Monday, June 24, 2013

Make a "Book" Shelf

I was just sitting around twiddling my thumbs and an idea popped into my head. I wonder if I can make a shelf out of an old book? The answer is yes! It's extremely easy, requires minimum tools and very little time. The end result is a pretty cool little shelf!

Tools:

-Screwdriver
-Awl (or something sharp that you can use to poke small holes)
-drill (optional)

Supplies:

-Old hard cover book
-Some hooks
-Two small picture hangers
-a couple of screws (length of screws will depend on thickness of your book)
-Some nice looking string or twine

Let's get started!


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Glove Mounted Soldering Station

Materials Used

"Trash"/Dumpster Dived:
4 cells from Laptop Battery Pack 
Assorted Switches
Electric Screwdriver with broken gearbox
A bit, 8mm to be exact, that I stripped horribly being foolish and trying it on a nut that didn't quite fit.
Remaining Right Hand Fingerless Glove from an Old Costume
Black Sock that had holes in the toe
Flexible Wire that remains in place after being positioned
Bracket that I found on road, bent it straight then bent into spool holder for Solder Roll
Coiled cord from old cell phone car charger-that kind that streches out and coils back like a corded land-line phone.
small diameter electrical wires scavenged from various things that I've dumpster dived

Purchased New:
Soldering Iron Tip
E-10 Lamp Base/Socket
Roll of Electrical Tape
Small Alligator Clips

Tools:
Small Screwdrivers
Soldering Iron
5-Minute Epoxy
Wire Strippers
Pliers


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Beaver Teeth Earrings

_IGP8937.jpgOne day while fishing a small creek,  I spotted a strange, small object in the water.  I picked it up and determined it to be a beaver's tooth, and  I stuck it in my pocket and went on..  A few weeks later while fishing on the same creek,  I came upon the matching half of the tooth I had found earlier. When I got home I looked at both teeth together and thought to my self, "what better way to class up your ears than to hang rodent teeth from them" and I have been making Beaver Teeth Earrings ever since. I now go to my friend who traps beavers to get the teeth.1.jpgPhoto 1
First take the beaver teeth and give them a nice light sanding to remove dirt & stains,  then figure out the how long you want your earrings and then make your cut.

Photo 2
I like to cut at a angle to allow for better hanging presentation 

Photo 3
Now I apply two coats of polyurethane and allow a day of drying for each coat

Photo 4
While waiting on the teeth to dry I pick out a cap for the teeth.  I have chosen acorn caps for this set. 


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Fractal Design Node 605 Silent HTPC Case Review

Legit Case Reviews

Fractal Design is a fairly new company that you may or may not be familiar with. They’re based in Sweden, and probably best known for their stylish PC cases. Fractal Design feels they are a great alternative to other similar products, so we’ll be taking a look at their latest and greatest HTPC case

The Node 605 (FD-CA-NODE-605-BL) is primarily designed with a media center in mind, but could easily be used for other applications. Unlike the Node 304, which was a shuttle style HTPC case, the Node 604 is traditional in case shape and size, while still being relatively light weight and sturdy.

Fractal Design Node 605

Fractal’s Node 605 only comes in black, but it looks extremely sexy, especially with that black aluminum front. This case will set you back $150.47 shipped on Amazon, which is not exactly entry level pricing, but is still fairly affordable.

ATX, microATX, Mini ITX, DTX motherboard compatibility7 expansion slots4 - supports either 2.5" or 3.5" HDD / SSD1 slim-line ODD (only supported with mATX or smaller motherboards)PSU compatibility: 180 mm (including any modular connectors) with both hard drive cages mounted or 190 mm (excluding cables and any modular connectors) with one hard drive cage mountedCPU cooler compatibility: Approx 125mm with side-mounted fans - For coolers with top-mounted fans,Fractal Design recommends that you add at least 30 mm clearance for decent airflowCase dimensions (W x H x D): 445 x 164 x 349 mm (17.52 x 6.46 x 13.74 in)Net weight: 6 kg (13.23 lbs)

As you can see from the specifications, you can run anything from a full sized ATX board to a MicroATX board. This provides a ton of flexibility and helps hit a broad range of different users. One other thing that you will notice between the Node 304 and 605 is the inclusion of an optical disk drive bay (ODD). Unfortunately this bay will require a slim-line ODD, which if you only have a standard sized drive handy, it will force you to spend a few more bucks on your HTPC setup. It’s not a huge deal breaker, as you could pick up something like a Panasonic UJ240 on Amazon for $53.98 shipped.

Fractal Design Node 605 Logo

Even though there isn't much in terms of moving parts or things that could break on this case, Fractal Design has a full 1 year warranty on the Node 605, which is a nice piece of mind.

Next up we’ll dig into the packaging and see how well Fractal Design accounted for the punishment of shipping companies.




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If You Think Like an Imposter, You'll Be an Imposter

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AMD Kabini Mainstream APU Notebook Platform Preview

Legit Mobile Reviews

AMD introduced the Brazos mobile platform in January 2011 and it became the most successful launches in AMD's history. These platforms featured 40nm single or dual-core C-Series (Ontario 9W TDP) and E-Series (Zacate 18W TDP) processors that featured Bobcat x86 cores and Mobility Radeon HD 6000 series graphics. AMD shipped over 30 million Brazos APU's in the first year and that number is now over 48 million.  AMD has also had over 160 different design wins with Brazos.The AMD Brazos platform ran circles around Intel Atom processors and had DX11 and OpenCL 1.1 support. The AMD Brazos platform was clearly a major success for AMD, but it is time to move on and introduce a new entry/mainstream mobile APU platform for AMD.

AMD Kabini Platform

That platform would be called Kabini and it comes out today. Kabini APU's will utilize AMD's "Jaguar" 28nm microarchitecture, have from 2 to 4 CPU cores, and feature Radeon HD 8000 series graphics.

kabini-platform-diagram

The Jaguar core brings support for SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, CLMUL, MOVBE, AVX, XSAVE/XSAVEOPT, F16C, BMI1, and has a 40-bit physical address space. Pretty much everything was enhanced and that means better performance. AMD says that jaguar improves IPC of single threaded applications by up to 20% over Bobcat, so the enhancements and added features have really helped improve performance. Kabini also has been overhualed when it comes to graphics and it features Radeon HD 8000-series DX11.1 graphics cores based on AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture. All Kabini APUs have 128 Radeon Cores and vary by clock speed only.

8000architecture_550

At launch AMD will have 5 'Kabini' APUs available. The AMD E-Series APUs will be dual-core processors with 1MB L2 cache in the 9W-15W TDP range. You have the E1-2100, E1-2500 and E2-3000. The Ultra Low Voltage 9W TDP part is the E1-2100 and it runs at 1GHz and uses Radeon HD 8210 graphics. From there you step up to the 15W part called the E1-2500 that runs at 1.4 GHz and uses Radeon HD 8240 GPU. The Flagship dual-core APU is the E2-3000 that operates at 1.65 GHz  and has Radeon HD 8280 graphics. All of the AMD E-Series APUs have 128 Radeon cores, but differ on the clock speed that the graphics cores are running at.  The clocks of Kabini parts are 5% - 6% lower than clocks of Bobcat-based E1-1500 and E2-2000 processors, but that does not necessarily mean that "Kabini" APUs are slower. It is likely that the difference in clock rate is more than compensated by improvements in the microarchitecture.

amd-kabini-apus

Those looking for more performance should look at the new AMD A Series APUs. You have the AMD A6-5200 (25W TDP) and A4-5000 (15W TDP) quad-core processors that have 2MB L2 cache! With twice the cores and twice the cache you can expect some good things from these processors. They are also clocked higher than the E-Series processors, at 2.0 GHz and 1.5 GHz respectively. When it comes to graphics the AMD A4-5000 uses Radeon HD 8330 graphics and the A6-5200 comes with Radeon HD 8400.

AMD Kabini Performance

The new AMD A-Series and E-Series APUs offer significant performance gains compared to the 2012 platform refresh that AMD. This should allow AMD to continue targeting mainstream and entry-level price points and go head to head with Intel’s Pentium and Celeron-class products in the mobile space. 

position_550

AMD feels that their new A6-Series parts can compete with Intel Core i3-class products and the A4-Series will be aimed more at the Pentium-class products. We will be looking at the performance of an AMD A4-5000 APU, so be sure to keep in mind that this is this platforms targeted market as we move forward.




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