LED Keyboards

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Pond Shade from Salvaged Materials

I have a small pond made from a 280 gallon stock watering tank. It receives full sun all day, and, with roughly 10 goldfish and koi, is highly susceptible to string algae, despite weekly cleanings and a homemade filter for the pump. Having built a pond pergola for our 1800 gallon pond in the back, we had some scrap lattice laying around, so I decided to try my hand at a fewer, small scale projects, like my Potato Raised Bed, and this pond shade.

Why build a pond shade? It cuts down on water loss from evaporation, gives your more sensitive bog plants some relief from sun exposure, and adds a conversational piece to your garden.

I'm a lazy builder/crafter. I tend to build projects around what I have on hand, and save hardware from everything I scrap. In this project, I used two wooden fence rails, an old rake handle about 49" long, leftover lattice, a solar shade a friend had pulled off his 70's double wide trailer, four L brackets, a pallet board cut to the width of the lattice, and lots of various sized screws and staples.

For my tools, I used my 18v wireless Ryobi drill, circular saw, zip saw (not pictured), stapler, and clamps, scissors.

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Find and Replace Searches For, Replaces Text in Multiple Files at Once

Windows: Find and Replace searches multiple files on your system for a string of text and replaces it with whatever you choose. Think of it like the Find/Replace tool in your favorite text editor on steroids. The app is portable, supports regular expressions, case sensitive searching, and it's free.

If you're not interested in replacing text, you can just use "Find" to do a whole-system search for a string of text. For example, if you know you wrote a document about eucalyptus at some point but you have no idea where on your system it is or how deeply buried in the document your comments were, Find and Replace can find it—whether you're on your computer or a work machine where you may not be able to install something like a desktop search tool.

The app is also capable of finding and replacing multi-line text, recursing directories, and even sports command line options so you can include it in batch files or just run it from the command line. Hit the link below to download it, check out the source code, or see all of its features in action.

fnr.exe - Find and Replace Tool | Codeplex

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Instant Ice - How to Waterbend In Real Life

47. Instant Ice Experiment instructables.jpg

Pour a glass of water and watch it turn to ice instantly! This step-by-step tutorial will show you everything you need to know about Instant Ice.

http://www.thekingofrandom.com/

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Friday, August 23, 2013

Repurpose Old Video Game Consoles and Controllers

Now that you can build an all-in-one video game console for $35, or just use your smartphone or desktop, old school consoles like the NES or Sega Genesis end up collecting dust. You don't have to let them waste away. Instead, give their hardware new life this weekend with a few clever DIY projects.

The Nintendo Entertainment System gets more DIY love than pretty much any other system around. Due to its size and shape, it won't take up too much space but provides plenty of room to work with should you hollow out its innards. Additionally, you get a super-simple controller that can turn into all sorts of things. If you want a great system to hack, start with the NES.

Let's take a look at a few awesome things you can do with it:

If you'd rather keept your NES as a gaming system but want a little more power, you can also build a computer inside or just add a Raspberry Pi.

Although people hack the NES primarily, other systems get a little attention, too. If you've a different classic console, check out these projects instead:

As you can see, you have a lot of fun options regardless of what system you've got lying around. You also don't have to start with an existing idea. If you think of something awesome, it isn't hard to hollow out a console case and put what you want inside. If you come up with anything worth sharing, come back and post it in the discussions. Have fun, and happy modding!

Since its release, the $35 Raspberry Pi mini-computer has been hailed as the perfect all-in-one retro game console. Now, it's easier to do than… Read…

Whether you're looking to relive the past or experience the origin of gaming you missed in your youth, your Android or iPhone can take you back… Read…

Whether you're looking to relive the past or experience the origin of gaming you missed in your youth, your Windows, Mac, or Linux PC can take… Read…

The Best Comic Reader App for iOS

If you've been looking to go digital with your comic book collection, you're probably overwhelmed with all the comic readers available on the iPhone and iPad. Fret no more: Comic Zeal is the app you want.

Platform: iPhone and iPad
Price: $4.99
Download Page

Automatically organizes all your comics by seriesManually organize your comics with swipe gestures and easy-to-understand optionsTrack which comics you have and haven't readSearch and find your comics by title and tagsProceeds directly to next issue when done readingZoom lock lets you fit the page to your screen however you want and remembers it between pagesTons of additional settings for brightness, navigation, and readingLoad comics over USB, Wi-Fi, or DropboxComic Zeal is, hands down, the best app on iOS for organizing your comic library. When you import new comics, it automatically detects the series name and filters them all into their own categories by series. If you want to do something different—like create a reading list for a multi-series event—you can do so by swiping individual issues into ComicZeal's "slider," then emptying them out as you see fit. It can be a little tedious to do, but it's still light years ahead of any other comic readers. Comic Zeal also has a lot of settings for reading, which means you can get everything set up just how you like it. The "smart zoom" feature is particularly awesome.

Comic Zeal does have a few annoyances, but they're minor enough to keep it in the top slot. Turning pages is a bit slower than it is in other comic readers, so going from page to page doesn't feel very smooth at all. Similarly, importing comics takes a long time, and you can't do anything while the app is importing—so if you're importing a large number of comics, be prepared to set your device down and wait awhile.

Comic Viewer is slightly cheaper at $3.99, but has enough options to keep most people happy. It has a "fit to screen" or "fit to width" mode which works flawlessly, and it has a few settings to keep the reading experience solid. It also has a silly-but-kind-of-awesome page flipping animation and sound (which you can turn off), if you want to recreate the real-life reading experience as much as possible. Its organization is nowhere near the level of ComicZeal's (though you can manually categorize things themselves), so I'd recommend spending the extra dollar on Comic Zeal. Comic Viewer is certainly a solid alternative, though.

If you want something free, ComicFlow is probably your best choice. Its "library" interface is very similar to Comic Zeal's, but with some nice filtering options (though not nearly as many good organization options). ComicFlow, as its name describes, excels at flipping between pages with fantastic smoothness (unlike Comic Zeal). However, it doesn't remember your "zoom" level on each page, which is extremely annoying for people that don't want it to fit every page to the screen. It also is pretty bare when it comes to settings (for example, it only gives you a "dim mode" rather than letting you adjust the in-app brightness). Like ComicZeal, ComicFlow can import comics over Wi-Fi, but it'll cost you $3.99 after the first 50 transfers. If ComicFlow has one incredible advantage, its that it imports comics in the background, which is really nice.

CloudReaders is another popular one, and while its interface isn't nearly as pretty as Comic Zeal or ComicFlow, the reading experience is a good one. Like ComicFlow, flipping between pages is fantastically smooth, and it has a few more settings if you don't care about looks, care about features, and want something free.

Of course, all the above apps are for reading your DRM-free CBR, CBZ, or PDF comics. If you want to read comics from the official source, you'll want something like Comics from ComiXology. ComiXology is the place to buy, download, and sync comics straight from companies like Marvel and DC (who, incidentally, have their own Marvel and DC versions of the app), as well as others like Image, IDW, and Disney. If you're looking for new comics from these companies, this is the app you'll want to download.

Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

What do you think about the Prism news?

Great discussions are par for the course here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!

For great discussions any time, be sure check out our user-run blog, Hackerspace. And today being Friday, don't forget to check out this week's Open Thread.

If you've got a cool project, inspiration, or just something fun to share, send us a message at tips@lifehacker.com.

Happy Lifehacking, everybody!

Gizmodo What Is PRISM?

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