The Ultimate DIY Tech Upgrades Guide: Build Your Own Laser + 74 Other Way-Cool Gadget Hacks

Description

Tech Upgrades is for anyone who’s ever wished they could build their own touchscreen, brew up and use conductive ink, rig a mouse that you can operate with your feet, or make a rad engraved computer tower that glows in the dark—essentially, it’s for fun-loving nerds everywhere. Used to be, whenever you had a computer problem or techie glitch, you went and found the nearest geek to help fix it. But now, there’s a new movement afoot—a band of inventive and self-reliant geeks who hack computer and software to solve problems (and, in some cases, just to have fun). From building your own computer out of a cereal box to modifying safety goggles to see infrared rays, from skinning your laptop with steampunk trimmings to divising a foxhole radio, and from setting up a projector for your iPhone to working out with a dumbbell of old CDs, this book makes being a nerd, well. Cool. Activities include: Rig a DIY Polygraph Listen in on a Foxhole Radio Tack Up a Dipole Antenna Craft a Cell-phone Cantenna Hang HDTV-Antenna Art Mod an Xbox Controller into an iPhone Case Make Your Smartphone “Bounceable” Set Up an Electric Home Secretary Rig a Smartphone Projector Charge a Phone with Solar Rays Make a Tennis Ball Smartphone Tripod Turn Your Old Netbook into a Touchscreen Tablet Fashion a DIY Stylus for Your Touchscreen Device Protect Your Touchscreen with Thin Vinyl Stash a Flash Drive in a Cassette Make a Pink-Eraser Flash Driver Fake It with a Sawed-Off Flash Drive House a Flash Drive in a LEGO Hack a Foot-Operated Mouse Trick Out Your Computer Tower with Engraving Turn Your Laptop into a White Board Dye Your Laptop Make a Steampunk-Inspired Laptop Case Turn on Your Computer with a Magnet Shield Your Screen from Prying Eyes Print in Invisible Ink Keep Your Laptop Cool with Copper Coils Connect a Junked Out Typewriter to Your Computer Make Keyboard Thumbtacks Rig a Superportable Keyboard Create a Glowing Mousepad Put an Old Circuit Board to New Use Make a Laptop Stand froma Three-Ring Binder Build a USB Hub into Your Desk Stash Your Printer in a Drawer Mount Office Supplies Behind Your Monitor Organize Loose Cables Make a Floppy-Disk Box Get Pumped with a CD Dumbbell Assemble a Cereal-Box Spectrometer Make an External Hard Drive Build a Computer out of a Cereal Box Transform an Everyday Lightbulb into a Plasma Globe Light Up Sketches with Home-Made Conductive Ink Hack Infrared Goggles Decimate with a DIY Laser Cutter Create Glass Objects out of Sand Shine a Mini Flash Light Brighten Up a Standard-Issue Flashlight Beam a Batman-Inspired Spotlight Get Techie with Aluminum Foil Improvise a Tripod Mount a Camera on Your Bike Build a Time-Lapse Camera Stand Rig a Plastic-Bottle Diffuser Make Your Camera Waterproof Create a Peephole Fisheye Lens Adapt a Manual Ring to Your DLSR Snap a Self-Portrait with a DIY Remote Shutter Release Set Up a High-Speed Flash Build a Ginormous Camera Review: Five Stars - Full of great ideas. Anything you wondered how to make, it touches on it. Review: Great little book - The title was a bit misleading - Tech Upgrades - it makes it sound like you are upgrading existing items. This is a book of small projects that are great introductory items to do to get started in electronics and the maker world. I do like the first chapter has nice introduction to electronics, it is very basic and is intended for some one that is new to electronics