the above. It also explains html entities.
How To: Use the hotkeybind macro
This tutorial explains how to use the free Hotkeybind macro. It allows you to open programs or insert text with a just a keystroke.
How To: Make a Bawls bottle blue LED light
Kipkay shows you how to turn an ordinary Bawls bottle into a cool crystal LED light.
How To: Make a whipped cream can safe
Make a hidden safe out of a whipped cream can. Kipkay shows you how to make a secret stash for valuables with just some magnets and glue.
How To: Use Google docs & spreadsheets sharing
This video shows a cut and paste illustration of the tools Google offers in it's documents programs. Sharing a document can either occur by transmitting the doc from your home server to another person's home OR you can upload a doc to Google and browse from anywhere-- not just your home computer.
How To: Create new contacts in a BlackBerry 8700 address book
Male instructor explains how to create new contacts in the BlackBerry 8700 mobile device. Going to the BlackBerry's address book, it is a matter of entering in all the information for a new contact to be created. Step-by-step process makes it very easy to understand and complete the contact.
How To: Send photos from a Nokia N73
This video demonstrates how to send photos to an online blog using a Nokia N73. The video walks your through selecting the photos you want to send and sending the photos to an online blog.
How To: Make a LED magnet
This video will shed some light on your refrigerator. All you need are some LED's, duct tape,some magnets, and this video to learn how to make LED magnets! Make a LED magnet.
How To: Make a reusable LED glowstick
This video will light up your life. With only a glue stick and 2 LEDs, you can make a reusable glow stick. Make a reusable LED glowstick.
How To: Build simple motor
This video shows how to build a simple motor using a battery, magnet, a screw, and some wire. This is a fun project for children. Build simple motor.
How To: Integrate GPS and LCD components
In this video, Bre Pettis, from MAKE magazine, and Joe Grand make a GPS-LCD unit. This project requires an LCD screen, circuit board, a GPS chip, and programming knowledge.
How To: Charge your phone using a USB cable
This video demonstrates step-by-step instructions for charging a cell phone using a USB cord. Charge your phone using a USB cable.
How To: Increase the speed of an electric toothbrush motor
Need to rev up the speed of that electric toothbrush? Try using some rare earth magnets to increase the speed of an electric motor. Increase the speed of an electric toothbrush motor.
How To: Program a Wiimote using the GlovePie GUI
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how to program the buttons and directional pad on your Wiimote using GlovePie's GUI interface.
How To: Program Wiimote motion detection in GlovePie
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how to program your PC to detect motion from the Wiimote using GlovePie.
How To: Program double input Wiimote detection with GlovePie
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how to program your PC to detect motion from dual input the Wiimote using GlovePie. You'll be able to connect two Wiimotes to your PC.
How To: Program GlovePie to calculate distance using a Wiimote
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how to program your PC to calculate distance using the Wiimote's infra-red (IR) sensor.
How To: Program Wiimote button combinations using GlovePie
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how to create scripts in GlovePie to program your PC to respond to simultaneous button presses and button combinations from a Wiimote.
How To: Program a Wiimote speaker with GlovePie
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how you can program GlovePie scripts that will emit sounds from the Wiimote's built in speaker.
How To: Hack a 12-volt Battery for 8 1.5-volt button cells
Interested in getting 1.5-volt button cell batteries for pennies on the dollar? Kip Kay, of Make Magazine, is here to show you how. The trick is to buy Energizer A23s, each of which contains 8 1.5-volt button cells. For detailed instructions on this straightforward money-saving hack, take a look!
How To: Use the Wiimote's IR function to emulate a mouse
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. See how to program scripts in Glovepie to use the infra-red sensor on the Wiimote to move the mouse cursor.
How To: Make infrared goggles
Kip Kay of Make Magazine will teach you how to turn welding goggles into infrared goggles with the hack he outlines in this how-to video. The entire project only costs $10. To replicate this hack at home and build your own pair of steampunk infrared goggles, follow along with the steps in this video tutorial. Just don't look at the sun!
How To: Emulate joystick input with a Wiimote and GlovePie
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how to program your PC to recognize analog input or joystick/joypad input from a Wiimote using GlovePie and another piece of software called PPJOY
How To: Make a Lego flash drive
Here's a way to take a boring old flash drive and make it into a Lego flash drive by taking it apart and inserting into a Lego block.
How To: Control your PC with a Wiimote
Did you know that you can make a Nintendo Wii Wiimote function as a mouse or joystick on your PC? Here's how you can use your Wiimote as a PC controller using a bluetooth adaptor or card and some specialty software called GlovePie.
How To: Syncronize a Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie
If you're trying to get your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to connect to your PC via a bluetooth connection, you'll need to sycronize it before you can start using it as an input device. Learn some basic scripting and programming in GlovePie, input emulation software, to get your Wiimote up and running.