Archive : diy

I wanted to try my hand on iPhone development. That can only be done on a Mac. So, I installed it on my AMD Athlon x2 computer. I tried many distros, retail EmpireEFI, iDeneb, Hazard. These are supposed to support AMD x86 architecture, but they don’t. The only distro that actually supports AMD is “SNOWLEO MAC Snow Leopard OSX86_64” iso. Yeah, it’s 10.6 but don’t worry we’ll upgrade it to [...]

I bought a Kinect recently (got it shipped from the US) to find out that, it needed an AC adapter for my Original Xbox 360. The original one costs $49 but the problem is, we don’t get it here in India :(. Well, I could make my own in under Rs. 20 (50 cents). All you need is: Soldering Iron, soldering flux and the lead wire Hot glue gun Shielded USB Cable (I got mine from a mobile transfer cable) 12V [...]

I had this problem When I press the power button the first time, it does POST but does not detect my IDE hard drive. Then, it does not boot saying “no boot device” blah blah After this, when I press reset (or quickly press the power button, twice), it detects my hard drive. So, my computer boots up my hard drive (Windows XP or whatever). So, technically, the hard drive boots with a soft [...]

My mum wanted a portable speaker for her iPod (She’s obsessed with this article about headphones being bad for her ears). I had almost ordered the xMini speakers when I remembered I already had a portable speaker from my Sony Ericsson W810i. It didn’t have a stereo (3.5 mm) port, just the Sony Ericsson connector. If you follow my blog, you’ll know that I’m the cheapest ass in town :D. I soldered [...]

Microsoft has a strategy to sell their Xbox 360 consoles at throwaway prices and make it up by selling overpriced accessories. I wanted to get a VGA Cable by which I could could connect my Xbox 360 to my monitor (Fights over the TV is quite normal in my place). I looked at the price tag of the Official VGA cable ($40!). At the end of of the its just a cable and it doesn’t deserve $40. So, I got myself [...]

Have you ever suffered from having an old computer, or a faulty CD/DVD drive? If yes, then even a doctor would would know enough to tell you that you need to replace it. And fast. That’s when I decided to replaced my old CD-ROM (can you believe it?) with a brand new DVD-RAM.  B) Its not a difficult thing to do, all you need to do is have a small star screwdriver. This is actually the easiest [...]

The usual computer drama, this time, was not very usual. My dad punched my laptop because of my “computer madness” (as they call it). Next moment, this thing was sitting before me saying “Hi dude, you’re screwed!”. 🙂 Anyways, I called up Toshiba service centre, that guy lied that it would cost Rs. 10,000 – 15,000 (Thats around $200-$300!). Then, Mr. Google told me that it would just [...]

Electronic devices hate water. Many of us have ended up wrecking our Mobile Phones, PDAs, Flash drives, iPods, Digital Cameras etc by putting it in water. I recently had my pants washed with my Pen drive in it. Fortunately, I could recover it. Here’s how. Remove the battery instantly. Don’t switch the device on or charge it what so ever. This can lead to short circuits. First, clean the places [...]

QWERTY is the most used Keyboard layout in the world. It was designed to minimize typebar clashes in a typewriter. Now, in the computer age, we are still using the old design instead of the new and improved design – The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. This layout has better ergonomics, reduces fatigue, increases typing speed etc (More Info). As a matter of fact, you can also type with one finger! But, [...]

I have my computer switched on all day long. Charging mobiles takes up all my plug points. Some mobiles don’t have USB Charging option. Even if they do, they go to the bugging ‘File transfer mode’. So, I thought of making a charging dock. It’s pretty simple to do actually. You basically charge your mobiles with the 5 volt power supplied by the USB port. What you need: 1) A couple of cables [...]