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Free TiVo: Build a Better DVR out of an Old PC

Free TiVo: Build a Better DVR out of an Old PC
by Ken Sharp April 25, 2005 Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) have become a necessary luxury over the last several years. Millions of people rely on these devices to pause and rewind live television, and to keep track of broadcast schedules and record programs for them. Many consider them just as essential to their daily lives as their cell phones. Several months ago, I finally became sufficiently jealous of the millions of DVR owners to motivate me to put a DVR in my own living room. I earn a living as a computer engineer, so I understand how long it can take to write custom software. Here's how I did it. You'll need: with at least 256MB of RAM (512MB is better), plenty of hard drive space, and a good video card. presumably from your existing home theater system). I used a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 card, $149 at hauppauge.com . I used BeyondTV, which was bundled with the Hauppauge card, but is available from SnapStream separately for $70 at snapstream.com . Automation software, $20 at promixis.com

How To Permanently Delete Your Account on Popular Websites - Smashing Magazine Advertisement We all have an increasing number of sites and online services we’re members of, and sometimes it all gets a little overwhelming. At times, we just need to delete our memberships to some sites, either in an effort to simplify our lives or just because we’ve grown tired of a particular site or service. What we often don’t realize when signing up for all these accounts, though, is how difficult it can be to permanently delete our accounts when we’ve had enough. Below we’ll take a look at the account deletion processes of popular websites and services, and how easy or difficult they make it. Facebook Difficulty (on a scale of 1-5, 5 being hardest): 5 Deleting a Facebook account is a bit more complicated than many other services. If you just want to shut down your account for a little while, with the option to reactivate it later, you can deactivate your account. If you’re looking for something a little more permanent, though, you’ll need to submit a request to Facebook. Twitter

Hack Your Door to Lock and Unlock via Text Message @hahn: I don't know about all that. With the right safeguards in place, I think this would be secure enough for my tastes: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Believe it or not, I'd feel a bit more secure with this system (with some tweaks) than a traditional lock-and-key system for the same reason I feel better about having extraneous cards in my wallet: If my phone (or overstuffed wallet) is missing, I'm going to know it.

Super Simple Audio Cellbot Step #1: PrevNext There are two ways to get the parts that you will need for this project. The easy way is to buy a kit from robots.allthingsgeek.com. Step #2: Solder up the board. Step #5: There are a couple of different ways to control your robot. 10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web Not everything on the web will show up in a list of search results on Google or Bing; there are lots of places that their web crawlers cannot access. To explore the invisible web, you need to use specialist search engines. Here are our top 12 services to perform a deep internet search. What Is the Invisible Web? Before we begin, let's establish what does the term "invisible web" refer to? Simply, it's a catch-all term for online content that will not appear in search results or web directories. There are no official data available, but most experts agree that the invisible web is several times larger than the visible web. The content on the invisible web can be roughly divided into the deep web and the dark web. The Deep Web The deep web made up of content that typically needs some form of accreditation to access. If you have the correct details, you can access the content through a regular web browser. The Dark Web The dark web is a sub-section of the deep web. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

How to Make a Static Electricity Generator—Shock Anything and Fry Electronics with Just a Touch! « NightHawkInLight In the following video, I demonstrate how to create a device capable of charging the body of anyone who wears it with static electricity, allowing a powerful shock to be discharged into anything that is touched. This grants the wearer the ability to do some pretty amazing things, some of which are shown in the first segment of the video. The parts used in this project are fairly inexpensive, totaling about $30, assuming some things are already lying around the house (such as spare wire and tape). In the list of parts below, I give some information to help locate the harder to find items. Parts that can be purchased online: Negative ion generator (ionizer) (I bought mine here—search for SW-750) Automotive power converter (cheapest here, or find one at an auto parts store) Parts that can be purchased in a hardware or electronics store (such as RadioShack): Flux core solder 2" of copper wire Heat shrink insulating tubing (optional) 9 volt battery (DO NOT USE A LARGER POWER SOURCE! Tools:

Laptop Parts 101 Cool Notepad Trick - Hirlpoo West This neat trick came across on an internal alias. I hadn't seen this before, but I'm guessing it isn't new. Pretty handy for notetaking (if you're a plain text sort of guy/gal). Open a blank Notepad file Write .LOG (in uppercase) in the first line of the file, followed by Enter. [Update: Evidentally this is explained in KB260563 which makes it look like this feature has been around since Windows 98. I was in a presentation today with Jeff Sanquist and as he was scrolling through his blog on screen saw he picked up on this too.] Build a Touchless 3D Tracking Interface with Everyday Materials Combine low-tech materials with some high-tech components and build a completely Touchless 3D Tracking Interface. Explore capacitive sensing by using several panels of cardboard lined with aluminum foil. These panels, when charged, create electric fields that correspond to X, Y, and Z axes to create a 3D cube. With the aid of an Arduino microcontroller and some supplied code, movements inside the cube are tracked as your hand moves around inside the field. For Weekend Projects makers looking for an introduction to Arduino, this is a great project to learn from. Once your touchless 3D tracker is up and running, what you do with it is only limited by your own imagination! Make an RGB or HSB color pickerControl video or music parameters; sequence a beat or melodyLarge, slightly bent surface with multiple plates + a projector = “Minority Report” interface More: See all of the Weekend Projects posts Related

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