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What to do if your keyboard on the screen. And if there are dozens of screens: At CES, the Russian design Art Lebedev, the company shows upcoming Optimus Aux Optimus popularis keyboard with a mini and a series of six unique keyboard for data input devices on the key to the home screen.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Pompourri Rug
line follow robot, no programming required
You will notice that the pictured robot is built to micro dimensions(it measures 45mm in diameter), but this isnt neccesary, and this instructable will explain how to build it according to the parts that you can get hold of. the line follow robot is a great first robotics project, giving you good idea of how to achieve autonomous behaviour using simple electronic components and some mild soldering skills.
parts needed include:
an NPN transistor
a resistor (the value of which later be determined later)
batteries (between 6 to 12 volts depending on size of robot and motor requirements, I used two 3v button cells).
two motor and gearbox assemblies
a switch
a light dependent resistor (LDR)
and a suitable shell. (mine was the clear case from a toy, it measures 45mm in diameter).
a multimeter or ammeter
note: the picture does not include the transistor because at the time of taking the picture i was still in the process of designing and didnt think that the transistor was neccesary. also, only one resistor was needed.
Hexapoduino: tiny hexapod 3D printed, Arduino controlled
You need the following PRINTED PARTS:
1x Micro-Hexapod
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5156 (by ljon)
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34796 (remixed by carlosgs)
files: body.stl & legs.stl
1x Micro-Hexapod
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5156 (by ljon)
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34796 (remixed by carlosgs)
files: body.stl & legs.stl
1x battery clip for 4AA
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:109807 (by me)
file: battery_clip_4AA.stl
1x Pen Holder
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:110331 (by me)
files: PenHolder_hexapoduino_front.stl & PenHolder_hexapoduino_back.stl
You can eventually print an insect head / smile / other to put in front of the hexapod, to personalize it.
You need also the ELECTRONIC PARTS:
1x Arduino Mini or Arduino UNO (or compatible)
3x Microservo 9G
4x AA batteries (better if rechargable)
Then, if you want to make a light follower robot, you need:
2x LDR
2x 10K resistor
If you want to drive you robot using a nunchuk, you need:
1x nunchuk
1x nunchuk adapter (you can buy it or you can remove from an old / broken wiimote)
1x 10K resistor
If you want to drive you robot via bluetooth, you need:
1x HC-05 (or compatible) bluetooth module
1x 2K2 resistor
1x TS2950 33 (or compatible) voltage regulator
Mr. Reader is a Power User's RSS App, Now with Feedly Support and More
iPad: The looming shutdown of Google Reader is a great opportunity to look at new RSS apps to go along with your new syncing service of choice. If you like to keep up with news on your iPad, nothing matches the powerful options available in Mr. Reader. The marquee feature in Mr. Reader is its robust support for inter-app communications. Much like our dearly-beloved Drafts, the app can send links, images, and full article text to a wide array of other apps on your device (including Drafts, for what it's worth). What's more, the developer included a "More Actions" button on iOS's standard text selection popover, allowing you to send specific words or sentences to other apps. For example, you could save only one specific paragraph from an article to Evernote, instead of full text as most apps force you to do. If your favorite services aren't included by default in the app, you can probably add them yourself with custom URL schemes. If you send lots of articles to specific friends, you can even program in email actions to automatically fill out the recipient line when you email an article. Simply put, this is one of the most powerful and flexible iOS apps available, in any category. This power doesn't come at the expense of the reading experience either. Tabs along the top of each article let you switch quickly between RSS, web, and mobilizer views, and swiping your thumb in from the side of the screen brings up buttons directly below your finger to switch to different articles, allowing you to use the app with only one hand. If that weren't enough, the app includes a variety of different themes to skin the app to your taste, and even allows you to download new ones from the web, or even customize your own.All this would be moot if Mr. Reader still relied solely on Google Reader for syncing, but a recent update added a ton of different options, including Feedly, Feedbin, Feed Wrangler, and Fever. I've been using the app for several months, and I can confirm that Feedly and Feed Wrangler sync seem to work just as well as Google Reader used to. If you're an RSS power user, and you own an iPad, Mr. Reader is a no brainer.Mr. Reader ($3.99) | App StoreMount a Light to your Bike with a Clothespin
If you're riding your bike at night, a good light is an absolute must. We've shown you a couple ways to make your own, but if you already have one, a clothespin works great as a mount.Granted, most of these lights come with a mount, but if yours breaks, or just doesn't work well with part of your bike, this is a great alternative to going out and buying a new light. All you have to do is attach the light to a wooden clothespin with two zip ties, and clip it to your bike. Bike Hacks demoes the process by sticking it on a luggage rack on the back of a bike, but the placement will obviously vary from model to model. The upshot of this hack is that you can transfer the light easily between multiple bikes as necessary, making this great for sharing. Be sure to check out the source link for the walkthrough.Clothespin Bike Light Hack | Bike HacksTop 10 Tips, Features, and Projects Every Windows User Should Try
Windows hasn't changed a ton in the past few years (at least, the desktop hasn't) but there's always a dark corner to explore, tweak, and improve. Here are 10 things every Windows users should do with their system.SOkay, let's get the most controversial stuff out of the way first. Sure, Windows 8 puts a big focus on touch screen devices, and if you have a Windows 8 PC you can always downgrade it—but Windows 8 really doesn't deserve all the hate its gotten. Sure, the Start menu is gone, but even the most tech unsavvy user can bring it back with a bunch of different apps. Furthermore, contrary to what you've heard, it does have useful new features for desktop users: better performance, enhanced security, a new Windows Explorer (which, even if you don't love the ribbon, is more useful than the old one), a much improved task manager, the ability to Reset & Refresh your PC, the well-designed File History backup tool, and more. Even if you have a few annoyances, they're easy to fix. Plus, it even has a few secret features of its own, which leads us to...Both Windows 7 and 8 have a number of features that go largely unsung, but they can be really handy if you know where they are. From the smallest geeky tricks to the big features you've forgotten are there, a little exploration can go a long way into making Windows more productive. Most of those secret features should work just as well on Windows 8 too—plus, Windows 8 users have their own secret features to try out.Windows often gets criticized for getting slow and bloated over time, but you don't actually need to reinstall Windows regularly—as long as you're careful about what you install, you shouldn't run into that problem. Of course, if you've already reached that point, you can easily clean up and speed up your PC with a little maintenance. Make sure you don't fall for the big maintenance myths out there, or you'll have problems. While you're at it, you might try speeding up that boot time a bit too.Speaking of speeding up your boot time, have you upgraded to a solid state drive yet? If not, you should consider it—it's probably the best upgrade you can possibly make to your computer. Upgrading is easy, too—you just need to move a bit of your data around, since you'll likely be using two drives (one for your OS and programs, and another for all your files). Check out our guide to migrating to an SSD for more information.SChances are, with everything you do in a day, there are ways to do those things faster. The easiest way to speed up your tasks in Windows? Keyboard shortcuts. I'm still discovering shortcuts I never knew about and even the simplest shortcut can make a daily task so much easier. Check out our master list of Windows 7 shortcuts, which should work in Windows 8 as well. And, if you're a Windows 8 user, we have a cheat sheet with all the newly added shortcuts for you too.Okay, so this list is all about Windows, but even Windows users might need another OS once in awhile. If you occasionally need to boot into Linux, for example, you can dual boot Windows and Ubuntu in perfect harmony. If you want to try Windows 8 but don't want to upgrade just yet, you can dual boot it too. Heck, you can even dual boot and virtualize the same partition, which is really handy. If you need OS X, you'll need Hackintosh-compatible hardware to dual boot—or you could just install OS X in VirtualBox on Windows. There is some crappy Windows software out there, and a lot of it is extremely popular—like Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer, and almost any commercial CD burning software. Don't you deserve something better? Check out our Lifehacker Pack for the essential apps every Windows user should have, our App Directory for the best apps in every category, and the 50 free apps we're thankful for for everything else you could possibly imagine.Budding power users have no doubt encountered some of Windows' most confusing and cryptic tools, like the registry, DLL files, User Account Control, and other features. If you still aren't exactly sure what those tools do (or what you can do with them), we've got a guide that teaches you all the basics. With the right knowledge of Windows' advanced tools, you can do some really cool stuff, and customize Windows more than ever before.Okay, so you've discovered some of Windows' best features, but what about all those features you don't want? Or, what about the extra apps and tweaks you want on every version of Windows you install? You may not have known this, but you can actually create a custom Windows installation with all your favorite tweaks, updates, features, and apps in tow, so you don't have to redo them all every time. Of course, that's most useful if you reinstall Windows often—if you're just doing it once, you can also do a clean install without losing all your apps and tweaks using just a few simple tricks instead. Photo remixed from Fer Gregory (Shutterstock).Windows is a great operating system, but it isn't perfect. With the right apps and tweaks, though, you can add all the features you want and make its built-in offerings much better. For example: out of the box, Windows Search doesn't work incredibly well. But, with a few settings tweaks, it can be a million times more useful. Similarly, jump lists are cool, but it'd be nice if they were customizable—enter Jumplist Extender. Check out our top 10 downloads that enhance Windows' built-in features for more.Similarly, if you're tired of Windows updates ignoring the features you want the most, maybe you should spend that money on a few good apps instead—like Fences, for organizing your desktop, or Xplorer2 for a much better file manager. And, while we don't want to start a flam war, let's be realistic and admit that OS X has some pretty good features too—with the right apps, you can bring OS X's best tools to Windows as well. With the right apps and tweaks, anything's possible.
SOkay, let's get the most controversial stuff out of the way first. Sure, Windows 8 puts a big focus on touch screen devices, and if you have a Windows 8 PC you can always downgrade it—but Windows 8 really doesn't deserve all the hate its gotten. Sure, the Start menu is gone, but even the most tech unsavvy user can bring it back with a bunch of different apps. Furthermore, contrary to what you've heard, it does have useful new features for desktop users: better performance, enhanced security, a new Windows Explorer (which, even if you don't love the ribbon, is more useful than the old one), a much improved task manager, the ability to Reset & Refresh your PC, the well-designed File History backup tool, and more. Even if you have a few annoyances, they're easy to fix. Plus, it even has a few secret features of its own, which leads us to...Both Windows 7 and 8 have a number of features that go largely unsung, but they can be really handy if you know where they are. From the smallest geeky tricks to the big features you've forgotten are there, a little exploration can go a long way into making Windows more productive. Most of those secret features should work just as well on Windows 8 too—plus, Windows 8 users have their own secret features to try out.Windows often gets criticized for getting slow and bloated over time, but you don't actually need to reinstall Windows regularly—as long as you're careful about what you install, you shouldn't run into that problem. Of course, if you've already reached that point, you can easily clean up and speed up your PC with a little maintenance. Make sure you don't fall for the big maintenance myths out there, or you'll have problems. While you're at it, you might try speeding up that boot time a bit too.Speaking of speeding up your boot time, have you upgraded to a solid state drive yet? If not, you should consider it—it's probably the best upgrade you can possibly make to your computer. Upgrading is easy, too—you just need to move a bit of your data around, since you'll likely be using two drives (one for your OS and programs, and another for all your files). Check out our guide to migrating to an SSD for more information.SChances are, with everything you do in a day, there are ways to do those things faster. The easiest way to speed up your tasks in Windows? Keyboard shortcuts. I'm still discovering shortcuts I never knew about and even the simplest shortcut can make a daily task so much easier. Check out our master list of Windows 7 shortcuts, which should work in Windows 8 as well. And, if you're a Windows 8 user, we have a cheat sheet with all the newly added shortcuts for you too.Okay, so this list is all about Windows, but even Windows users might need another OS once in awhile. If you occasionally need to boot into Linux, for example, you can dual boot Windows and Ubuntu in perfect harmony. If you want to try Windows 8 but don't want to upgrade just yet, you can dual boot it too. Heck, you can even dual boot and virtualize the same partition, which is really handy. If you need OS X, you'll need Hackintosh-compatible hardware to dual boot—or you could just install OS X in VirtualBox on Windows. There is some crappy Windows software out there, and a lot of it is extremely popular—like Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer, and almost any commercial CD burning software. Don't you deserve something better? Check out our Lifehacker Pack for the essential apps every Windows user should have, our App Directory for the best apps in every category, and the 50 free apps we're thankful for for everything else you could possibly imagine.Budding power users have no doubt encountered some of Windows' most confusing and cryptic tools, like the registry, DLL files, User Account Control, and other features. If you still aren't exactly sure what those tools do (or what you can do with them), we've got a guide that teaches you all the basics. With the right knowledge of Windows' advanced tools, you can do some really cool stuff, and customize Windows more than ever before.Okay, so you've discovered some of Windows' best features, but what about all those features you don't want? Or, what about the extra apps and tweaks you want on every version of Windows you install? You may not have known this, but you can actually create a custom Windows installation with all your favorite tweaks, updates, features, and apps in tow, so you don't have to redo them all every time. Of course, that's most useful if you reinstall Windows often—if you're just doing it once, you can also do a clean install without losing all your apps and tweaks using just a few simple tricks instead. Photo remixed from Fer Gregory (Shutterstock).Windows is a great operating system, but it isn't perfect. With the right apps and tweaks, though, you can add all the features you want and make its built-in offerings much better. For example: out of the box, Windows Search doesn't work incredibly well. But, with a few settings tweaks, it can be a million times more useful. Similarly, jump lists are cool, but it'd be nice if they were customizable—enter Jumplist Extender. Check out our top 10 downloads that enhance Windows' built-in features for more.Similarly, if you're tired of Windows updates ignoring the features you want the most, maybe you should spend that money on a few good apps instead—like Fences, for organizing your desktop, or Xplorer2 for a much better file manager. And, while we don't want to start a flam war, let's be realistic and admit that OS X has some pretty good features too—with the right apps, you can bring OS X's best tools to Windows as well. With the right apps and tweaks, anything's possible.
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