Hasta La Gadget!

Your laptop keyboard isn’t working, and you want to try your hand at mending it yourself? Chances are you’ve turned to the online repair community iFixit for a detailed, step-by-step account of how best to do that. If not, you’ve probably seen one of their gorgeous teardowns that strip a gadget apart piece by piece to reveal what makes it tick.

Today iFixit has announced it will be releasing its innovative manual-making software to the masses. It’s called Dozuki, and it features two products, Guidebook and Answers, that aim to provide the maker and DIY community with “service manuals that don’t suck.”

Owner’s manuals are normally tucked into the product’s box, where they’re immediately lost or discarded upon the gadget’s removal from said box (unless you happen to be especially organized, as I’m sure some of you are). If you want to tweak something, or if something breaks, you’ve got to dig up that manual, flip to the right page where the cryptic, often picture-less directions usually end up causing about as much headache as help. iFixit began in 2003 to fix that problem by providing easy-to-use, photo-heavy repair instructions that could easily be viewed on a computer, laptop, or tablet.

Guidebook is Dozuki’s documentation platform. It lets users create how-tos or provide service documentation that’s then available to everyone online as a PDF. On a tablet — a very convenient mode for accessing such information — this can be viewed in iFixit’s own iPad app, or another PDF reader like GoodReader. iFixit also has an HP TouchPad app.

“I used our iPad app to fix my car the other day. The form factor melts away, and you’re holding the manual. I’m positive that tablets are the best way to use how-to information,” says iFixit chief Kyle Wiens.

Dozuki’s Answers service is a question and answer platform for experts. It aims to turn “expert conversations into a useful (and searchable) knowledge base.”

iFixit hopes manufacturers and mainstream DIY companies like Home Depot and Radio Shack will join the community and provide their documentation, which customers can then expand upon, creating a fruitful, positive experience for companies and do-it-yourselfers alike.

“Imagine if retailers were to start integrating how-to information in their stores. They’ve got all this useful information about how to learn plumbing, and they sell all the parts, but they haven’t made it easy for people to connect the two,” Wiens says. “We can do that, and we can make it mobile so they can use it in store kiosks, or so customers can access it while they’re working on projects.”

Dozuki is currently in private beta, but will be fully available this fall. You can add yourself to the beta invite list if you’d like to check out the service early.

Image courtesy iFixit

The creator of one of the most popular Android software mod programs is now an employee of one of the largest Android smartphone manufacturers in the world.

Samsung Mobile has recruited Steve Kondik, creator of the highly popular CyanogenMod software, to work as a software engineer for the company.

“I will be working on making Android more awesome,” Kondik wrote to tech blog AndroidandMe.

A Samsung spokesman confirmed Kondik’s new employee status, but could not provide further details on the modder’s position or duties.

Kondik refused a request for further comment. According to a screenshot of Kondik’s Facebook page, however, his CyanogenMod software side project won’t be a part of his new gig at Samsung.

For phone geeks, one of the biggest draws to Google’s platform is Android’s customizability. As Android emerged as the true competitor to Apple’s iPhone over the past two years, the platform’s “openness” became one of Google’s main selling points. Unlike iOS, Android is available under an open-source software license, which means anyone who wishes to see the code behind the software can do so.

Kondik’s CyanogenMod software was a perfect fit for Android. Essentially, CyanogenMod replaces the stock Android software with a custom build, allowing for adjustments to your phone that you wouldn’t be able to make otherwise. From custom wallpaper to wireless tethering to even CPU overclocking, CyanogenMod became the official program for phone hackers since it was first released in 2009.

While Kondik says CyanogenMod and Samsung won’t have anything to do with one another, it’s easy to think his background in user interface tweaking and phone customization will influence Samsung’s software design. Especially after the company sent Kondik and a number of other CyanogenMod hackers free Galaxy S2 handsets well before the wide release of the phone.

And Samsung has proved willing to experiment with its own Android software interface. The company’s TouchWiz UI is also a custom version of Android, markedly different than the stock versions that come on other phones. In hiring Kondik, the company may go further with tricking out its own flavor of Google’s mobile platform.

Tomi’s halftone ‘print’ are made by drilling many, many different sized holes

Tomi of Finland (no, not that one) cuts these amazing pixelated pictures from plywood using nothing but an electric router. Well, an electric router which is steered by computer controlled servo motors and can cut the perfect-sized hole time after time.

The plywood is painted black before beginning, and then as the CNC router tirelessly carves out different sized circles the “white” part of the image is revealed. It works just like half-tone printing seen in old comic books and newspapers, only on a larger scale. It’s kind of like Roy Lichtenstein, only in plywood, and without color. Or cartoon images. And done by machines. But you get my point, right?

A typical picture will have between 3,000 and 4,000 dots, and takes the robot about an hour to complete. Tomi has also made a tabletop model of the Swiss Alps cut from 38mm (1.5-inch) MDF, but it’s these great pixel-art images that we really like.

DIY CNC 2 [All the Mods via Core77]

See Also:

• Pixel-art Retro Tie
• Ixxi
• Light Up Your Life With LEDs, Sewable Circuitry

Geoff Milburn’s air conditioning unit isn’t pretty, but it does the trick. Photo courtesy of Geoff Milburn

If you’re living in the U.S., we don’t have to tell you it’s hot outside. Damn hot. Dog Day Afternoon hot.

Temperatures are soaring in cities across the country, reaching (and breaking) record highs not seen since the early 20th century. The smartest of us are seeking refuge in the air-conditioned Starbucks.

Coughing up the cash for a Frappuccino isn’t your only option. Geoff Milburn of Ontario created a cheap, DIY approach to the modern air condition: The “Black Beauty.”

After rooting around for parts in his school’s science department dumpster, Milburn strapped an oscillating fan to the radiator of an old freeze-drying machine. Using copper tubing to funnel cold water in from an outside garden hose, Milburn’s unit is controlled entirely from the inside of his house, with a simple valve attached to the tubing for more efficient water usage and flow regulation.

It’s a huge improvement from Milburn’s original A/C design, which involved a lot more copper tubing, a much larger fan, and a giant trash can filled with ice water instead of the feed from the hose.

Milburn’s original air conditioning model was somewhat less convenient. Photo courtesy of Geoff Milburn

Check out Milburn’s page for instructions on how to cool your place down without splurging on a proper A/C unit.

Now all that’s left is to figure out how to cool down that toasty MacBook Pro sitting on your lap.

Redpark’s iOS cable lets you interact with Arduino hardware through iPhones, iPods and iPads. Photo courtesy of Make

With the introduction of a new cable made for Apple’s iOS devices, hardware modders are no longer beholden to the Android platform alone to fulfill their hacking desires.

Electronics accessory builders Redpark introduced a serial cable on Monday, which lets you connect your iPod, iPad or iPhone devices to physical computing peripherals. After hooking your iOS device up to hardware like Arduino — one of the more popular open-source hardware platforms with the DIY community — you can download a software developer kit that allows you to control the unit using your iPhone like a remote control.

Over the past few years, open hardware computing platforms have grown in popularity. ARM Holdings’ mbed project gives non-programmer types the ability to program small computers known as microcontrollers, while encouraging integration with unconventional objects. In May, Android introduced its accessory developer kit (ADK) based on the Arduino hardware at its annual developer conference in San Francisco. Using the ADK and Arduino’s free software tools, those familiar with coding for Android can make programs that interact with other devices, from a simple LED to a remote-controlled robot.

While the iOS platform remains far from ‘open,’ Apple gave Redpark’s cable its official stamp of approval. That means unlike previously, you won’t have to jailbreak your iPhone to connect it to an Arduino unit.

The cable costs $60 from Redpark’s site, and works with devices running iOS version 4.3 and above.

Head on over to Make magazine for a great rundown of how to hook the cable up to your iOS device and get coding right away.

[Redpark via Make]