A tipster who has proven to be reliable in the past says that Barnes and Noble’s Nook will get a software update this week — most likely around Tuesday. The update itself looks to be fairly large, improving some of the major issues we’ve had with the e-reader — like page refresh rate and a lot of other little performance issues. Our tipster also says they’ve played with an updated unit and that it’s much, much better, so we’re interested to see for ourselves when the update goes down. Until then, check out the (partial) list of bugs and fixes we’re hearing the update will include after the break.
We love DIY projects here at Lifehacker. Whether we’re building computers, backyard projects, or turning office supplies into artillery, we’re always tinkering. Today we’re taking a peek at the most popular DIY projects of 2009.
Inspired by a tutorial we posted last year, we decided to make our own DIY sun jars. The trendy summer time lighting accessory retails for $30+ but we were able to make ours for around $10 each. The sun jars proved to be our most popular non-computer DIY of the entire year and readers shared their own creations with us.
Building your own computer is a great way to get exactly what you want, the way you want it, without being constrained by the limits and high-prices of mass produced computers. We showed you how to build a computer from start to finish and have fun doing it.
What’s standing between you and some office mayhem? Certainly not a lack of Sharpie markers and keyboard dusting spray. Combine the two with this fun DIY project and you’ve got one of the most awesome pieces of office-machinery we’ve ever featured.
You need to be properly erasing your physical media: all the time, every time. Our guide will show you how to get the job done and done right whether you use software to scrub your disks or you send them to the great data mine in the sky with a 21-gun salute.
Why settle for a digital picture frame when, in the same wall space, you could mount an entirely functional computer/slideshow player/TV tuner? One Lifehacker reader turned an old laptop into a super-charged digital frame.
We’ve always been keen on DIY laptop stands, but reader Aaron Kravitz—inspired by an attractive $50 stand—went above and beyond, creating one of the most attractive DIY laptop stands we’ve featured to date.
If the Hive Five on best home server software got you excited about setting up a home server but you’re not keen on another unsightly PC in your home, check out this DIY IKEA NAS.
We’ve shown you how to make an air conditioner (even for as low as $30), but what if you wanted something you can put in your car and take with you? While it’s no substitute for a fully-charged and factory-fresh AC system, it’ll keep you cool.
Who hasn’t dreamed of having a mystery-story-style secret passageway? While a trick bookshelf is pretty awesome in itself, this secret passage hides a home office with clever style. One industrious Lifehacker reader and his girlfriend had grown tired of seeing their office from their living space, so they hid it behind a wall of books.
You’ve ripped a movie on your laptop, and now want it on that fancy new home theater PC next to your TV. If you’ve got the time, wiring your house with Cat-5e cable could make transfer times a distant memory.
We’re all about creative cable management here at Lifehacker, so we were instantly drawn to reader Seandavid010‘s rain-gutter cable management setup. He was awesome enough to send detailed photos and step by step instructions to help other readers recreate his setup.
The lights went out on analog television this year and we were there with a guide to help you build a great DIY antenna for boosting your reception and getting that crisp digital picture you crave.
Lifehacker reader Matt Lumpkin saw our monitor stand from door stoppers post and thought we might like his laptop rack hack as another space-saving desktop solution for laptop-lovers. He was right.
Suppose you were inspired by the cheap DIY home pizza oven—but weren’t so sure your home insurance would cover oven modifications. It’s time to build a safer, more eye-pleasing oven, and we’ve got a thorough guide.
Two years ago we highlighted how to crack a Master combination padlock for those of you who may have lost the combination to your bulletproof lock; now designer Mark Campos has turned the tried-and-true instructions into an easier-to-follow visual guide.
We’ve covered the invisible floating bookshelf once or twice before, but if you liked the idea but weren’t keen on ruining a book in the process, weblog May December Home’s got you covered.
Instead of storing your books upright on top of the shelf, the inverted bookshelf holds all of your books in place using elastic webbing so you can hang them below the shelf—all the while allowing you to still take them out and put them back on as needed.
If you’d like to have delicious home-grown tomatoes but lack a garden to grow them in, you’ll definitely want to check out this ingenious and inexpensive self-watering system.
A few years ago, blogger Jimmie Rodgers’s camera was stolen while volunteering in an impoverished Brazilian community, so he did what any sane person would do: He bought a new camera and made it ugly. With his uglified camera, Rodgers was able to snap pictures freely during the rest of his trip without worrying too much that his ostensibly crappy camera would end up stolen.
Nothing adds space to a desk or home theater setup like a simple monitor or TV stand, and weblog IKEA Hacker details how to build your own stand on-the-cheap with a few inexpensive items from IKEA.
You don’t need to run out and buy a new TV because of the DTV switchover. If you did anyways, Make Magazine has put together quite a guide to giving old TVs new life.
If you need some cheap and novel ambient lighting for your next party, you’re only a box of ping-pong balls and a string of lights away from solving your lighting worries.
DeviceGuru blogger Rick Lehrbaum, inspired by the cheaper set-top boxes, made his own higher-powered “BoxeeBox” for the free, open-source media center. He posted all the parts, the how-to details, and lots of pictures.
You already shelled out your hard earned cash for a swanky laptop, why drop more cash on an overpriced laptop stand? Cardboard alone can do the trick, as detailed in this step-by-step tutorial.
Have a favorite DIY from 2009 that wasn’t highlighted here? Sound off in the comments with a link to your favorite project. Want to see more popular DIY guides courtesy of the ghost of Lifehacker past? Check out our huge DIY guide roundup from 2008.
For nearly two years, Daniel Reetz dreamed of a book scanner that could crunch textbooks and spit out digital files he could then read on his PC.
Book scanners, like the ones Google is using in its Google Books project, run into thousands of dollars, putting them out of the reach of a graduate student like Reetz. But in January, when textbook prices for the semester were listed, Reetz decided he would make a book scanner that would cost a fraction of commercially available products.
So over three days, and for about $300, he lashed together two lights, two Canon Powershot A590 cameras, a few pieces of acrylic and some chunks of wood to create a book scanner that’s fast enough to scan a 400-page book in about 20 minutes. To use it, he simply loads in a book and presses a button, then turns the page and presses the button again. Each press of the button captures two pages, and when he’s done, software on Reetz’s computer converts the book into a PDF file. The Reetz DIY book scanner isn’t automated–you still need to stand by it to turn the pages. But it’s fast and inexpensive.
“The hardware is ridiculously simple as long as you are not demanding archival quality,” he says. “A dumpster full of building materials, really cheap cameras and outrageous textbook prices was all I needed to do it.”
Reetz went on to upload a 79-step how-to guide for building a book scanner (.pdf). The guide has sparked more than 400 comments. It has also spawned a website, DIYbookscanner.org, where more than 50 independent book scanners spread across countries such as Indonesia, Russia and Britain have contributed hardware refinements and software programs.
Now wearing a large black coat and a carrying a duffel bag that’s stuffed with a scanner made from laser-cut plywood, Reetz goes to conferences to show how anyone can create a machine to scan all the books they own.
As consumers turn to e-readers — about 3 million are expected to be sold by the end of the year — they are also looking for ways to bring their old textbooks and paperbacks into the digital world. And a small group is discovering that the best way to do that is to create a scanner yourself. The scanner is also helping digitize out-of-print books and help people with disabilities get features like text-to-speech that publishers won’t offer or are downright opposed to.
A DIY book scanner also raises questions of piracy and copyright. The basic question being: Do you really own a book in all its forms when you buy a book?
At the same time, ironically, the DIY book scanner is helping new create new tools to make copyright information more accessible. Tulane University is building a scanner based on Reetz’s design that would let it digitize its collection of copyright documents. That is expected to help the university develop a web-based service called ‘Durationator’ that would allow anyone to search copyright information about any particular book, to see if it is currently in the public domain or not.
“It’s amazing that a DIY book scanner is helping create the very tool that will offer copyright information,” says Reetz. “It makes me very proud.”
Scanners are commonplace — just walk into a Target, and you can find a scanner-printer combo for $100– but those machines are designed to digitize photos and documents.
A flatbed scanner can take between 15 and 30 seconds to capture a single page, so a 400-page book could take about an hour-and-a-half to three hours of work. Not to mention that the design of the scanners means that you have to open the book binding wide and press it flat, which can damage the book.
Instead, book scanners are designed to hold the book open at a 90-degree angle. A cradle holds the book face up so that it is gentle on the binding. This kind of scanner is also faster, because it can capture images of two pages simultaneously, using a camera instead of a scanning element. But commercial book scanners that are completely automated cost anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000. The $50,000 Kirtas book scanner, for instance, can capture 3,000 pages an hour.
Reetz’s scanner cuts that cost to a bare minimum: All you need are two basic digital cameras and some readily available construction materials. All the software and post-processing programs are open source and available for free.
But creating the system required a few hacks and a dash of ingenuity. Inexpensive digital cameras are ideal, but they have limitations. For starters, you need to hold down a button to click a picture. And the two cameras in a book scanner need to be synchronized.
Reetz found a program called Stereodatamaker for Canon cameras that could synchronize multiple cameras and flash. All users have to do it is download it to a SD card and insert it into their camera.
“The cameras are running hacked firmware and it works pretty well,” he says.”Then we take it to a whole new level for processing the images.”
Daniel Reetz shows his DIY book scanner.
That would be with some help from Scan Tailor, an open source application written by 29-year old Russian programmer Joseph Artsimovich. Scan Tailor can take the raw, scanned images of the book and split the pages, add or remove borders and process all of the images into a single file.
“You absolutely need post-processing software for digitizing books,” says Artsimovich. “If you try to digitize a book without such software, chances are you will give up because it’s just too much work.”
From there, a program called Page Builder — written by a friend of Reetz — can take the images and process them into a PDF file.
Reetz says the DIY book-scanning forum isn’t about distributing pirated content, but he can see the temptation.
“My project was founded in angry desperation,” he says. “It was a watershed moment when I realized getting an 8-megapixel Canon camera was cheaper than buying a bunch of textbooks.”
But is it legal?
So are Reetz and the builders of the DIY scanner pirates? That would depend on who you talk to, says Pamela Samuelson, a professor at University of California at Berkeley, who specializes in digital-copyright law. Trade publishers are almost certain to cry copyright infringement, she says, though it may not necessarily be the case.
Google was recently forced to pay $125 million to settle with angry book publishers and authors who claimed copyright infringement as a result of the search giant’s book-scanning project.
But not so individual users who already own the book, says Samuelson. If you scan a book that you have already purchased, it is “fine, and fair use,” she says. “Personal-use copying should be deemed to be fair, unless there is a demonstrable showing of harm to the market for the copyright at work,” says Samuelson.
For publishers, though, the growth of the DIY scanning community could hurt. Publishers today sell digital versions to customers who already own hardcover or paperback versions of the same book.
“You cannot look at this idea from the perspective of whether the publisher can make extra money,” says Samuelson. “Publishers would love it if you can’t resell books either, but that’s not going to happen.”
Instead, communities such as these are likely to force publishers to offer more value to customers, she says.
“There have to be things that you get with an e-book that you don’t get by making your own copies,” says Samuelson. “It’s not such as stark challenge for copyright owners, because not many people are going to take the trouble to make their own scanner system. Most of us want the convenience of buying digital books for the Kindle, Nook or Sony Reader.”
And unless, it becomes a hotbed of pirated content, the DIY scanner is unlikely to have a Napster-like end, says Samuelson.
Check out the video below of Daniel Reetz talking about why DIY scanner is fun.
Joining Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group (Stephanie Meyer, James Patterson) in delaying e-books months after their hardcover releases? HarperCollins, home to Neil Gaiman and the Lemony Snicket series. Beginning in 2010, five to ten books released each month will be given a physical head start lasting anywhere from four weeks to six months. Similar justification as before, the prevailing worry is that the cheaper digital copies so early in a title’s release will make for “fewer literary choices for customers” because publishers won’t be as willing to take a risk on new writers. It’s not necessarily the most sound of arguments, but still we can imagine some short term harm to the e-book industry. Question is, how long can these arbitrary delays last?
If I’d had this design back when I was a cubicle-bound temp then, well, lets just say I would have been fired even sooner than I was. The Pencil Crossbow is one of the designs for the book Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction by John Austin.
The crossbow is fashioned from just four pencils, a biro and seven rubber-bands, cunningly combined to make a deadly-accurate launcher which is guaranteed to take somebody’s eye out. The book allows for some escalation of inter-office wars with trebuchets, catapults and even printable targets to practice before an all-out assault on your boss.
We love this MacGyverization of office supplies, and the book is probably the perfect Christmas gift for the man who has nothing, or the cubicle monkey in your life. Especially if you want them to be spending more time at home. A lot more time at home. $17.
Take your spitball firepower to the next level with this guide for constructing a No. 2 Pencil Crossbow, one of many undersized armaments found in John Austin’s must-read new bookMini Weapons of Mass Destruction.
For those familiar with the classic Bic pen’s true function—not as a lackluster writing implement but as the ideal barrel for a middle school-era rubber band shooter—Mini Weapons is the Holy Grail: a beautifully illustrated guide for making all manner of miniature munitions, from slingshots and catapults to mines and bazookas, with supplies that can be found in any household, office, or classroom. You can start turning implements of work into instruments of war by picking up John Austin’sMini Weapons of Mass Destructionon Amazon and can find more information at JohnAustinBooks.com.
Supplies:
Pen – 1
Pencil – 4
Rubber Band – 7
Tape – 1
Wooden Skew (ammo) 1+
The #2 Crossbow is a larger variant of the other bows found in this book. With a structurally solid design and double elastic power, it is equipped to fire large realistic skew arrows. It sports a pen-housing barrel that helps with both accuracy and control.
Step 1: Using four thin rubber bands, rubber bands, assemble two pairs of unsharpened wooden pencils. Both sets should be identical and tightly secured.
Step 2: Crisscross the two sets of pencils. Center one of the pencils frames on top of the other towards a selected end. This end will ultimately be the front of your #2 Crossbow. While holding the pairs in place, use one or two rubber bands to fasten the frames into place.
Step 3: Disassemble the plastic ballpoint pen. You may need a pocketknife or pliers when removing the rear pen cap. The hollowed-out pen housing will be used for your crossbow barrel. Discard all the other pen contents.
Step 4: Position the pen housing on top of the pencils, as shown, then secure with tape. It is important that the pen housing sits on top of the rubber bands and that the barrel is not obstructed by them.
Step 5: Slide two wide rubber bands between the tightly secured pencils ends. The pencils should lock the bands into place, but if they don’t add an additional thin rubber bands on the ends. The wider will ultimately provide you with your elastic firepower.
Step 6: Bring both ends of the rubber bands together and attach them using strong tape. As you secure the bands, try to create a small ammunition pouch with the tape. It is possible you may need several pieces of tape to fasten the bands together securely. Pull the assembly back a few times with your fingers to test.
Step 7: Your #2 Crossbow is now complete! Slide one wooden skewer (used for cooking) or a 3/16 dowel into the pen housing. Gripping the wood arrow and the rubber bands, pull back and aim your crossbow launcher. Release and watch it fly!
Always operate your crossbow safely. Watch out for spectators and never aim the shooter at anyone. Wooden skewers usually have pointed tips, which can make them very dangerous. Styrofoam targets are ideal; but you should never place them in front of a breakable backdrop just in case you miss your target. Do not use the #2 Crossbow if any of its rubber bands show signs of wear.
Start turning implements of work into instruments of war by picking up John Austin’s Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction on Amazon. Then, check out JohnAustinBooks.com for printable zombie targets you can use to test out your mini weapons.
It’s been a season of e-readers, that’s for sure… and while Foxit is a smaller player in the scene as compared to the Nook or the Kindle, it’s got some news of its own to boast about today. That’s right, Foxit’s launching an online bookstore all its own. The aptly named eSlick Store has been launched in partnership with Fictionwise LLC (a company which is rather interestingly owned by Barnes & Noble), and currently contains about 60,000 books. If you haven’t forgotten — Foxit’s also recently released a firmware update which enables its support of EPUB. Full press is after the break.
When we first caught wind of Barnes & Noble’s Nook — a device clearly positioned to give the Amazon Kindle and Sony’s options a run for their money — we were understandably interested. As voracious readers and lovers of fresh gadgetry, a new contender on the e-reader scene is more than welcome. When we discovered that Barnes & Noble’s offering would not only feature a full color touchscreen component, but would run Google’s Android OS as well… let’s just say we were pretty much in gadget-hog-heaven. We weren’t without our reservations, mind you; the appearance of this device made for some pretty heated conversations amongst the staff over whether or not we were seeing the dawn of a truly commercially viable e-reader. Of course, for us the proof is always in the pudding, and since B&N is about to launch a full assault against the current offerings, it’s our duty to turn over a report. Is the Nook the answer to our e-reader prayers, or just a stepping stone to greener pastures? We’ve taken a long, hard look at the device — so read on for the official Engadget review.
Recession? Not if you’re the Amazon Kindle, it turns out — it’s currently the bestselling product across all categories at Amazon. Yes, that means it’s outselling the robotic hamsters, the t-shirts with wolves howling at the moon, and the limited edition Snuggies. November, when people traditionally start trampling each other in the name of gift giving and holiday cheer, has also been the best single month of sales ever for the e-reading device, in spite of the fact that there’s more competition than ever for it — so that’s good news for them, right? Amazon hasn’t released any actual numbers, of course, so it’s hard to say what it all means. The other good news is that as far as we can tell, it doesn’t look like they’ll sell out anytime soon. Full press release is after the break.
James Bach, a legend in the software-testing field, just publishedSecrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar, the tale of how he dropped out of school, became a self-taught games programmer, and scored a sweet gig at Apple—all before turning 21.
The book’s main purpose, as illustrated by the excerpt James has kindly permitted us to publish, is to show how education is not about pieces of paper on the walls, but the knowledge you cram inside your own head. His book is a discussion of his mindframe as he embarked on a life of self-education, as he became what he calls a “buccaneer-scholar.” Here, in a riveting passage, he manages to swing a gig at the hottest company in the Valley, circa 1987:
In May of 1987, nearing my twenty-first birthday, I was down to my last hundred dollars, and the only marketable skill I had was for [programming video games,] something I could no longer force myself to do.
Then a recruiter called. She’d found a resume I had sent months before. Would I like a job in Silicon Valley?
“I thought the industry had taken a downturn. Aren’t there programmers starving in the streets of Sunnyvale?”
No, actually there’s lots of work available. Would I like a job at Apple Computer, for instance?
“Sounds wonderful. What kind of work is it?” All feelings of burn-out were instantly replaced by a blazing electric neon YES in my heart.
Apple Computer needs me. Needs me. I am being called to service.
The job was managing a team of testers.
“What do you mean, testers?” I asked the telephone.
The recruiter explained that testers examine a product someone else has created and find problems in it.
“They pay people to do that?” Interesting. I’d always tested my own work. Then again, I’d never worked on a team with more than two other people. In terms of the software industry, I was a crazy-eyed mountain man.
On the way to Apple I bought a copy of The One-Minute Manager. It looked thin enough for rapid learning. I skimmed it as well as I could in the hour before the interview.
Walking into Apple may have been the first time I ever set foot inside an office building. First time seeing cubicles and conference rooms. First time seeing a carnival-sized cart of free hot popcorn parked in a hallway. Imagine working near the smell of melted butter! (Your eyes sting and you come to hate the smell of butter, it turns out.)
I’d been worried about my clothes. I didn’t own a suit. But looking around, I fit right in. Everyone was dressed like me.
Two guys in a conference room asked me questions. I answered them and showed the portfolio of games I’d worked on. When they asked me about management, I repeated some of what I’d read in The One-Minute Manager. When they asked me about testing, I said what every programmer says: “I’ve tested my own stuff.” Its not a good answer, but I didn’t know that. Neither did they. No one in that room knew much about software testing. There are no university degrees in it. It’s one of many new crafts that have emerged along with modern technology.
After the interview, I went outside and walked twice around the building. This is where I belong, I thought. I will rock this place. Please please please hire me.
A couple of days later, they did.
***
I was a nervous man on my first day at Apple. At twenty, I was the youngest manager in the building. In all the gatherings and reorganizations we went through during the four years I worked there, I never met a younger manager. I was younger than many of the interns.
Also, I was a contractor. That meant Apple could fire me without notice or severance. I had little money and no credit.
The worst thing was that nearly everyone around me had a university degree. A good many had graduate degrees.
I had to catch up to the college kids. I brooded on it every day. I came to work with desperate fire in my soul to learn. Learn everything. Learn it now.
As a manager, I supervised five testers, but no one closely supervised me. My boss, Chris, was in meetings most of the time. He needed me to get on with the work as best I could. This meant I could sneak away and read. I spent part of each afternoon in a donut shop across the street from my building, studying without interruption.
Chris was supportive. “You should not just read about software,” he suggested. “Try to find solutions to our problems in other disciplines.” Maybe Chris was more supportive than he ever knew. I treated that one casual suggestion as permission to spend work time to learn anything. I browsed many of the two hundred or so academic journals that came through the library. Even crazy stuff. I read “Anthropometry of Algerian Women,” and “Optimum Handle Height for a Push-Pull Type Manually-Operated Dryland Weeder.”
Of course I read every testing book I could find. I discovered software testing standards and studied those, too. I studied most evenings and weekends.
At first I thought I would learn a lot from the other testers. There were more than four hundred of them in my building. But talking to them revealed a startling truth: nobody cared.
The pattern I experienced at Apple would be confirmed almost everywhere I traveled in the computer industry: most people have put themselves on intellectual autopilot. Most don’t study on their own initiative, but only when they are forced to do so. Even when they study, they choose to study the obvious and conventional subjects. This has the effect of making them more alike instead of more unique. It’s an educational herd mentality.
I talked to coworkers who wanted to further their education, but they typically spoke in terms of getting a new piece of paper, such as a bachelor’s degree, a masters, or a PhD. For them, education was about the doors they believed would open because of how they were labeled by institutions, not about making themselves truly better as thinkers. Buccaneers, on the other hand, don’t take labels too seriously. A buccaneer studies in the hope of unlocking Great Secrets! Wonder! Mastery! A buccaneer lives for the excitement of deciphering the mysteries of human experience. A buccaneer wants status, too, but only if that status is justly earned and sustained through the quality of his work.
The $13 book is a wonderful read, especially for people who take education into their own hands—or would like to. There are so many brilliant people for whom the structure of school simply doesn’t work, and it takes an eloquent geek like James prove to people in similar situations that this isn’t their fault, and that they can do something about it. You can check out more on James’ website, and you can follow him on Twitter at @jamesmarcusbach. Thanks again, James—and yo ho ho, matey!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
We love DIY projects here at Lifehacker. Whether we’re building computers, backyard projects, or turning office supplies into artillery, we’re always tinkering. Today we’re taking a peek at the most popular DIY projects of 2009.
Why settle for a digital picture frame when, in the same wall space, you could mount an entirely functional computer/slideshow player/TV tuner? One Lifehacker reader turned an old laptop into a super-charged digital frame.
You’ve ripped a movie on your laptop, and now want it on that fancy new home theater PC next to your TV. If you’ve got the time, wiring your house with Cat-5e cable could make transfer times a distant memory.
The lights went out on analog television this year and we were there with a guide to help you build a great DIY antenna for boosting your reception and getting that crisp digital picture you crave.
